Asiatique The Riverfront

The East Asiatic Company’s warehouses stood here when this was the working river. The sheds were rebuilt in 2012 as an open-air market of shops, restaurants and bars along the water, with a Ferris wheel at the end of it that shows up in every photograph of the Bangkok riverside taken after dark.

The boat is the good bit. A free shuttle runs from Sathorn pier, next to BTS Saphan Taksin, down the river to the door. It takes about fifteen minutes, costs nothing, and is a far better arrival than the traffic on Charoen Krung, which at that hour is grim.

Free to get in, priced for visitors inside. Nothing charges at the gate. The wheel, the haunted house and the cabarets each want their own ticket, and the shops are not where anyone in Bangkok buys anything. Come for the setting and an easy dinner, not for a bargain.

Open from lunchtime now. The whole complex opens at eleven in the morning, which is newer than most write-ups suggest, though it is still an evening place.

One caution that is not about the place itself: a domain that looks official in search results, thaiasiatique.com, now sends you somewhere else entirely. The operator’s own address is asiatiquethailand.com.