Suburban Escapes in Bangkok
A visual guide from the Bangkok travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Ten minutes by longtail across the Chao Phraya from Klong Toey and the noise stops. Bang Krachao is a teardrop of swamp forest inside a river meander, still largely unbuilt, laced with narrow concrete paths raised on stilts above the mangroves — you rent a bike at the landing and ride for hours under coconut palms with the Sathorn towers showing over the treeline. It is the clearest example of something Bangkok does unusually well: real countryside sitting fifteen minutes from a business district, reached by boat rather than motorway.
Across the water
For Bang Krachao, boats cross from Klong Toey pier to Bang Nam Pheung, where bike rental shops sit right at the steps. Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park has a lake, a lookout tower and enough shade to survive midday; the Bang Nam Pheung market runs at weekends and is a food market rather than a boat one. Further upriver in Nonthaburi, Koh Kret is a small island settled by Mon potters, with unglazed earthenware workshops, a lane of snack stalls and a two-minute ferry from Wat Sanam Nuea. Both reward a weekday morning, when the paths are empty and the heat has not built.
Out by rail and road
The BTS Sukhumvit line now runs deep into Samut Prakan, which puts the Erawan Museum's enormous three-headed elephant and the Ancient City's scale-model heritage park within about an hour of the centre. Bang Pu's seaside pier draws migratory gulls roughly between November and April. South-west, Samut Songkhram holds the Maeklong railway market, where awnings fold back as the train edges through the stalls, and Amphawa's canal market, liveliest Friday to Sunday evenings with firefly boats after dark. Ayutthaya's ruins are around ninety minutes by train from Krung Thep Aphiwat station.