Bangkok runs to a timetable. Learn it and the city opens up.
Which floating market is worth a five in the morning alarm. What a dinner boat on the Chao Phraya really costs. Whether Ayutthaya fits into one day. Reviews of every tour you can book in Bangkok.
Four bookings that decide what a Bangkok week feels like.
The market run, the ruins upriver, the three-temple morning and a table on the water. What each one costs and how early it really starts.
01The dawn market runDamnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway MarketDamnoen Saduak by longtail, then the awnings folding back on the Maeklong track. Out before the heat, home for a late lunch.
02The ruins dayAyutthaya Temples Guided Tour with LunchAyutthaya by road with lunch on the way back. Brick prangs, a sandstone head held in fig roots, and space to breathe after four.
03The temple morningGrand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided TourGrand Palace, the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, then the ferry across to Wat Arun. Long trousers, early gate.
04The river at nightWhite Orchid Chao Phraya Dinner Cruise free BeerDinner under way on the Chao Phraya with the temples lit on both banks. The cheapest good view in the city.
Bangkok has one unmissable morning, and three ways to spend it.
The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun sit within a ferry ride of one another. What changes is how much walking you do, how much gets explained, and whether you are through the gate before the coaches.
Six ways into Bangkok, and the best day out in each.
The palace quarter inside its white wall, a burned capital ninety minutes upriver, the market canals west of town, the Chao Phraya after dark, the food lanes off Yaowarat, and the road west towards the Kwai.
The Chao Phraya is the one road in Bangkok that never jams.
Commuter ferries by day, teak longtails into the canals behind Thonburi, and dinner boats that push upriver past a floodlit Wat Arun once the light goes. Three ways to spend an evening afloat.
Bangkok’s floating markets are worth the alarm clock.
Damnoen Saduak fills with fruit boats before the heat arrives. Amphawa only wakes up from Friday evening. And at Maeklong the awnings fold away eight times a day so a train can pass through the vegetables. Almost all of it is over by noon.
Some of the best Bangkok days start by leaving the city.
Every Ayutthaya day trip →
Two hours in any direction and the country changes. A burned Siamese capital to the north, a river and a wartime railway to the west, waterfalls in a national park beyond that. All of them are done as one long day, and all of them leave early.
Ayutthaya, the capital that burned
Brick prangs, standing walls and a sandstone Buddha head grown into fig roots at Wat Mahathat. The river version comes home down the Chao Phraya with lunch on board, which turns the hottest hours into the best ones.
The Kwai and the death railway
The bridge, a stretch of line cut into the cliff above the water, and the cemeteries that explain why any of it is there. Most days add a raft lunch on the river or the falls further upstream.
Erawan Falls, and the pools you can swim in
Limestone pools stacked up a hillside in Kanchanaburi province, each a short climb above the last. Bring shoes you can get wet in, and check the water level before counting on the top two tiers.
The Bangkok days out that get booked before anything else.
Every Bangkok tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the city, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Market
Travel from Bangkok to Maeklong Railway Market, where vendors clear the tracks for passing trains, then reach Damnoen Saduak by paddleboat. Guides such as Patty, Pooh, Tanya, and Phu help with timing, food, and local details. Choose shared or private transport, with early starts best for cooler weather and smaller crowds.
From · $25
Read our review →
2
The Old Siam: Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong Railway Market
from $32
3
Ayutthaya Temples Guided Tour with Lunch
from $28
4
Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ride
from $25
5
Ayutthaya & Ayothaya Floating Market Day Trip
from $48
6
Bangkok Canal Tour: 2-Hour Longtail Boat Ride
from $37
7
Muay Thai Boxing Tickets at Rajadamnern Stadium
from $31
8
White Orchid Chao Phraya Dinner Cruise free Beer
from $35
What a day out in Bangkok actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Bangkok days come in under the price of one rooftop cocktail.
Temple mornings, canal longtails, street-food walks and the market runs that leave before dawn.
The long days: Ayutthaya, the Kwai, a dinner boat with a table by the rail, a cooking class that starts at the market.
A private guide with a car, small groups out to Khao Yai, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Four Bangkok bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on gate times, weekend-only water and stadium fight nights that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided TourThe palace closes its gates in the early afternoon and enforces a dress code at the entrance. The early guided slots go first.
- 02Maeklong Railway & Amphawa Floating Market Day TripAmphawa runs from Friday evening to Sunday and nothing else. Turn up on a Tuesday and there is no market on the water.
- 03Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway MarketThe awnings come down to a published train timetable, roughly eight times a day. Miss the slot and you are looking at an ordinary market.
- 04Muay Thai Boxing Tickets at Rajadamnern StadiumRajadamnern fights on set nights and ringside is a fixed number of seats. The card goes up late and the good rows go early.
Between noon and four, Bangkok belongs to the air conditioning.
From March to May the pavement is unusable by midday, and from June the monsoon arrives most afternoons at about the same time. Both have one answer: temples and markets early, then a kitchen, a gallery or a massage table until the light softens.
Three things that only happen in Bangkok.
Night markets and river boats run all over Asia. A market that folds itself around a train, a tower faced in ballast porcelain, and a working canal system behind the far bank do not.
The Maeklong Railway Market
Vendors sell on the track itself, awnings pushed out over the rails and produce laid in the ballast. A horn sounds, the canopies fold back in one movement, the train grinds through with inches to spare, and half a minute later the mangoes are exactly where they were. The State Railway publishes the times and the whole market works to them.
- 1Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 26,723 reviews
- 2The Old Siam: Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong Railway Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 10,992 reviews
- 3Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 9,547 reviews
Wat Arun after sundown
The central prang is faced in broken Chinese porcelain, ballast from trading junks, pressed into the stucco as flowers and rosettes. From the far bank it reads white. Up close it turns into mosaic. Climb the steep steps in the last hour of daylight, then cross back over and watch the floodlights come on from the water.
- 1Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,632 reviews
- 2Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun Sacred & Local Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 2,256 reviews
- 3Evening Tour with Wat Arun, Wat Pho & Tuk Tuk Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 701 reviews
The klongs of Thonburi
Cross the river and the city turns back into water. Teak longtails run down canals lined with stilt houses, temple landings, laundry and the occasional monitor lizard, the engine noise bouncing off the walls. This is the part of Bangkok that earned the Venice comparison, and it is still lived in rather than restored.
- 1Bangkok Canal Tour: 2-Hour Longtail Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,909 reviews
- 2Longtail Boat Canal Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 4,076 reviews
- 3Temples, Canals & Local Life Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,511 reviews
Bangkok starts again at about eight in the evening.
The heat drops, Yaowarat lights up and the rooftops start filling. A tuk-tuk run between temples and food stalls, a stadium card at Rajadamnern, a cabaret in Silom, or a drink forty floors above the traffic.
Every Bangkok night out →
In Bangkok the best cooking happens on the pavement.
Yaowarat after seven, the stalls with plastic stools and a forty-year queue, boat-noodle counters the width of a doorway, and classes that start in a wet market and end with you eating what you made.
- 1Hands-on Thai Cooking Class and Market Tourfrom $45
- 2Michelin Guide Street Food Tour by Tuk Tukfrom $20
- 3Tingly Thai Cooking School Half-Day Cooking Classfrom $41
By day trip: where the road out goes
By kind of day: temple, boat, market or kitchen
Palace, market, ruins, river: the four days almost everyone does first.
Yaowarat
Damnoen Saduak
The Chao Phraya
The klongsThe newest Bangkok tour reviews.
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