Bangkok, booked properly.
Which floating market is still a market. What a river dinner cruise actually feeds you. Whether the tuk-tuk food run is worth the fumes. Every Bangkok tour, reviewed and ranked.
The tours that keep Bangkok’s river and railways busy.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else in the city: the market that folds around a train, the Ayutthaya day, the Chao Phraya after dark.
1
Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Market
See Maeklong’s train-market spectacle and Damnoen Saduak’s floating market from Bangkok, with boat rides, great food stops, and free time.
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 $37.50
7
Muay Thai Boxing Tickets at Rajadamnern Stadium
from $31
8
White Orchid Chao Phraya Dinner Cruise free Beer
from $35
9
Bangkok by Private Guide: Full Day Tour In and Around
from $72
The Chao Phraya is still Bangkok’s main road.
Longtails, commuter ferries and dinner boats all work the same brown current past Wat Arun. An hour on the water costs less than a taxi across town, and the riverside temples finally look the way they were built to be seen.
Palace, market, river, wok: the Bangkok shortlist.
The Grand Palace at opening, a railway market that folds itself around a train, dinner on the Chao Phraya, and the Ayutthaya day everyone adds late. Here is the best way to book each one.
Wat Pho opens at eight. Go then.
The Grand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun sit inside one riverside mile, and almost every guided walk links them in that order. The dress code is enforced at the gate rather than suggested: shoulders and knees covered, whatever the heat is doing.
In Bangkok the market moves for the train, not the other way round.
Maeklong’s traders pull their awnings back eight times a day as the train slides through the stalls, then set the whole market up again before it is out of sight. Damnoen Saduak paddles the same produce down a canal an hour further on. Most tours take both before lunch and hand you back to the city in time for a night of grilled everything.
- 1Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Marketfrom $25
- 2The Old Siam: Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong Railway Marketfrom $32
- 3Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ridefrom $25
Only Bangkok has a market that folds up for the 11:10.
Grilled skewers and gold temples you can find the length of Thailand. The railway market, the Rajadamnern ring and the Thonburi longtails belong to this city.
The Railway Market
Maeklong’s fresh market is laid out on the sleepers of a working railway line. Eight times a day the traders fold the awnings back, lift the baskets clear and let the train pass a hand’s width from the chillies, then put the whole thing back. Tours time their arrival to a scheduled pass and usually pair it with Damnoen Saduak on the same morning.
- 1Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 26,723 reviews
- 2The Old Siam: Damnoen Saduak and Maeklong Railway Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 10,992 reviews
- 3Train Market & Floating Market with Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 9,547 reviews
A Night at Rajadamnern
Rajadamnern opened in 1945 and still runs the old order: five rounds, a live piphat band tracking the fight, and betting shouted from the upper tiers. Seats are sold by tier, and the bouts worth staying for land late on the card rather than first. A beginner class at a gym the next morning costs less than the ticket did.
- 1Muay Thai Boxing Tickets at Rajadamnern Stadium★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,740 reviews
- 2Muay Thai Boxing Introduction Class for Beginners★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 394 reviews
- 3Learn 1-1 Muay Thai + Free Muaythai Shorts & Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 365 reviews
The Thonburi Khlongs
Cross to the west bank and the city drops fifty years. Longtail boats run the khlongs past stilt houses, temple landings and the occasional shop that floats up alongside you, pushed by engines lifted straight out of trucks. Two hours is the standard run. Go early, before the water traffic and the heat both build.
- 1Bangkok Canal Tour: 2-Hour Longtail Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,909 reviews
- 2Longtail Boat Canal Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 4,076 reviews
- 32-Hour Canal Tour by Teak Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 2,212 reviews
Bangkok prices, from a five-dollar boat to a private day.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it actually costs. The cheapest thing here is a seat on the river; the dearest is a car, a driver and a full day of your own.
Canal longtails, temple walks, market mornings, museum and viewpoint tickets.
The full-day classics: Ayutthaya, the railway market, cooking schools, dinner cruises.
Private guides, chartered boats, Kanchanaburi with a car, and the once-a-trip splurges.
- 1Damnoen Saduak Floating Market Guided Tourfrom $122
- 2Ayutthaya Full-Day Trip with Driverfrom $112
- 3Pattaya Ethical Elephant Sanctuary Day Tripfrom $142
Everything worth leaving Bangkok for, by how early you leave.
Elephant care
Kanchanaburi
Pattaya
Khao YaiThe rooftops, the ring and the woks: Bangkok after nine.
All evening tours →
Soi Cowboy, Nana, Soi 11, Rooftops, Clubs & Go Go’s
Read our review →
The Bangkok bookings that will not wait for your hotel wifi.
Most of this city can be arranged the night before from the 7-Eleven downstairs. These cannot. They run on stadium cards, small boats, fixed timetables and departures that leave well before breakfast.
- 01Muay Thai Boxing Tickets at Rajadamnern StadiumSeats are sold by tier and the bouts worth staying for run late on the card. The good nights clear out early in the week.
- 02Damnoen Saduak Market and Maeklong Railway MarketThe floating market thins out by mid-morning, so the tours that matter leave the city before dawn — and those are the ones that fill.
- 03Khao Yai National Park Small-Group Day TripSmall-group park days leave Bangkok around six and cap their numbers. There is one departure, not a rolling schedule.
- 04Death Railway & Hellfire Pass Tour with LunchThe line runs to a fixed timetable and the memorial museums keep short hours; the day is built around that, not around you.
- 05Calypso Cabaret Show with Thai Set DinnerOne show a night, assigned seating, and the dinner package goes first.
Bangkok’s rain arrives at four and is gone by six.
From May to October the afternoon builds, empties itself over the city for an hour, floods a few sois and clears. It stops almost nothing — but the hour is easier to spend on purpose: a cooking school with its own market run, a massage taught the way Wat Pho teaches it, a museum house in a garden, a cabaret seat.
By landmark — where you are actually going
The Grand Palace112 tours
Wat Arun58 tours
Wat Pho69 tours
Maeklong Railway Market114 tours
Ayutthaya229 tours
Mahanakhon SkyWalk22 tours
Jim Thompson House8 tours- Browse all tours →
By kind of day — what are you actually doing?
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