Bangkok's temple morning takes four hours. After that, most visitors run out of ideas, which is a shame because the rest of the city is where it gets interesting.
Bang Krachao
An undeveloped green peninsula in a bend of the river, reached by a ten-minute boat from Klong Toey pier.
Hire a bicycle at the landing and ride raised concrete paths through jungle, gardens and stilt houses. There is a park, a floating market on weekends, and almost no traffic.
Twenty minutes from the centre and it feels like another country. The best half day in Bangkok.
The river
The Chao Phraya express boat — 16–33 baht, public transport, and the best sightseeing in the city.
Ride it end to end. The piers serve the old city, Chinatown, the flower market and the modern riverside developments.
The cross-river ferries cost a few baht and reach Thonburi's canals, which are a different Bangkok entirely.
Markets
Chatuchak, weekends, around 15,000 stalls — plants, vintage clothing, food, ceramics. Go in the morning before the heat, and expect to get lost.
Pak Khlong Talat, the flower market, busiest at night when the deliveries arrive.
Sampeng Lane in Chinatown, narrow and wholesale.
Talad Rot Fai, the night market, for vintage and food.
Eating
Chinatown (Yaowarat) after dark, when the street food stalls set up along the main road. The single best eating in the city.
Mall food courts — Terminal 21, EmQuartier, MBK — which sound unpromising and hold a lot of good Thai food. Card system: load at a counter, spend at stalls, refund the balance.
Street stalls at 40–80 baht a dish. The queues of Thai office workers at lunchtime are the recommendation.
A cooking class, which includes a market visit and is among the best-value activities in Thailand.
Indoors, for the hot hours
Jim Thompson House — the American silk merchant's teak compound, guided, an hour.
The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, free, near the National Stadium BTS.
A Thai massage at the Wat Pho school, an hour for a fraction of a hotel price.
The neighbourhoods
Ari — cafés, small restaurants, and where young Bangkok lives.
Thonglor and Ekkamai — the bar and restaurant strip.
Talad Noi, near Chinatown — old shophouses, scrapyards and street art.
Evening
Rooftop bars, with dress codes and a view worth the drink price.
Lumphini Park at dusk, with monitor lizards.
A Muay Thai fight at one of the main stadiums, which is a genuine spectacle rather than a tourist show.
Practical
BTS, MRT and river boats avoid the traffic; taxis do not.
Book day trips locally, the day before, for roughly half the online price.
The temple closed scam — someone says the Grand Palace is shut and offers a tuk-tuk itinerary. It is not shut.