Bangkok
A city where the fastest way across is the river, not the road
- When to go
- October 27° · 22 rainy days
- Per day
- €price 1 of 5
- How many days
- 3days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 21 km Don Mueang · 28 km Suvarnabhumi
- Right now
In Bangkok you plan by traffic rather than distance: the same trip that takes an hour in a taxi takes fifteen minutes on a Chao Phraya river boat. Understand that on day one and the city opens up; miss it and you spend the holiday in a queue of cars.
The Grand Palace with the Temple of the Emerald Buddha costs €13, and that ticket also covers the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles. The dress code is strict and enforced at the gate: shoulders and knees covered, for everyone. The men outside who tell you the palace is closed today and offer a tuk-tuk tour are a decades-old scam — it opens every day.
The river is public transport. Chao Phraya Express boats call at some thirty piers and link the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun and Chinatown to the Saphan Taksin skytrain station. A ride costs about what a bus does and beats everything else. The elevated BTS and underground MRT cover the modern city; a taxi makes sense only at night, and only with the meter running.
Bangkok is eaten on the street, not in restaurants. Yaowarat in Chinatown works at night, Talat Noi by day, and around every skytrain station stands a row of kitchens that run from morning until two and then disperse. One rule holds everywhere: a stall selling one dish with a queue in front beats one with photographs and ten options. For the paperwork before the trip — the visa and the TDAC — see the Thailand page.
What to see in Bangkok
The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew
€13, with the Textile Museum on the same ticket. Tickets are sold until 15:30 and the complex closes at 16:30. Strict dress code; go in the morning, because after eleven there is no shade.
Wat Pho
A 46-metre reclining Buddha and the oldest school of Thai massage, in the same compound. The massage is paid separately and is best taken straight after the visit.
Wat Arun
The temple on the far bank, faced with fragments of Chinese porcelain that arrived as ships' ballast. Best at dusk, from the eastern side.
The Chao Phraya boat
The express line with some thirty piers. Cheap, quick, and the only link that never sits in traffic.
Chatuchak
A weekend market with over fifteen thousand stalls. Saturday morning, with cash and no plan — by afternoon the heat is unbearable.
Chinatown
Yaowarat road, after dark. The street kitchens open around six and run to midnight; you eat standing here, not in a restaurant.
Two things you probably did not know
Bangkok's full ceremonial name in Thai has 168 letters and is the longest place name in the world. Locals call the city Krung Thep, the first word of that name, meaning city of angels.
Bangkok is sinking about a centimetre a year because it stands on soft silt from which groundwater was pumped for decades. Parts of the city are now below sea level.
Ready for Bangkok?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Bangkok — day trips or weekends.
Thailand
→Two coasts the monsoon never reaches at the same time, and a north seen through smoke in March
Vietnam
→A country sixteen hundred and fifty kilometres long, where north and south are never in season together
Japan
→A country where a train five minutes late hands the passenger a written delay certificate
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai and Krabi
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Bangkok if you have been.
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