This is my sixth visit to Bangkok. That alone should tell you it’s worth visiting. In fact, I’m not even planning to visit any other part of Thailand this trip. I’m dedicating my entire time here to getting to know all of the off the beaten path things I’ve glimpsed on previous visits while on my way to tour the city’s more popular highlights.

Bangkok has delighted me since my first visit, which is wonderful because I almost abandoned my plans to come here after a two week trip to India. India was the first non-European country I’d visited, and I was overwhelmed. The chaos, the filth, and the deceptiveness left me feeling miserable, and I considered going back to Europe despite it still being winter.

Is Bangkok anything like Delhi?

I sent an email to Nomadic Matt who, back then, responded to my individual inquiries. I told him I was having a rough time of it, and I asked if he thought Thailand would be similarly difficult. He assured me it was a modern and friendly city and pretty much the opposite of what I’d experienced in India.

Matt was right, and I easily fell in love with the Venice of Asia, so named because it was pretty much built on top of a swamp, whose waters have been channeled into a series of meandering canals throughout the city. Funny that one of my other loves, Mexico City, is also built on a former swamp.

Bangkok by boat and train

It was on a visit to the Jim Thompson house that I noticed boats passing with regular frequency on a canal alongside the property. After lunch, I found a dock along the canal where boats stopped to pick up passengers. I watched a couple pass by first to figure out how the process worked. This turned out to be important because I witnessed everyone had to get on or off the boat in the time it took for the boat conductor to wrap the rope around the dock cleat and then unwrap it, about 10 seconds. After committing the process to memory, I hopped on my first canal bus to see where it would take me.

I have since found that there are at least 4 canal bus routes, and my goal this trip is to experience them all. I found a Wikipedia page that outlined all of the transportation options around Bangkok, and it became my new to do list.

In addition to the boats, the web site lists all the trains running from and around Bangkok. I’d already done the long distance routes to Chiang Mai in the north and Surat Thani in the south, but in previous years of exploring, I’d stumbled across train stations outside the city center that didn’t connect to the city’s main station. They turned out to be commuter lines taking people to and from their homes in the suburbs.

A visit to my favorite train website, Seat 61, showed that certain trains on these commuter lines had worthwhile terminus stations. One ended at the train market, known on Youtube as the station where the market opens and closes as the train passes through. Another ended at a place called Kanchanburi, more commonly known as the location of the bridge over the river Quai. And finally, I learned there was a train to the beach town of Pattaya that even the locals don’t seem to know about, but more about those excursions later.

The Sathorn district

I always stay in Sathorn district near the pier. This provides easy access to the Metro, the Chao Phraya river ferries, a supermarket, and plenty of eating options. It doesn’t have the flare of Siam Square, but it doesn’t have the price tag either, and the metro can take you to the city center in less than 20 minutes.

You’ll also find that it’s cheaper to get around town by ferry than by metro. On average, the metro costs $1.50 per trip, whereas the ferry costs 50 cents. Unlike the metro, the river ferry stops at all the most common tourist destinations like the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, and Chinatown. I’ve found a good number of locals don’t know this. On my visit last year I introduced my Bangkok friend Vora to the ferry, and being frugal, she has made a usual practice of using it ever since.

The new Hong Sieng Kong coffee shop

In fact, today I met with Vora, at the new Hong Sieng Kong coffee shop. It was the first time we’d seen each other since New Years in Bangkok last year, and she’d heard about this coffee shop from her brother who lives here year round. It did not disappoint. Located on the river, they built the coffee shop using the original building frame and the existing trees to provide decoration and shade.

I always love the marriage of old and new architecture. In this case, the designers kept the original brick frame of the building and accented it with antique furniture. With the addition of live music and great coffee, it’s appeared in many “top things to do lists” for Bangkok. There was the added bonus of discovering a perfect riverside setting once they’d cleared away all the brush and debris.

Chinatown’s art alleys

After a couple of Thai iced teas, we walked back to the ferry landing passing through the artist alley of Chinatown. A few years back, the city invested money in beautifying the back alleys of Chinatown by commissioning artists to install murals or displays. I’d done the walk on my first visit to Bangkok and remembered it being especially beautiful in the evening, and I resolved to return for a night photo shoot on this visit.

We caught the free ferry to the massive Icon Siam shopping center. This place really needs its own story, so I’ll save it for later. The important thing, for the purposes of this story, is to point out that you can travel across the river for free, or if you’re really cheap, you can daisy chain both of the free ferries to take you from Sathorn pier to Chinatown, but we’re only talking about a savings of 50 cents here. Still, there were days when that mattered to me.

Icon Siam shopping center

We grabbed a little lunch from the inside food court, which resembles a sterilized version of the famous Ko San road. It’s probably ideal as a first step to someone who has never tried street food as it’s clean and located inside a mall. You can also sit at real tables and not short plastic ones like you do at real street food stalls.

After lunch, we headed to the top floor to get dessert from Starbucks. I was going to get a cocktail to go with it, because after all, how many Starbucks also serve a manhattan? Unfortunately I’d forgotten about Thailand’s odd liquor law: no alcohol sales between 3pm and 5pm, effectively killing happy hour. It’s doesn’t just apply to bars though; supermarkets can’t sell alcohol during those hours either. A free cocktail to anyone who can help me understand where they come up with that arbitrary window.

After we finished our desserts, I admitted to Vora that I was feeling a bit of jet lag. She said she completely understood and shooed me off. I hopped on the free ferry back to Sathorn pier and headed back to my hotel. It was my first time staying at Sathorn 21, and I really liked the way it was tucked down a couple alleys. It gave me the feel of being a local, especially as I got to know the locals, some of whom appeared to spend their whole days sitting around a small plastic table in the alley eating and chatting.

I climbed the four flights to my room, turned on the AC, crawled into bed for a nap. That’s the nice thing about an extended holiday: you can overcome jet lag on your terms.