Bangkok/ Things to do
Things to do
in Bangkok.
5 trips worth booking and 22 places you can simply turn up to. Different things, checked differently.
Worth booking
Tours and experiences.
Each operator is judged on its own score, never averaged with the others running the same trip. Our bar for a tour is 9.0 out of 10 and at least 50 reviews. Anything below it is left off rather than quietly rounded up.
01cultureResearched PickDamnoen Saduak floating marketThe canal market in Ratchaburi, about 63km west of Bangkok, usually sold with the Maeklong railway market in the same early morning.9.628,424 reviews02waterResearched PickA Chao Phraya dinner cruiseTwo hours up and down the river after dark, past Wat Arun and the Grand Palace, on boats ranging from a buffet barge to something considerably grander.9.618,012 reviews03cultureResearched PickA day trip to AyutthayaThe old Siamese capital about 67km north of the Grand Palace, sacked in 1767 and now a UNESCO World Heritage site, sold as a day trip by half of Bangkok.9.612,180 reviews04cultureResearched PickMuay Thai at Rajadamnern StadiumThailand's oldest purpose-built boxing stadium, north-east of the old town, where cards run several nights a week and tickets are sold in tiers.9.62,780 reviews05foodResearched PickA Bangkok street food tourGuided eating, usually four hours after dark, through the stalls and shophouses of one neighbourhood rather than a list of famous streets.9.6743 reviews
Just turn up
Places you visit.
A temple and a waterfall have no guest score, and no honest way to get one. These pages tell you where the place is, what we confirmed and when, and what we could not confirm. We will not borrow a tour operator's rating and let it look like the waterfall's.
01foodResearched PickAsiatique The RiverfrontThe old East Asiatic Company docks turned into a riverside night market with a Ferris wheel, free to enter and reached by a free shuttle boat.No guest score exists02natureResearched PickBang Krachao, the green lungA river bend of villages, orchards and raised concrete cycle paths, ten minutes across the water from the city and kept deliberately unbuilt.No guest score exists03cultureResearched PickChatuchak Weekend MarketThe weekend market in the north of the city, thousands of stalls under tin, with opening days that three official-looking sources describe three different ways.No guest score exists04nightlifeResearched PickKhao San Road410 metres of bars, pad thai carts and tattoo shops a kilometre north of the Grand Palace. Free, loud, and not what it was in 1995.No guest score exists05natureResearched PickLumphini ParkThe city's central park between Silom and Sukhumvit, open from half past four in the morning, and free as far as anyone can tell, though the city has never written it down.No guest score exists06cultureResearched PickMuseum SiamAn interactive museum about what being Thai means, in a colonial-era ministry building near Wat Pho. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00.No guest score exists07cultureResearched PickPak Khlong Talat, the flower marketBangkok's wholesale flower market, running all night by the river south of Wat Pho. Free, and at its best between four and eight in the morning.No guest score exists08cultureResearched PickTalat NoiSino-Portuguese shophouses, engine-parts workshops and street art in the lanes between Chinatown and the river. Free, and lived in.No guest score exists09cultureResearched PickThe Bangkok Art and Culture CentreNine floors of free contemporary art spiralling around an atrium, joined to BTS National Stadium by a skywalk. Closed Mondays.No guest score exists10cultureResearched PickThe Bangkok National MuseumThailand's largest museum, in the old Front Palace beside Sanam Luang, 240 baht for a foreigner and closed Mondays and Tuesdays.No guest score exists11cultureResearched PickThe Grand Palace and Wat Phra KaewThe royal compound on the river with the Emerald Buddha inside it, at 500 baht for foreign visitors, a figure the palace publishes on its own site.No guest score exists12cultureResearched PickThe Jim Thompson House MuseumTeak houses and an Asian art collection on a canal-side plot behind National Stadium station, 250 baht for an adult, guided only.No guest score exists13cultureResearched PickThe Maeklong railway marketA working produce market built along a live railway line, where the stalls and awnings pull back for each passing train. About 80km south-west of Bangkok.No guest score exists14viewpointResearched PickThe Mahanakhon SkyWalkA glass floor on the 78th storey of the King Power Mahanakhon tower. 1,000 baht before 15:30, 1,200 baht after, and the price is on their own site.No guest score exists15cultureResearched PickWat ArunThe porcelain-studded prang on the Thonburi bank, floodlit after dark, and the one listing here where nobody would tell us the price.No guest score exists16cultureResearched PickWat Benchamabophit, the Marble TempleThe white Carrara marble temple in Dusit, built from 1899 under Rama V, 50 baht for a foreign visitor and quiet by Bangkok standards.No guest score exists17cultureResearched PickWat Paknam and the glass stupaA 69-metre seated Buddha and a green glass stupa under a painted ceiling, on the Thonburi side, away from the old-city temple trail.No guest score exists18cultureResearched PickWat PhoThe reclining Buddha, the massage school that trained most of Thailand's masseurs, and 300 baht at the gate, about 400 metres south of the Grand Palace.No guest score exists19viewpointResearched PickWat Saket and the Golden MountA gilded chedi on an artificial hill east of the old town, reached by a spiral staircase, with a view over Rattanakosin and no price anybody would publish to us.No guest score exists20cultureResearched PickWat Suthat and the Giant SwingA first-class royal temple founded under Rama I, with murals worth the entry, behind the red teak frame of the Giant Swing. 100 baht for a foreign visitor.No guest score exists21cultureResearched PickWat Traimit and the Golden BuddhaFive and a half tonnes of solid gold Buddha at the Chinatown end of Charoen Krung Road, in a purpose-built hall it moved into in 2010.No guest score exists22foodResearched PickYaowarat, Chinatown's main streetA kilometre of neon, gold shops and pavement kitchens that turns into the busiest street food strip in the country after dark. Free to walk.No guest score exists