Soi

"Soi" (Thai: ซอย) is the term used in Thailand for a side-street branching off a major street ("thanon"). An alley is called a "Trok".

Sois are usually numbered, and are referred to by the name of the major street and the number, as in "Soi Sukhumvit 4", "Sukhumvit Soi 4", or "Sukhumvit 4", all referring to the fourth soi of Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok. When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.

Almost all sois in Bangkok also have a name. On lower Sukhumvit road in Bangkok for instance the sois are named after important landowners or families of landowners who had land in the area in the past.

Some sois become major thoroughfares and because of that get known by their name only. Examples are Asok (Sukhumvit soi 21), Thonglor (Sukhumvit soi 55), Ekkamai (Sukhumvit soi 63), Pridi Banomyong (Sukhumvit soi 71) etc.

The houses in a soi are numbered. If a new house is inserted after the house with number 150 for instance, it will get the number 150/1 etc. A formal address might read "150/1 Soi Sukhumvit 7", referring to the house with the first number after 150 in the seventh soi of Sukhumvit road. The house numbers in most sois don't start at 1, but continue the house numbers of the main street.

References

* [http://www.thai-language.com/id/131488 Definitions for ซอย] via thai-language.com