Twenty things that will surprise first-time visitors to Bangkok

For starters, Bangkok’s name isn’t really Bangkok. Thais, when speaking in their own language, call their capital city Krung Thep, meaning “City of the Angels”. The name switch is just one of the surprises in this shape-shifting place that Thai writer Pitchaya Sudbanthad calls a “garden of fantastical delights”.

It has the longest name of any capital in the world

Krung Thep is not a modern name change, such as when Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City, or Bombay reset to Mumbai. For centuries the full name of the Thai capital has been Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit. Twenty-one words long, with the opening two standing in for the other 19.

It was once the ‘Venice of the East’

A floating village along Khlong Bang Luang.Credit: iStock

Until the 1950s, an extensive khlong (canal) system had threaded through both sides of the city. Many waterways on the eastern shore of the Chao Phraya River were reclaimed but most survived on the western, or Thonburi, side. One of those is Khlong Bang Luang, with the Baan Silapin Artist’s House perched on its bank. The rambling, traditional teak building now houses a museum, cafe and a classical Thai marionette theatre. The best way to arrive is through the neighbourhood khlongs aboard a long-tail boat. See bangkokbeyond.com

You can dine out on the River of Kings

The River of Kings carves its path through the capital. You can sleep beside it or play, pray and eat on it. Just don’t fall in. A flotilla of tourist vessels, ranging from boombox party boats to neon-blazing restaurant cruises, parades along it nightly. Amid the bling-and-buffet options, it is possible to dine well. The most elegant vessel is the refurbished, century-old rice barge, Manohra. Classical Thai food and music, silver service and quality wines, while the river rolls south, soon to reach the Gulf. See manohracruises.com

The west bank has a Portuguese accent

Santa Cruz Church, a legacy of 16th-century Portuguese missionaries.Credit: Getty Images

The west bank of the river was home to the first European settlers in Siam (as Thailand was then known), 16th-century Portuguese traders, missionaries and mercenaries. Kudichin, also known as Kudijeen, consists of narrow lanes (or soi) and old teak houses, including the ancestral Baan Kudichin Museum. The domed 1770 Santa Cruz Church and nearby Wat Prayurawongsawat (“Turtle Mountain Temple”) with its hollow, 60-metre stupa are open to visitors. And look for the small family bakeries that sell the European-inspired tart called khanom farang (“foreigner cake”). See baankudichinmuseum.com

There are cannabis shops everywhere

In 2022 Thailand surprised the world, and itself, by radically loosening its previously strict marijuana laws. Cannabis-based products, supposedly for “medical use only”, were soon on sale across the kingdom in glitzy shops, kerbside vans and street stalls. A new conservative government now hopes, belatedly, to legislate the billion-dollar genie back into its bottle. Whatever the outcome and your herbal inclinations, don’t even think about exporting anything.

It’s home to the world’s largest outdoor shopping mall

Chatuchak Market, the world’s largest and most diverse weekend market.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Chatuchak Weekend Market is the world’s largest, busiest, noisiest and allegedly best-bargain marketplace of all. Catch the SkyTrain north to Mo Chit to find this Mecca for impulse purchasers. With more than 15,000 stalls covering 14 hectares and selling everything from jewels, curios and pets to amulets and electronics, you’ll need extra bags to lug home the loot. It’s always a long weekend at Chatuchak, which trades full-tilt from Wednesday to Sunday. See chatuchakmarket.org

History lives in the side streets

The dowager Atlanta Hotel sits amid its considerable memories down Soi 2 Sukhumvit Road. The classic Bauhaus-deco lobby is unchanged from the 1950s, when this was the place to dine in Bangkok. A 1962 photograph shows the young King Rama IX playing saxophone there with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. The menu in the hotel’s original LA-style diner declares: “Typically, the Atlanta is not moving with the times.” See theatlantahotelbangkok.com

Hotel California isn’t played here

The Bamboo Bar at the Mandarin Oriental.

Forget the chrome pole clubs or beer bars still playing The Eagles, Bangkok has plenty of cool musical watering holes. The Saxophone Jazz and Blues Pub at the Victory Monument has delivered live Thai-Latino-whatever jazz, good drinks and great atmosphere with no cover charge or go-go dancers since 1987 (saxophonepub.com). Meanwhile, upmarket and down by the river, the Mandarin Oriental’s elegant Bamboo Bar stirs smoky jazz into your late-night cocktail musings (mandarinoriental.com). Something similar happens high above the river at the Millennium Hilton’s ThreeSixty Bar. See hilton.com

A street corner named devotion

Visitors pray and leave offerings at Erawan Shrine.Credit: Getty Images

Erawan Shrine in front of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel is renowned as Bangkok’s most wish-fulfilling shrine. Day and night, Thais from all walks of life make offerings before its centrepiece, a four-faced golden Brahma statue. They pray for wealth, health, education or business success, or give thanks for prayers answered. Traditional dancers often perform here. Visitors welcome, respectful photography appreciated. See erawanbangkok.com

The world’s most beautiful boatshed

The National Museum of Royal Barges houses the Crown’s fleet of gilded, ceremonial vessels.Credit: Getty Images

The National Museum of Royal Barges, the most beautiful boatshed in the world, houses the Crown’s fleet of gilded, ceremonial vessels. These works of art with swan-necked prows and mythological figureheads glide out on rare occasions for the extraordinary Royal Barge Procession, when they parade, rowed by chanting sailors, past the Grand Palace and its dreaming spires. The barge museum, on the west bank in Bangkok Noi, displays these intricate vessels. Watch as artisans maintain them. See tourismthailand.org

It’s still a backpacker mecca

Khao San Road, illuminated at night.Credit: Getty Images

Khao San Road, unofficial world backpacker HQ, gained fame last century with Alex Garland’s novel (and subsequent Hollywood movie) The Beach. “The main function for the street was as a decompression chamber … a halfway house between East and West,” he wrote. It still is. KSR endures, with the dreads-and-tatts crew sharing space with flashpackers and selfie-obsessives. By night the street is closed to traffic and becomes a free-range party zone. Explore it for music in clubs like Brick Bar. Above all, decompress. See thethaiger.com

The nicknames are delightful

Don’t be surprise to meet, for instance, a woman called Pla (meaning Fish) or another named Porn. Because formal Thai names can seem as long as a stretch limo, many Thais adopt a short, convenient nickname. Foreigners will be surprised to meet someone called Poo (Crab), Meaw (Cat), Moo (Pig) or Gai (Chicken). As for Porn, forget any preconceptions; it’s an auspicious name, meaning blessing or grace. Thais sometimes translate their nicknames into English and you might find yourself chatting with Glass (Kaew), Smile (Yim) or Snack (Khanom), or perhaps plain Pop (as in music).

It’s easy to get high, literally

MahaNakhon’s vertigo-inducing glass-bottomed skywalk.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Great City of Angels lets you brush wings with its namesake celestial spirits via its rooftop bars. From up there you can muse, cocktail in hand, on the glittering street circuitry below or the looping calligraphy of the river as it signs off on its long run to the sea. In this city without hills, vertigo is a rare sensation, except at the MahaNakhon skyscraper. As Thailand’s tallest building it trumps the skybars with its 78th-floor skywalk, the city’s highest public point. Defy your survival instincts by stepping out onto its glass deck and then looking 310 vertiginous metres down to the toy town cars below. See kingpowermahanakhon.co.th

Tuk-tuks are for tourists (and more expensive than taxis)

Once is enough...Credit: Getty Images

Probably, yes. The iconic tuk-tuk (proper name samlor, “three-wheel”) functions today mostly as a tourist rattle-trap. They’re unmetered, wind-in-your-hair fun, for sure. A first-time hoot. Until the end of the trip when, if you didn’t first agree on the fare, the driver is charging you whatever he likes. For farang (foreigners), they’re usually more expensive than a metered taxi. Go local, live like a Thai, catch the SkyTrain, Metro or ferry – all faster and cheaper than a tuk-tuk, even if less Insta fun.

Thailand didn’t invent massage, but perfected it

Skip the fluffy rub-downs and five-orchid spa sessions. Try the real thing, where many Thai therapists learn their basics, at Wat Pho temple’s 70-year-old Thai Traditional Massage School. Massage as developed here is included on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. For $20, a skilled trainee will turn your shoulder knots to noodles during an hour of pummelling, prodding and stretching. While you’re at Wat Pho, visit its famous, 46-metre long, gold-plated Reclining Buddha. watpomassage.com

It has the world’s wettest new year celebration

Songkran Festival – don’t hit the streets wearing anything you can’t afford to have soaked.Credit: iStock

Songkran, the world’s wettest new year. Thailand’s traditional new year falls in mid-April. Once the first jet of water hits your neck, things can descend into days of being drenched anytime you set foot outside. As a farang, you are an affectionate “mark”, so don’t hit the streets wearing or carrying anything you can’t afford to have soaked. You’ve stepped into the middle of the world’s biggest water fight. Should you become a target, don’t bother to plead: you’re painting an even bigger bull’s eye on yourself. Often the most indiscriminate water-bombers are inebriated, newbie tourists trying to “go local”.

The river commute is a fast and furious ride

Cruise Khlong Saen Saep at top speeds.Credit: Getty Images

Khlong Saen Saep, built between 1837 and 1840, snakes its way through the city. Hop aboard a rocket and see how some Bangkokians get to the office. The skinny, 15-metre-long, 50-seat canal ferries rip along the muddy waters, making Formula One-speed pit stops at the khlong’s 18 wharves. Leap – almost literally – on and off whenever you dare. A conductor collects fares as the projectile travels the 18-kilometre route. Blasting past temples and shacks, mansions and malls, it’s your cheap-as-chips tour of the real Bangkok’s backdoors. See transitbangkok.com

The Risky Market is called “risky” for good reason

Talad Rom Hub, or The Risky Market, dissected by a working railway line.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Talat Rhom Hoop – literally “Closing Umbrella Market” – sounds curious enough, but its English name is more ominous – The Risky Market. You look up to see why: a locomotive is bearing down on you amid the market stalls. Their trackside awnings suddenly retract. You press yourself against a wall, flat as a Peking duck, with the train rumbling by, inches away. The fishing port of Samut Songkhram, also known as Mae Khlong, 80 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, is home to this death-defying shopping excursion and its 33-kilometre Mae Khlong-Mahachai railway, the shortest line in Thailand. See thaiest.com

One of the world’s longest roads runs through it

Hail a taxi on Sukhumvit and say: “To the end of the road, please.” Four hundred and ninety kilometres later you’ll be at Cambodia. Thanon Sukhumvit, Bangkok’s boulevard of dreams and schemes, is not only the country’s longest thoroughfare but one of the world’s longest main roads. Until the mid-1960s, rice paddies and aristocratic estates bordered it. Novelist and composer S.P. Somtow recalled his family enclave there as “our remote little island kingdom on Sukhumvit Road”. The rip-roaring progress monster that ate old Bangkok soon consumed the agriculture and enchantment alike.

It’s home to the world’s narrowest Chinatown alley

Bangkok is said to be home to the largest diaspora Chinatown in the world. Which might make Soi Itsara Nuphap, between Yaowarat and Charoen Krung roads, the skinniest Chinatown alley of almost anywhere. Inch your way along as it pinches down to a two-metre-wide crush of food stalls, handcarts, shoppers, monks, motorbike delivery drivers, grandmothers, schoolkids and bargain hunters. Ten minutes later you pop out at the other end, having sampled a parallel Thai-Chinese universe at very close quarters. Celebrate with a pickled egg. Watch your wallet. See bangkoktourismguide.com