Things To Do in Bangkok Thailand

Street Food and Markets

Bangkok's street food culture is one of the most celebrated in the world, operating at all hours across every neighbourhood with a variety and quality that formal restaurants rarely match. The city's markets range from the wholesale produce exchanges of Khlong Toei to the enormous Chatuchak Weekend Market, the floating markets of the canals, and the night markets that appear each evening in streets that were empty that morning. Eating well in Bangkok requires almost no planning — only a willingness to follow whatever smells best.

Temples and Sacred Sites

Bangkok's temple architecture is extravagant in the most precise sense: a deliberate and sustained expenditure of skill, gold, and devotion that has produced buildings of overwhelming complexity. Wat Pho, Wat Arun, and the Grand Palace compound are the most visited, but the city has hundreds of wats operating as active places of worship, each with its own character. The early morning almsgiving rituals that take place outside many temples offer a direct encounter with religious practice that remains entirely serious and untheatrical.

Canals and the River

Bangkok was built on a network of canals — klongs — that once made it the Venice of the East, and while the majority have been filled to make roads, enough remain to give the city a character that no other Southeast Asian capital shares. The Chao Phraya river, broad and busy with ferries, long-tail boats, and cargo traffic, is the fastest way to travel between several major sites and also the most atmospheric. Canal tours into the Thonburi district, west of the river, reveal a quieter Bangkok that has changed relatively little in the past fifty years.

Nightlife and Entertainment

Bangkok's nightlife is as multifaceted as the city itself. The rooftop bars of the Silom and Sukhumvit districts offer cocktails with city views at a scale that impresses regardless of how many you have seen. The live music scene, concentrated around RCA and the Ari neighbourhood, runs across jazz, indie, and electronic music with an ease that reflects the city's relaxed relationship with late nights. Bangkok also has a significant and well-regarded underground club scene in permanent and pop-up venues that has developed considerable international cachet.

Shopping

Bangkok is one of Asia's great shopping cities, with a range that extends from the luxury malls of Siam — Siam Paragon, CentralWorld, Iconsiam — to the independent designer boutiques of the Ekkamai and Ari districts and the street markets of Pratunam. The Asiatique riverfront night market has established itself as one of the most pleasant retail environments in the city. Bespoke tailoring, available at prices that make it accessible rather than exclusive, remains one of the most popular purchases for visitors.

Traditional Crafts, Galleries and Contemporary Culture

Bangkok has developed a contemporary arts scene that has grown from a small gallery circuit into a credible presence on the international art world calendar over the past two decades. The Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC) at the corner of Pathumwan is the primary public gallery for contemporary Thai art and international exhibitions, housed in a building that has become a meeting point for the city's creative community. The Warehouse 30 complex in the Charoen Krung district, a cluster of restored warehouses along the Chao Phraya that house galleries, studios, and the Bangkok Design Week program, represents the most concentrated creative neighbourhood in the city. Thailand's traditional craft industries, producing silk, celadon ceramics, lacquerware, and bronze Buddha images in workshops that maintain techniques unchanged over centuries, are best accessed in Bangkok through the specialist shops of the River City shopping complex and the neighbourhood of Ban Baat, where monks' alms bowls have been hand-hammered from eight pieces of metal since the Rattanakosin period. The Jim Thompson House Museum, a group of traditional Thai houses assembled and restored as a private residence and now a museum, holds Southeast Asian antiques and Thai silk collections in the most atmospheric heritage domestic interior available to visitors in the city. The Bangkok International Film Festival and the city's independent cinema circuit, centered on the House Samyan and Scala venues, reflect a film culture that takes Thai and international cinema seriously. The Thailand Creative and Design Center (TCDC), located in the Grand Postal Building in the Bang Rak district, is the primary hub for design, craft, and creative industry development in the city and hosts exhibitions, workshops, and a specialist materials library that serves both professional designers and students. The Pak Khlong Talat flower market near the Memorial Bridge, operating twenty-four hours and supplying the city's temples, hotels, and households with fresh flowers, is one of the most visually and sensually intense market environments in Bangkok and is at its most extraordinary between midnight and four in the morning when the night delivery trucks arrive. The Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the largest markets in the world by number of stalls, sells everything from live animals to vintage furniture to handmade ceramics in 27 sections across 35 acres, and navigating it meaningfully requires both time and a specific intention.