Nightingale Olympic

FROZEN IN TIME: The timeless legacy of a family and Thailand's first department store

In one of the world’s greatest shopping meccas, is a department store -  not just any department store, but the very first of its kind in Thailand. The Nightingale Olympic - a legitimate time capsule, that still holds on to its former glory through it’s mere existence in a time and place that makes it practically incomprehensible. 

Opening its doors in 1930 (yes, that's nearly a century ago!) in one of Bangkok's most vibrant neighouhoods (Chinatown), the Nightingale Olympic remains open until this very day!  98 year old Aroon Niyomvanich, the sister of the store's late founder - Nat, and her niece Phasuk continue to uphold their family's business and legacy...day-by-day they say, as they face an increasingly uncertain future. 

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Maggie Padlewska
Music (via Creative Commons):
I'm in Love with You, An Old Violin by Gracie Fields, Lover Hollow by Blue Dot Sessions
Special THANK YOU: Ross, Deanna, Craig, Air, Mr. Q, and Doy

Raw, uncut corrupted footage of eerie mall Nightingale-Olympic in Bangkok - Day 6 (Video #20)

Untouched, unedited, raw corrupted video card footage from our visit to Nightingale Olympic, the oldest shopping mall in Bangkok, that remains open long after people stopped shopping there. It is still fully staffed despite being void of customers, and whether or not you can actually buy anything is now ambiguous. The stock is covered in dust, the building looks abandoned from the outside, and it looks like more of a museum than a shop. Amazingly, you can still go inside.

The staff asked us not to take photos so Jal stopped filming on his phone, however as far as I am aware, there is very little footage of this place online and I felt it was a shame to stop recording. It's truly one of the most eerie, interesting and mysterious places you can easily visit in Bangkok and I would highly recommend a trip if you're nearby. We are respectfully publishing this video for the interest of anyone who is unable to visit in person and wants to have a look inside.

This is the only video card that had it's data corrupted when we imported the footage when we got home, containing video from this day, the next, and most importantly; Nightingale-Olympic. I don't know why the footage is corrupt. It damaged all of the footage on the card, not just this video, and we didn't find out until we got home. Take from that what you will.


If you are travelling please use our Airbnb and Uber codes, we don't make any money from these videos and a tiny credit would really help our future travel plans...not to mention you get a discount too!
Book AirBnb through this link:
Uber: Use code jale11ue


Our archived Instagram of the whole trip;