Bangkok/ Things to do
Things to do
in Bangkok.
5 trips worth booking and 7 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.
01cultureResearched 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 exists02natureResearched 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 exists03cultureResearched 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 exists04cultureResearched 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 exists05cultureResearched 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 exists06cultureResearched 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 exists07viewpointResearched 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 exists