The Palace before nine. Then the river takes over.
Which floating market is still a market. What the dinner boat past Wat Arun actually costs. Whether Ayutthaya beats Kanchanaburi when you have one day spare. Reviews of every tour you can book in Bangkok.
A temple morning, a market at dawn, a boat at dusk, one day out of town.
The four bookings a first Bangkok trip is built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningGrand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided TourGrand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun in one guided run. Shoulders and knees covered, or you rent a sarong at the gate.
02The dawn runDamnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway MarketDamnoen Saduak while the vendors are still trading, then the Maeklong market that folds up when the train comes through.
03The river at duskWhite Orchid Chao Phraya Dinner Cruise free BeerA dinner boat downriver past a floodlit Wat Arun. The cheapest good view in the city, and dinner is included.
04The day out of townAyutthaya Historical Park Guided Day TripBrick prangs and the Buddha head in the fig roots, eighty kilometres north. Most trips come back down the river.
Bangkok is a temple city, a market city and a river city on the same afternoon.
Gold prangs on one bank and a klong full of vendor boats on the other, woks going on Yaowarat after dark, and ruins two hours up the road. Six ways to spend a day, and the best of each.
Bangkok sells you the market first, then teaches you the wok.
The floating markets are finished by mid-morning, the street woks fire at six, and the cooking class in between shops for its own ingredients. Three ways to eat through the city, and what boarding each one costs.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Bangkok.
Every Bangkok tour review →A floating market at dawn, a temple morning, a boat at dusk. These are the ones that fill up first, and what each one costs.
1
Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Market
See Thailand’s train-through market and Damnoen Saduak by boat on a well-organized seven-hour trip from Bangkok for $25.
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
Wat Arun catches the last of the light. The Grand Palace opens at eight thirty.
Cover your shoulders and your knees or you are renting a sarong at the gate. Do the Palace early while the marble is still bearable, walk down to Wat Pho for the reclining Buddha and the oldest massage school in the country, then take the cross-river ferry to Wat Arun and climb as high as they let you.
Half of old Bangkok still faces the water, and it shows you a different city.
A longtail turns off the Chao Phraya into the Thonburi klongs and the traffic noise simply stops: stilt houses, monitor lizards, a temple landing every few hundred metres. After dark the dinner boats go the other way, downriver past a floodlit Wat Arun with the buffet already open.
- 1Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ridefrom $25
- 2Bangkok Canal Tour: 2-Hour Longtail Boat Ridefrom $37
- 3White Orchid Chao Phraya Dinner Cruise free Beerfrom $35
Bangkok gets going about the time other cities put the chairs up.
Pak Khlong Talat restocks with flowers around midnight, the rooftops open at six, and Rajadamnern runs Muay Thai on set nights only. A tuk-tuk gets you between them faster than a taxi ever will, and you see the city while you move.
Everything after dark →
What a day in Bangkok actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. A good deal of the best of it comes in under the fare to the airport.
Temple mornings, market runs, klong boats and the entry tickets that get you past the queue.
The full days out: Ayutthaya, Kanchanaburi, the long food walks and the private tuk-tuk nights.
Private guides, chartered boats and the small-group days that reach what the coaches cannot.
Three days out that start at a Bangkok hotel door.
A ruined capital up the river, a wartime railway through a limestone valley, and a national park with wild elephants in it. All three are done and dusted by dinner.
Ayutthaya
The Siamese capital for four hundred years, until a Burmese army burned it in 1767. What stands now is brick: rows of headless seated Buddhas, prangs you can still climb the steps of, and one sandstone head that a fig tree grew around and never let go. Trips usually drive up in the morning and come back down the river on an afternoon boat.
- 1Ayutthaya Temples Guided Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 10,535 reviews
- 2Ayutthaya & Ayothaya Floating Market Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 6,084 reviews
- 3Ayutthaya Historical Park Guided Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,020 reviews
Kanchanaburi and the River Kwai
The Burma Railway was built in 1942 and 1943 by Allied prisoners of war and conscripted Asian labourers, and more than a hundred thousand of them died doing it. The bridge, the rock cutting at Hellfire Pass and the war cemeteries in town are all still here, and the museums keep the record carefully. Most days out pair the memorial sites with Erawan Falls further up the valley.
- 1Erawan Park & Kanchanaburi Small-Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,582 reviews
- 2Historical Day Tour to River Kwai★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 868 reviews
- 3Bridge on the River Kwai and Thailand-Burma Railway Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 658 reviews
Khao Yai
Thailand’s oldest national park, and close enough to do in one long day if you leave at six. Gibbons work the canopy at first light, hornbills cross the valley in pairs, and wild elephants come down to the road margins at dusk. The waterfalls run hard from June through October and barely at all in March.
- 1Living Green Elephant Sanctuary Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,541 reviews
- 2Khao Yai National Park Small-Group Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 704 reviews
- 3Khao Yai National Park Full-Day From Bangkok – Including Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 523 reviews
Four Bangkok bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted from a plastic stool the night before. These four run on opening hours, dawn departures and fight nights that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun Guided TourThe ticket windows shut at half past three and the dress code is enforced at the gate. Guided morning slots go first.
- 02Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway MarketThe floating market is a dawn run. By late morning the vendors have gone home and the boats are tied up.
- 03Muay Thai Boxing Tickets at Rajadamnern StadiumRajadamnern fights on set nights only, and there is a fixed number of ringside seats. Pick the night before you pick the hotel.
- 04Historical Day Tour to River KwaiKanchanaburi is a long day by road, and the train along the line runs to its own timetable rather than yours.
From June to October the sky opens most afternoons, usually around four.
It rarely lasts more than an hour, but it lands hard enough to put a soi under water. Do the outdoor half of the day in the morning and keep the afternoon under a roof: a kitchen, a covered market, a silk house, or a boat with a deck over it.
The classics, in the order most people do them
By kind of day — temple, market, kitchen or river
Palace, klongs, floating market, Chinatown: how a first three days in Bangkok usually falls.
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