It is a side of Bangkok that tourists seldom see: not far from the Buddhist temples, glitzy malls and go-go bars, is a neighbourhood of shacks and squat homes in narrow alleys with open gutters in the city's oldest and largest slum.
Klong Toey is home to about 100,000 people, mostly rural migrants from northern Thailand who came to the city for jobs.
While many live in brightly painted homes with motorbikes parked outside, others live in shacks without running water or electricity.
It's not that different from the days when 66-year-old Prateep Ungsongtham was growing up there with her six siblings.
"The number of people living here has doubled since the time I was a kid - yet their condition is not that much better," she said in an interview at her Duang Prateep Foundation in Klong Toey.
The neighbourhood's residents run Bangkok's largest wet market, and work in the nearby port. They also live under the threat of eviction in a fast-gentrifying city keen to be seen as modern.
"There are few facilities, no one has titles for their homes, and evictions are always a threat," said Prateep, who has been advocating for the rights of slum dwellers for five decades.
"It's always a fight."
Read the full story on: http://www.thisisplace.org/i/?id=2fa804d2-253c-41b9-a3ec-829e90e33e07
