For more than half a century, Thailand’s state tobacco monopoly mass produced cigarettes in a sprawling industrial estate in Bangkok. A steady stream of heavy trucks brought raw tobacco to the heart of the city and took away millions of cigarettes.
But now, that carcinogenic complex has given way to something completely different: green spaces that have brought a breath of fresh air to the congested and often pollution-filled central Bangkok.
The transformation has been a surprising success, creating a 102-acre oasis for city residents. The site, an expansion of the existing Benjakitti Park, includes a mile-long elevated walkway, as well as water-purifying wetlands, 8,000 new trees, pickleball and basketball courts, and a dog-walking area.
The Skywalk, as the catwalk is known, has become especially popular among young people. In the evening, as the heat of the day subsides, it is often packed with visitors, many of whom pose for selfies.
“Benjakitti Park tops my list of places to take pictures,” said Pongsaton Tatone, a freelance photographer, who was on the Skywalk taking pictures of a group of college graduates frolicking in robes. “It’s a very popular place.”
The new section of the park was officially opened in August 2022, to honor the 90th birthday of Queen Sirikit, the Queen Mother of Thailand. Some attractions are still unfinished, including a museum.
It is unusual for a major city to add significant tracts of new parks, especially in densely populated Southeast Asia. The $20 million addition is nearly double the size of the original park, which features a lake and a popular running trail.
Bangkok, which has 11 million people, needs more places like this. A 2022 report found that the city was falling short of the World Health Organization’s minimum standard of nine square meters (about 97 square feet) of green space per person in urban areas.
Like Central Park in New York, Benjakitti is surrounded by skyscrapers. It is just a few blocks from Sukhumvit Road, one of the most congested roads in the city. Vehicle exhaust fills the air along Sukhumvit as pedestrians navigate the busy sidewalks, passing office towers, hotels, vertical shopping malls, street vendors and the occasional beggar.
Mateusz Tatara, a software product designer from Poland, said he was surprised to stumble upon a forest park in the middle of a city best known for its magnificent temples, street food, lively entertainment scene and, now, marijuana shops.
“Even now we can hear nature,” Tatara said during an evening visit to the park. “It is a quiet and relaxed place.”
At that moment, a flying fox, a large fox-faced fruit bat, soared above us and landed on a nearby tree.
“When you think of Bangkok,” Tatara said, “this is not the first thing that comes to mind.”
The government designated the tobacco factory site as a green zone in the early 1990s, and the first section of Benjakitti opened soon after. But it was more than a quarter of a century before the state-owned company, then known as Tobacco Monopoly of Thailand, handed over the entire site.
Prayuth Chan-ocha, the army chief who seized power in a 2014 coup and became prime minister, took a personal interest in the park’s expansion even as he suppressed pro-democracy protests. He called for a creative approach to the park’s design (and suggested a dog-walking area, a rarity in Bangkok).
To speed up construction during the pandemic, Prayuth’s government hired the army. Up to 400 soldiers worked on the project at a time.
“The soldiers did everything,” said Chatchanin Sung, a landscape architect who helped design the new section. “They’re really proud of the park.”
Bangkok, which borders the Gulf of Thailand, was built on swampy land. This flood-prone city once had so many canals that Europeans called it the Venice of the East. Over time, many of the canals were paved and others became polluted backwaters.
A smelly canal, the Khlong Phaisingto, contaminated with sewage, was used as a source of water for the wetlands of the new park. Water is pumped from the canal into a series of pools and canals, where sunlight and vegetation help clean it.
The smells dissipate long before the water reaches the main wetland ponds, which are filled with lotuses and other aquatic plants. There, the remaining sediment settles to the bottom as the water flows to the other end of the park. In four days, it is clean enough to use for irrigation.
“Nature balances itself,” Chatchanin said during an afternoon walk in the park. “We didn’t expect it to work so well.”
Soldiers built 500 islets within the wetlands, using pieces of concrete recovered from demolished industrial buildings as foundations. They also planted more than 400 different species of trees.
As a self-sustaining ecosystem, the expanded park has quickly attracted wildlife, including storks, herons, snakes, monitor lizards and dragonflies, which can eat more than 100 mosquitoes a day.
Its centerpiece, the Skywalk, rises and falls gently as it zigzags above the wetlands. “When you walk on it, you can never see the final destination, so it makes you want to keep going to see what’s next,” Chatchanin said.
Of the massive tobacco factory that once devastated central Bangkok, only four buildings remain. Three of them have been converted into sports facilities. All four have been opened to the outside and parts of their walls and ceilings have been removed, a novel approach Chatchanin calls natural air conditioning.
Some beams have been left, like the skeleton of the factory. The newly planted trees have already grown through them.
“If you stand in the building,” Chatchanin said, “you can see nature around you.”
Muktita Suhartono contributed with reports.