Bangkok Protestant Cemetery

The Bangkok Protestant Cemetery is one of my favorite cemeteries in the world. Located on the banks of the Chao Phraya river in a quiet Bangkok neighborhood, it's rarely visited, easy to get to, boasts a wide variety of interesting graves, and makes a nice alternative to the usual tourist activities of the city. There are two 7-Elevens close by as well as a major international-class hotel, meaning that you're never far from food, drinks or a bathroom. There's also a little chapel where you can take shelter from the heat or rain. I could easily spend all day here!

This cemetery contains over 1,000 visible grave plots. People of numerous nationalities are buried here, with British, German and Danish graves being the most common, but there are also Americans, Dutch, French, Russians, Poles, Chinese, Thais, and a Nigerian. Not all burials are Protestant or even Christian: there are a fair number of Jewish graves here, as at the time of their deaths there was no separate Jewish Cemetery.

Several dozen graves/plots have no headstones or legible inscriptions. Of those with legible or decipherable inscriptions, there are approximately 1,000 names recorded on the monuments here. A burial register kept by Christ Church on Convent Road (off Silom Road) records around 1,800 names.

The cemetery was founded as a royal land grant given by King Mongkut (Rama IV) on July 29, 1853. The cemetery remains open to burials on a restricted basis. A new pre-need tomb was erected sometime between November 2009 and August 2010.

The cemetery is divided into sections labeled A, B, C, etc., demarcated by concrete posts. There are some informal subdivisions: there's a small Jewish section (despite this being a Protestant cemetery), a Chinese section, a foreign missionary section, a Danish section, a few military sections, and a section for the family of Admiral John Bush. These divisions are not strict, so not all Jews are in the Jewish section, and not all burials in the Jewish section are of Jews, and so forth.

The Jewish section

The foreign missionaries section

The cemetery is well-tended by a caretaker whose family lives on the premises by the river. They have done a great deal of excellent work over the years I've visited, and each time there have been vast improvements made. A dying tree was removed and new frangipanis were planted in 2009. A lot of landscaping has been done near the entry gate, and the grounds are regularly mowed with weed-whackers during the dry season.

The section close to the river

The cemetery suffers from a major problem: flooding. If you visit during the wet season, expect to find a good proportion of the cemetery inaccessible, though you can still walk along the central drive and walk among the graves close to the river. It's during this time that vegetation can grow uncontrollably, obscuring graves especially in the corner to the far left of the entry gate. Infestations of the invasive Channeled Apple Snail (Pomacea canaliculata) are evident, with their pink egg sacs on gravestones in the wet season, and empty shells on the ground in the dry season. The best time to visit is in the dry season (February-April).

The most impressive memorial is that of Henry Alabaster, an advisor to King Chulalongkorn. The memorial looks like a small church. Alabaster's actual grave is elsewhere in the cemetery. Other prominent people buried here include missionary Dan Beach Bradley.

Henry Alabaster memorial

Grave of Dan Beach Bradley

A brief video

I can't get enough of this wonderful place!

On Find A Grave

Bangkok Protestant Cemetery

Getting there

The address is Soi 72/5, Charoen Krung Road.

By riverboat: Take the orange-flag riverboat heading south and get off at the last stop, which is the Wat Rajsingkorn pier (S3). Walk to the main road, turn left, and then make the next left after the Thailand Tobacco factory. Walk through the brown-painted metal gate.

By BTS: Take the BTS to the Saphan Taksin station. Exit, and walk south along Charoen Krung Road for about 25 minutes. Shortly after the Ramada Menam Riverside Hotel, you'll reach Soi 72/5.

By bus: take bus 1 or 15. Tell the conductor you want to get off at Menam Riverside.