In April 2023, we spent four weeks in the Sukhumvit area of Bangkok. Read about our first week here, and our second week here.

It got hotter!

In our previous posts about Bangkok I mentioned the heat. Well the summer season carried on and it was peak hot. Some air pollution rolled in as well so we spent some days enjoying our comfortable air conditioned apartment and soaking in the rooftop pool.

The weather in Bangkok is so hot that the buses are priced on whether they have air-conditioning or not. The ones without air-conditioning basically have all their windows wide-open, as if they are an open-air vehicle. One day Corey convinced me to jump on the open-air bus to go sightseeing. I said no the first time the #2 cruised by, but when a second #2 rolled by before the air-conditioned bus, we decided to jump on. (Important note here: it is literally jumping on. The bus doesn’t make a complete stop. People hop on and off while it slowly goes by the bus stop. Both buses and canal boats move quickly and you have to be ready to get on or off board efficiently or you will be left behind!)

The open-air bus lacked breeze thanks to being stuck in Bangkok traffic. Eventually we exited at the end of the line to visit the National Museum. The best part was that our trip cost the equivalent of 20 cents each.

It was a long bus ride so I was famished. We walked through the university area looking for food instead of visiting the museum.

Wang Lang Market

Our path took us down by the river. We saw Wang Lang Market across the way so we decided to take a ferry across (around 13 cents USD/person) and check out the food options.

The market was on my list to visit after we’d seen a Mark Weins video. We stopped for food at a place with a small menu and it was not according to my taste. Corey enjoyed his meal though. We then stopped at a KFC along the way to grab some finger-lickin’-good chicken strips. There is a reason KFC is the most-popular restaurant in the world, and we found that the quality in Thailand was higher than what we see in the United States.

Royal Barge Museum

Since we were on the west side of the Chao Phraya River we decided to walk to a museum on our list.

All the pictures of the boats are small replicas taken later at the National Museum.

It was an uninteresting and hot walk but the museum was great! The museum charges more per person for the ability to take photos so we opted for the cheaper package.

The royal barges are used during processions and holidays on the river. The oldest boats in the collection are around 100 years old (and have generally been restored to stay beautiful and seaworthy), but the tradition of the royal barges goes back centuries.

The designs are ornate and incredible! This museum is well worth a visit while in Bangkok. In fact, I would recommend setting it up as part of a river tour. Since we had a month in the city, we organized activities over the weeks, but with less time to spend, one could set up a boat-based itinerary to visit this museum plus several other wats (temples) along the river in a single day. This is especially true since the museum is not easily accessible by land-based mass transit (it requires walking through residential areas), but it is directly on the Khlong Bangkok Noi (Small Bangkok Canal), which is just off the Chao Phraya River.

For us to get home, we meandered back out to the main road and grabbed a Bolt taxi.

Jodd Fairs Market

The next day Graeme and Grant (our friends visiting from Taiwan that we introduced in the week 2 post) invited us to join them with some other friends to the Jodd Fairs night market. To us, this felt like a market catering to younger, hip locals. There was no fresh produce but was instead comprised of a large area for food and drink vendors (some of whom had their own seating), a couple of larger seating areas, and a large area for a band to play.

We walked around the market and picked up various foods. The usual items were available like stir-fries, fresh seafood, and meat skewers. The specialty of the market is a rich soup made from pork backbone. Numerous stalls will display a Jenga-like stack of meaty pork spines, which they will typically serve in a family-sized soup bowl. Jodd Fairs offers a great opportunity to try new Thai food in a fun, but less-touristy environment.

Bangkok Island Boat Party

One of the highlights for the week was another night out with Graeme and Grant. We met at Jack’s Bar, a riverside establishment with reasonably-priced stiff drinks and authentic drinking food. This placed us within walking distance of the Oriental Pier, where we would board the party boat. (Although the pier is only 200 feet north of Jack’s along the water, the walk requires a long detour of 3,000 feet to get around the buildings. Sometimes there are walking paths not indicated by Google, but we could not find any way through!)

The boat was late getting to the pier but eventually we all hopped on. We found our reserved VIP table which had a view of the dance floor. The VIP table also came with a bottle of alcohol but the bottle was small and the options were a bit low-brow. I feel like we got ripped off a little bit we still had a fun night!

The boat sailed up and down the river and we got to take in all the skyline and fireworks. Grant and I eventually hit the dance floor and he has some great moves!

Graeme & Grant: Congrats on your recent nuptials! You’re an amazing couple and we wish you a lifetime of happiness. Hope to visit you in Taiwan, or anywhere, one day!

Temple Tuesday

Even though it was hot, we put two things on the agenda for that day. Both of them temples (wat is the Thai word for temple).

Wat Pho

We started our day by visiting Wat Pho, known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. We arrived at 9 AM and it was not busy yet. In Bangkok, going out in the morning is a great way to beat the heat and the crowds.

One of my favorite parts of this wat was the small exhibit explaining the history of Thai massage, which is part of the Wat Pho Thai Massage School. The exhibit had many ancient books and diagrams on display showing the long history of massage in Thailand. It is possible to get a massage at Wat Pho from students of the school, but it is pricier than the market rates outside the complex.

What people come to see is the giant reclining Buddha! It is 151 feet long and covered in gold leaf.

The Wat Pho complex offers much more than the Reclining Buddha statue. There are rock gardens, all types of statues, and interesting structures. We took the entire morning to walk around and take it all in.

Lunch

I had looked up lunch possibilities before we started the day so we would not be stuck wandering around a food desert again.

There was a Thai place, Pad Thai Kratong Thong, basically across the street from Wat Pho, and it was great! We were each greeted with an aluminum bowl filled with ice, which we could use as a cold compress to cool down from the heat. We highly recommend eating there after a hot day at the temple for a tasty Thai meal and excellent service.

Tha Tien Market

Every Thai market is a little different. Between Wat Pho and the river is a market that specializes in dried seafood. The outside has more tourist-friendly packaging (wrapped in plastic with English labels) but inside features large piles of salted fish in baskets. We did not purchase anything there, but it was an interesting sight (not smell) to walk through!

The Tha Tien Pier is just northwest of the market, and it is there that we caught a ferry across the Chao Phraya river to the Temple of Dawn.

Wat Arun

The sun was in full effect at this time and there was very limited shade. It was hot and busy so we stayed for only about 30 minutes.

Wat Arun is an ancient temple site now best known for its large prang, a pyramid-like pagoda standing between 200 and 300 feet tall, completed in 1851, and covered in statues and porcelain decorations. We were prepared to climb the skinny steps of the prang to get the view across the river, but it appears that this is no longer allowed.

Wat Arun seemed like a popular temple as background for photos. There were dozens of small groups strolling around the property in traditional garb (which can be rented at nearby shops) and taking photos. It was difficult to pause and admire the architecture because of the number of people trying to take photos at every nook of the grounds. And aside from the beautiful exteriors and some gardens and statuary, there was not much else to do than take in the vibes.

I have heard many tourists say they get “templed out” in Thailand and I get it. It is similar to the “another big church” phenomenon people experience in Italy. However, the temples are unique and offer different history and art. To avoid temple fatigue, spread out visits over time instead of visiting several in one day. Research the options and pick the most appealing ones to you. Focus on the details. We visited two temples in one day and I would not recommend seeing any more than one or two in a single day.

Spritz Bar

Corey and I discovered a neat Aperol bar down the street from our apartment, at the garden patio area of the Pullman Hotel. Service was friendly and Aperol Spritzes were buy-one-get-one from 5-8 PM, making it a reasonably-priced way to drink outdoors and in style.

Our friend, Leah, that we met in Hua Hin was passing through Bangkok so we met up for some spritzes. It was great to hang out on the nice patio. Leah, we hope to catch up to you again one day in the US or wherever our paths cross. Safe travels!