Santa Cruz Church is one of the oldest Catholic churches in Bangkok, built by Portuguese traders in the 18th century at the heart of the Kudi Chin (Portuguese quarter) on the Thonburi bank. The pastel-painted building visible today is a reconstruction from 1913, but the community around it is a genuine living remnant of Bangkok's oldest European settlement.
The surrounding streets of Kudi Chin are unlike anywhere else in Bangkok: small alleyways between old wooden houses, a bakery that still makes khanom farang kudi chin (a local Portuguese-Thai sweet cake), shrines combining Catholic and Buddhist imagery, and the sense of a community that has maintained its distinct identity for three centuries. The area is walkable and best explored in the morning before the heat.