Floating and Specialty Markets in Bangkok
A visual guide from the Bangkok travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
At Amphawa the boats do not float past so much as moor against the wooden walkway and cook to order, so the canal at dusk smells of charcoal, grilled squid and caramelising palm sugar. Bangkok's market culture runs much wider than the postcard version at Damnoen Saduak. Within the city there are weekend canal markets a short taxi from a Skytrain station, a flower market that never properly closes, produce halls that supply half the restaurants in town, and night bazaars built around neon, vintage cars and cheap seafood.
Floating markets worth the trip
Damnoen Saduak, about a hundred kilometres west, is the famous one and is best reached before eight, when paddled boats still outnumber souvenir stalls. Amphawa in Samut Songkhram runs Friday to Sunday afternoons and makes the better evening: grilled seafood on the boardwalk, then a firefly boat along the mangroves. Closer in, Taling Chan and Khlong Lat Mayom in Thonburi open at weekends and are mostly about food, roughly twenty minutes by taxi from BTS Bang Wa. Bang Nam Pheung in Bang Krachao pairs neatly with a morning cycle.
Specialty markets in town
Chatuchak fills a park with thousands of stalls on Saturdays and Sundays, best entered from MRT Kamphaeng Phet and best abandoned by early afternoon when the heat wins. Pak Khlong Talat, the flower market near the river, works around the clock and is at its most striking near midnight as the marigold deliveries land. Or Tor Kor, across from Chatuchak, is the premium produce hall and a good lunch stop. For night markets, JODD Fairs near Rama 9 has largely taken over from the old Ratchada train market, with a second site up at Phahon Yothin.