I Gave Bangkok 4 Days, and I Keep Thinking About the Porcelain

I gave Bangkok four days and did not rent a car once. Not a single one. Between the river ferries, the MRT, and Grab for everything else, there was never a moment I wished otherwise, and the traffic here is the kind you want to watch from a boat rather than sit in.

What follows is the exact order I did it in, with the times I actually left the hotel. Days one and two stay close to the river and Chinatown. Day three goes north to the Ayutthaya ruins. Day four is the modern city, which I had been putting off and ended up liking more than I expected.

Heat is the thing that shapes every day here. Start early, hide indoors in the worst of the afternoon, come back out at six. That rhythm is baked into all four days below.

Day 1, The Old City and the River

Everything on day one sits inside a very small radius of Rattanakosin, which means you walk it. Grand Palace first because of the heat and the crowds, then Wat Pho ten minutes south, then a five baht ferry across to Wat Arun, then back over the water for dinner with the temple lit up in front of you. It is a full day and a hot one. Bring water, cover your shoulders, and do not plan anything after 9pm.

The Grand Palace

I was at Gate 4 by 8:30, which is opening, and that turned out to be the single best decision of the trip. The gold hits differently before the heat does. Within an hour the courtyards were shoulder to shoulder and the quiet I had at Wat Phra Kaew was gone for good.

The dress code is real. Knees and shoulders covered, no exceptions, and the stalls outside will happily sell you long trousers if yours do not pass. Bring the umbrella. Everyone tells you this and everyone is right.

Give it two hours. I spent most of mine stopping every few metres for another roof edge or another wall of tiny coloured tiles. Do not expect much of the palace itself, large parts are off limits, it is the temple that carries the visit. Ignore anyone outside the gates who tells you it is closed today.

From the exit it is a ten minute walk south down Sanam Chai Road to Wat Pho.

Wat Pho and the Reclining Buddha

Just past 11, and the Reclining Buddha is 46 metres of gold lying on its side in a hall that cannot quite contain it. The mother-of-pearl on the soles of the feet is the part I stood in front of longest.

Entry is 300 baht for foreigners, cash only at the window, and the ticket comes with a small bottle of water that you will finish before you are halfway round. Behind the statue there are 108 bronze bowls. Twenty baht buys you a little dish of coins to drop into each one, and the sound of everyone doing it at once carries through the whole hall.

Plan two hours. The complex is much bigger than it looks from the entrance, and the far courtyards with the coloured stupas are where the crowds thin out completely.

From the back gate it is a four minute walk down Thai Wang Road to Tha Tian Pier.

Tha Tian Pier

Around 2 in the afternoon, and the pier smelled of dried fish and cut coconut. I bought a coconut water for 30 baht from a vendor by the steps and drank it standing up, watching the ferries come and go every fifteen minutes or so.

There are souvenir stalls, juice carts, a corner food shop doing rice and tom yum, and a handheld fan will cost you about 100 baht. Buy one. I did not, first time, and regretted it inside ten minutes.

Thirty minutes is plenty here unless you are eating. The crossing itself is the point, five baht per person to the far bank, and the boarding gets a bit rough when the river is low so watch your footing on the gangway rather than your phone.

The ferry over to Wat Arun takes about five minutes.

Wat Arun

Porcelain. That is the thing nobody quite prepares you for. The whole prang is inlaid with broken china and glass, and at half past three the light catches it in a way that makes the surface look wet.

Tickets are 200 baht and include a small water. Get the green stamp on your hand before you walk out of the gate, it lets you back in, and you will want back in once the sun drops. You can climb, though only to the second level now, and the steps are steep and narrow enough that I went up sideways.

Ninety minutes, more if you stay for the light. Half the people here are in rented traditional Thai dress with a hired photographer, so mind where you are walking. Buy the ice cream from the vendor near the exit.

Ferry back across to Tha Tian, five minutes, then a two minute walk along Maharat Road.

Riva Arun Bangkok

Around 6, when the sun was going, I was on the rooftop of Riva Arun with Wat Arun directly across the water starting to light up. There is no better seat in Rattanakosin for that particular half hour.

An honest note. The view is better than the food. The steak my neighbouring table sent back came out greasy the second time, and at 1,500 baht that stings. Come up for a drink and the cheesecake, eat properly at Rongros or Supanniga which are both a few steps from the hotel door.

Give it an hour and a half if you catch the light right. The staff here are genuinely lovely, they arranged taxis for half the people around me without being asked twice.

Sanam Chai MRT is a seven minute walk if you are heading elsewhere for the night. I stayed put and watched the river go dark.

Day 2, Chinatown, Slow Start to Late Night

Day two begins late on purpose. Coffee in an old shophouse, a wander through Talat Noi where the alleys are full of engine parts and cats, noodles for lunch in a place that has been running sixty years, and then Yaowarat Road once the lights come on. This is the day you eat standing up. I finished the evening out at the Ayutthaya ruins under floodlight, which is a long haul but worth planning for.

Wallflowers Café

They open at 10 and I was there at 10 past, which meant I got the ground floor almost to myself for twenty minutes. Worth knowing, because by midday every corner has someone photographing it.

It is genuinely hard to find. Look for the old rusty sign on Soi Nana, the building is the one buried under flowers and greenery. Ground floor is café, second is the restaurant, third is a bar with a view. I had the yuzu tart and a coffee and both were very good.

Prices are tourist-leaning and there is a 17 percent surcharge on top, which nobody mentions until the bill. Factor it in and you will not be annoyed.

Give it an hour. The toilets are near the top floor, so that is a climb.

From here it is about a fifteen minute walk south into Talat Noi.

Talat Noi

By 11:30 I was deep in the alleys of Talat Noi and had no idea which way the river was. That is sort of the point.

The lanes here are barely wide enough for a scooter, half of them lined with car parts and engine blocks stacked to the ceiling, the other half painted with murals. Cats everywhere. Old shophouses with their doors open and someone’s lunch cooking inside.

I almost skipped it for something more obviously worth the time. I am glad I did not.

Forty five minutes to an hour, and honestly the less you plan it the better it goes. Wear shoes you do not mind getting dusty and do not try to follow a route.

From the edge of Talat Noi it is about a ten minute walk northwest to Nai Ek Roll Noodle.

Nai Ek Roll Noodle

I got there just past 1 and there was a queue, which there always is. You order and pay first, then wait for a table. It moved in under ten minutes.

The signature is guay jub, rolled rice noodles in a clear broth that is heavy on white pepper and somehow light at the same time. Around 70 baht. Get the deep fried crispy pork on the side, the skin shatters and the fat to meat ratio is exactly right. Do not add more pepper. There is already plenty and you will wreck the balance.

Stainless steel tables, fans only, no air conditioning, open kitchen where you can watch every bowl get built. It has been running sixty years and it shows in how smoothly the whole thing operates.

Forty minutes, tops. Yaowarat Road is a five minute walk from the door.

Yaowarat Road

Come back at 7. During the day half the shutters are down and it is just a busy road. After dark the neon comes on and the entire street turns into food.

I ate standing up four times in two hours and spent less than most single restaurant meals cost elsewhere in the city. Prices here felt noticeably kinder than at the tourist night markets. You will be offered a massage roughly every forty metres, and those prices are cheaper than the rest of Bangkok too.

Two hours minimum, and I could have done another. Go hungry and do not commit to the first stall you see.

Wat Traimit sits at the eastern end of the road if you want a temple before you eat.

For the evening ruins run, it is about an hour and twenty by Grab north to Ayutthaya, so book it before you start eating.

Wat Mahathat

The Buddha head held in the roots of the bodhi tree. It is in the southeastern corner and it is smaller than the photographs suggest, which somehow makes it more affecting rather than less.

Fifty baht for foreigners. The temple lends out umbrellas for free because the site is completely exposed, so take one and remember to return it. Rows of headless Buddhas line the inner walls, and the scale of what was destroyed here in 1767 lands harder the longer you stay.

Kneel or crouch when you photograph the head. Your own head should not be higher than the Buddha’s. People get this wrong constantly and the staff notice.

An hour is enough. There is a café across from the entrance doing coffee and ice cream, and after a day that started with pastries in Chinatown, an iced coffee in the dark before the ride back felt like the right ending.

Day 3, Ayutthaya Ruins and Back to the City

North out of Bangkok for the old capital. Wat Chaiwatthanaram first, then Wat Phra Si Sanphet and its three chedis, then back south into the city for something cool and indoors by late afternoon. Buy the combination park ticket at the first gate, it pays for itself by the second temple. The sun out there is brutal and there is almost no shade.

Wat Chaiwatthanaram

Grab picked me up at 7 in the morning for the drive north, which put me at the gate around 8:30 with the site still half empty and the light low across the river.

Built in 1630, and the Khmer influence is obvious the moment you see the central prang with its eight smaller ones arranged around it in a square. People compare it to Angkor Wat and for once the comparison holds up. Eighty baht for foreigners, or get the combination park ticket at around 300 which covers the rest of the day.

The rows of headless Buddhas along the galleries are the part that sticks. There is restoration work going on in places, which does not spoil it.

Give it an hour and a quarter. Half the visitors are in rented Thai dress doing full photoshoots.

From here it is about a ten minute drive east to Wat Phra Si Sanphet.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Three chedis in a row, restored, holding the ashes of three Ayutthaya kings. By 10:30 the sun was already vicious and there is almost nowhere to stand out of it here.

This was the royal temple inside the old palace complex, used for ceremony rather than daily worship, and it has never had resident monks. That absence is somehow noticeable when you walk it. The grounds are wide and easy underfoot, and even with a fair number of people about it never feels crowded.

Eighty baht, or free with the combination ticket you should have bought at the last stop. Bring small notes, the counters rarely have change for a thousand.

An hour covers it comfortably. Then get out of the sun.

It is about an hour and a half back south by Grab to Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in Pathum Wan.

Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

Air conditioning. After two temples in open sun that was the entire appeal, and then the building turned out to be genuinely worth the time.

Nine floors wrapped around a spiralling central staircase, and yes, it borrows heavily from the Guggenheim. Entry is free for most exhibitions. I went up the spiral slowly, ducked into whatever was open on each level, and the student work was more interesting than some of the headline shows.

Lockers are 10 baht for small, 20 for medium. Cafés on the ground and third floors, a small food court up top.

I stayed two hours and could have done another. If contemporary art does nothing for you, come anyway for the building and the view over the city from the upper levels.

A sky bridge connects straight to National Stadium BTS, which is how I got back after dark.

Day 4, Modern Bangkok and a Last View

The final day stays in Pathum Wan and Watthana, all of it reachable on the BTS. A teak house museum in a pocket of green, a shrine that sits in the middle of shopping mall traffic, a rooftop on the 49th floor at sunset, and a last wander through the biggest mall in the city. A softer day. I needed one by this point.

Jim Thompson House Museum

Doors open at 10 and I was in the first English tour of the day. The guided tour is mandatory, 250 baht, and I went in mildly resentful about that and came out thinking it was the best 250 baht of the trip.

Six antique teak houses, sourced from Ayutthaya and the Ban Krua weaving community and reassembled here in 1959 by an American who rebuilt the Thai silk industry and then vanished in Malaysia in 1967. The story is odd enough to carry the whole hour. The houses are raised on stilts, open corridors between them, canal on one side and dense green on the other. Parts are air conditioned.

Plan an hour and a half including the café. There is a free shuttle to the BTS, and after Bangkok traffic that small thing feels like a gift.

Take the BTS two stops from National Stadium to Chit Lom, about ten minutes door to door.

The Shrine of Erawan

Around 1 in the afternoon, and there were traditional dancers performing at the edge of the shrine while six lanes of Ratchadamri traffic went past ten metres away. That contrast is the whole experience.

It is not a Buddha, despite the nickname. It is Phra Phrom, the Thai form of Brahma, and each of the four faces is for a different kind of blessing. Career, love, wealth, health. Built in 1956 after a run of accidents during construction of the old Erawan Hotel, on an astrologer’s advice.

Free to enter. Flowers and offerings run around 300 baht at the entrance stalls. Incense rules have tightened and staff will take it off you without much warning, so watch what other people are doing first.

Thirty minutes is plenty. The elevated walkway above gives the best view down into it.

From here it is a fifteen minute taxi east to Octave on Sukhumvit.

Octave Rooftop Lounge and Bar

I arrived at 5:30 so I would get both the sunset and the skyline after dark, and that timing is the whole trick with this place. The 49th floor is the one you want, it is a full 360 view and the lower terraces are not the same thing.

Minimum spend is around 1,000 to 1,800 baht a head depending where you sit, plus a separate rooftop entry fee even if you are eating downstairs. Reserve. It gets full and the good tables go first. The mango sticky rice was better than it had any right to be at rooftop prices.

It is windy up there, more than you expect. Around nine the DJ pushes it toward a party and the mood changes completely.

Two hours. Then a ten minute taxi back west to Siam Paragon, which stays open late.

Siam Paragon

Just past 8, air conditioned, enormous, and sitting directly on top of Siam BTS which is the interchange for both lines. I came for the food court and stayed three hours.

The luxury floors I walked past without entering. The basement is where it actually happens. Dozens of stalls, a coupon card system, and I found a vegan place doing rice plus three dishes for 80 baht after twenty minutes of looking. Finding a free table is the real challenge, though people share happily here.

There is an aquarium, a cinema, and a gourmet supermarket where I bought snacks for the flight home.

An hour if you are just eating, three if you wander. I finished the last night of four days in Bangkok sitting in a food court with a plate of curry, and it was the correct ending. Siam BTS is right there when you are done.

Four days is not enough for Bangkok and it is also plenty. I left with a list of things I did not get to, which I think is the correct way to leave a city. The river was the part that surprised me most. Five baht to cross, a breeze on the water, and the whole day suddenly costs nothing to move around.

If you have been and there is something you would swap in, tell me. I keep a running list for the next trip and it is mostly other people’s suggestions at this point.