Weekend in Bangkok
A visual guide from the Bangkok travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Chatuchak is the reason a Bangkok weekend looks different from a Bangkok weekday. From Saturday morning the market's 15,000-odd stalls swallow a whole corner of the north of the city, and by eleven the tin-roofed alleys are hot enough that people start rationing themselves in coconut ice cream. Around it, a two-day shape falls into place naturally: markets and malls in the cooler hours, the river at dusk, street food after dark. Two nights is genuinely enough for a first pass at the city.
Saturday
Aim to be at Chatuchak by nine or ten — Mo Chit on the BTS, or Kamphaeng Phet on the MRT, which lands closer to the middle of it. Two hours is plenty. Retreat to air conditioning for lunch, then take the BTS to Saphan Taksin and the free shuttle boat over to Iconsiam for the mall and the riverfront. Stay on the water for sunset: the orange-flag express boat costs almost nothing and runs until early evening. Dinner in Yaowarat after nine, then either the small cocktail and gin bars on Chinatown's Soi Nana or a rooftop over Silom.
Sunday
Sunday is for green space and slower food. The bicycle loop around Bang Krachao — a boat across from Klong Toey pier, bikes for hire on the far bank — takes two or three hours on raised concrete paths through banana and palm. Back in town, Benjakitti Forest Park and Lumpini are joined by a pedestrian bridge, which makes one long shaded walk of them. Late afternoon, Jodd Fairs at Rama 9 opens for grilled seafood and the leng zaap pork-rib soup everyone photographs, with the MRT at Phra Ram 9 a couple of minutes away. Traffic thins noticeably on Sunday evenings, which helps for airport runs.