Bangkok - things to do

This article covers the many places we visited in our 3-day short trip, and tips and suggestions to help you plan yours. To learn more about Bangkok, it's food and culture, visit Bangkok - 1 full tummy, 2 happy feet, 1 enlightened soul.

Chatuchak weekend market

Chatuchak market is the largest market in Thailand. Note that it is only open on weekends, so plan your trip such that you get at least one day of the weekend to visit this place. If you love to shop and bargain and then shop again till you drop, this is the place! Prices are the cheapest compared to other areas in Bangkok. From clothes, to jewelry to shoes to home décor to pets – you name it and you have it there. Good luck finding it though. There are 15000 stalls and I did not find any map (though some friends had mentioned there is one. Where?). I just kept going to random lanes as I waded through it, so I accept, I may not have covered it most efficiently.

It is spread out and this is one of the many hundreds of lanes.

 The coconut ice cream here at Coco JJ is one of the best in Bangkok. They offer a number of toppings. It’s right where you come out of the MRT station.

Getting there:

The best way to get there is to take the MRT towards Klong Bangphai and get down at Kamphaeng Phet (and not Chatuchak Park as one may assume)

Tips:

• If you like something buy it then and there. Don’t think you can find your way to the same shop again because you will get lost on the way back.
• Bargain. I had a teenage daughter with me, and she is yet to learn the art of bargaining cause when she loved something her face gave it away so the shop keeper seldom budged from the original price. 

Damnoen Saduak (DS for short in this article) floating market

A trip to Damnoen Saduak includes a trip to the market and a boat ride around the many canals. 

This is the biggest and most touristy floating market. It is a morning market but we went close to 2pm and still saw many sellers flocking to sell items like fresh fruits and souvenirs on their boats.  

There are other floating markets closer to Bangkok but some of the online reviews showed they were really small. This one felt more authentic. You will see locals moving around in their boats doing their daily chores.

Before you approach the market through the canals you will see many sellers parked on wooden log stalls on water. 

This one, for example, was selling huge knife painting canvases.

As the boatman takes you through the many canals you will pass beautiful little homes like this one 

And some dilapidated ones like these

Each house, as is common all over Bangkok, will also have one spirit house in the corner on one side. A spirit house is like a shrine to protect the ancestral spirits of the places so they can safeguard them against the evil ones.

Here's a little video that shows just how fast the boat goes.

The kids really enjoyed the boat ride. Added bonus was the surprise visit by a big monitor lizard from under the water. It swam too fast so we couldn’t take a picture.

Getting there:

This is 100km from Bangkok. The cheapest way to get there is to take a public van from Victory monument. We figured it would be too tiring with the kids and instead hired a private taxi who would take 2000 Baht to take us to DS, Amphawa floating market and then drop us at Asiatique (discussed below) - a full day trip.

Tips for DS floating market:

•  This is not the best place to shop. Maybe get a few food items like ice cream or barbecued bananas. Some of the items here were almost 4 times that at Chatuchak. So beware.
• Know the fares for the long tail boat ride. Our taxi driver dropped us at his favorite boat location (meaning where he would get the commission). The lady at the counter was charging us 1000 Baht per person for a 2 hr boat ride. She had a receipt book with her to make it look all legit. We told her we had checked online that the price would be 500 and told our driver to take us to the other location (I had no idea where the other location was, but I just kept repeating, “Take us to that other place” 😉 ). As usual the two muttered in Thai and after a long discussion agreed to our price. For a family of 4, the 2-hour private boat ride which includes the floating market, and a stop-over at a temple on the way should be around 2000 Baht.

Amphawa floating market

Since we had already done Damnoen Saduak this was more of a quick tour, more so because it was close to DS and on the way.  There are boat rides here too, but most of the people were walking on the narrow sideways, savoring street seafood. 

This is weekend market(fri-sun) and runs through the day.  And it does get extremely crowded. At some point it actually became claustrophobic and the humidity did not help. 

Walking past stalls that reeked dried fish while brushing past people that smelt sweat wasn’t the most appealing 1-hour walk. 

We did try a few vegetarian dishes and were out of there soon.

Getting there:

See the directions for Damnoen Saduak above. This is on the way, a slight detour. You can do this if you can’t go to DS in the early half of the day.

Tips:

I personally found it a little unhygienic when it came to the food and there wasn’t much to shop otherwise. If you really love seafood and are open to experiment this might be a good visit, else skip it. Do the DS or just visit one of the smaller markets closer to town. I wouldn’t personally recommend driving all the way just for Amphawa.

Asiatique

This is a riverside evening market. Shops are slightly more upscale than Chatuchak. Prices too therefore are relatively higher. There is a Ferris wheel for nice views of Bangkok and the Chao Praya river. It’s more spread out so it doesn’t feel too crowded. A good place to spend an evening.

Getting there:

We did this on our way from Amphawa with our hired private taxi. For public transport, the closest BTS station is Saphan Taksin station from where you can take a free shuttle boat ride to Asiatique

Tips:

• Shop if you have something specific in mind.
• They have very good fish foot massages if you fancy them. We just took the foot reflexology massage. 
• Try this little food kiosk called Mama monkey. They serve everything bananas. Like these wasabi fries that look like French fries but are actually made of banana.

The Grand Palace

The Grand palace is a huge complex of imperial buildings. This used to be the official residence of the royals but is no longer so. 

The Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew), the most sacred temple for Buddhists in Thailand, is located on the premises.  Some of the beautiful buildings in the palace -

The golden chedi (spire) that is believed to have the ashes of Lord Buddha. If you look closely the golden color is not really paint but tiny golden mosaic tiles.

The 112 garudas surrounding the temple of the emerald buddha.

Murals on the walls surrounding the temple depicting stories from the Ramakien, the Thai version of the epic Ramayan.  There are 178 such paintings. 

I had a hard time understanding and comparing it to our Ramayan but some of the characters especially Hanuman, stand out. 

A miniature copy of the famous Angkor Wat of Combodia.

The Bell tower

Getting there:

The BTS or MRT don’t go there. Take a city bus instead. Google will help you with the exact bus number from your hotel. Alternatively take a metered taxi (again they will try and cheat you and drop you to some other boat place for a ferry ride to the palace. Make sure beforehand that they will drop you right at the palace and nowhere else)

Tips:

·    Make sure you dress appropriately. Elbows and ankles should be covered for women. No shorts allowed for men either. They do rent sarongs at the entrance but there can be a line out there for that. If you have Buddha tattoos, you will have to cover them

• We went there around 11 and it was torturous because of the heat. Try and go earlier or later in the day.
• There are guides who will charge around 600 baht per family. Go for those (in hind sight maybe we should have). There are also audio guides that you can rent for 200 baht per person but they have to be returned in one and half hour or they charge more. I wouldn’t recommend those. What we did was just took the map that is available inside for free. It has a lot of information about each of the buildings and the history around it.
• A man came up to us as we walked to the palace and told us it is closed. I had already heard about such scammers who tell you it’s closed and then take you to another place like a jewelry shop. So, we told him we had checked the timings online and that we knew it was open. It was open!
• Do check timings online. On some days the palace or the temple inside may be closed for the whole day or part of the day. If possible, avoid going on weekends, when the locals too throng the palace to visit the temple.

Wat Pho

This is the temple of the reclining Buddha. The Buddha statue made of gold-copper alloy is so big it has to be seen to be believed. It's a whopping 46 meters long.  

In the same temple you will see 108 bronze bowls. You can purchase a bowl of coins and drop one coil in each bowl. It is supposed to bring in good luck. Faith and belief aside, it helps maintain the temple and is fun for the little kids.

There are a number of beautiful chedis (91 to be precise) all around the courtyard. Each a different size -

Each, ordained with intricate ceramic flowers, right upto the top -

Getting there:

It is a 10-minute walk from the Grand Palace so do it before or after that.

Tips:

Same as the ones for the Grand Palace.