Bangkok: I had no idea what to expect coming here. While I was super excited about Thailand in general—the food, the beaches, the jungles, the mountains—I felt largely lukewarm about visiting the capital city.

What I had heard included that Bangkok was extremely trafficky, loud, and overwhelming. Doesn’t exactly sound all that pleasant. But really, aren’t most big cities somewhat like that? So if you don’t love cities, maybe it isn’t the place for you—but Vikram and I love cities, and we both fell in love with Bangkok. (And even if you don’t love cities, still give Bangkok a few days if you ever visit Thailand!)

A lot of the charm in Bangkok is just from wandering around. It’s pretty easy to escape the traffic and busy roads, both on foot and by boat. Even around some of the major tourist attractions, we found pleasant and quiet side streets to traverse across neighborhoods and observe local life—families preparing lunch, taking care of children, putting laundry out. We came across many lanes full of shops selling Buddha statues of various sizes, and another street dedicated entirely to woodcraft. One alley took us to a canal, where we found a relatively small and unassuming floating market.

Riding along these canals offers another vantage point to see local life, while moving effortlessly and cheaply across the city without any traffic.

Bangkok also boasts incredibly impressive temples. We first visited the Wat Phra Kaew, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and located on the grounds of the royal Grand Palace. When I first laid eyes on the temple complex, despite being surrounded by hordes of tourists, I literally exclaimed “Oh!!” from how beautiful and amazing the sight was. (Then a few seconds later, another tourist came up behind me and had the exact same reaction.) The temples and stupas in Wat Phra Kaew are adorned in gold and colorful tiles, creating a sparkling scene that overwhelms the senses and inspires awe.

We also visited Wat Pho, a smaller temple area just five minutes away from Wat Phra Kaew. While still being a top tourist site, it was much calmer and less crowded. The (literally) big sight here is the reclining Buddha—an incredible 150 feet long—that depicts the moment Buddha entered nirvana.

And Bangkok is more than just temples—here are some other great attractions we enjoyed:

• Muay Thai Boxing: Muay Thai is the traditional Thai boxing sport. We attended a series of matches at the Rajadamnern stadium, sitting in the third-class section with mostly locals who got very excited about gambling. Experiencing that side of Muay Thai (while sipping beer through a straw) was just as much fun as actually watching the fight!

• Vimanmek Mansion: This former royal residence is now a museum that is fun to explore, learn about how the royal family used to live, and admire the mix of western and eastern architectural influences. Large tour groups do pass through here, but we were lucky to have it almost entirely to ourselves when we came by one afternoon.

• Jim Thompson House: This museum showcases the traditional Thai house built by Jim Thompson, an American expat who helped expand the silkweaving business in Thailand. The house is an architectural pleasure and features a lot of beautiful art pieces.

And of course, the Thai food did not disappoint. Tons of street food stalls surrounded our hostel, providing us with cheap, easy, and tasty dinners. At all times of the night and day, somewhere will be open to serve you food. As some locals we met told us, Thai people don’t have set mealtimes—they just eat when they’re hungry. (Sounds like a good plan to me.)

We dined multiple times at the Thip Samai, the best Pad Thai joint in town, and we stumbled upon the most delicious tom yum soup at a random stall in the MBK Food Island (a fancy name for a mall’s food court).

We also enjoyed the bar and nightlife scene. One night, we ventured to Khao San Road, infamous for their crazy clubs and bars that cater primarily to young backpackers ready to party all night—one drink and a bit of people-watching here was enough for us! Otherwise, we preferred the Sukhomvit Soi 11 area, which had tons of open-aired bars with a more relaxed but still fun environment.

And really what made our time in Bangkok perfect was staying at Niras Bankoc Cultural Hostel. While on the pricier side for backpacking, it is still our favorite hostel of the trip so far. The downstairs cafe was the perfect retreat during hot afternoons to relax, chat with other guests and the friendly staff, and sip on Thai milk tea.

Travel Notes

• Traffic can be bad, especially during rush hour, but the canals and metro are really easy, cheap, and accessible across the city. A ride on the canal costs only 10 baht, and metro rides range around 20-50 baht, depending on where you’re going. Taxis can be reasonable if it’s not rush hour—we never spent more than 100 baht ($3 USD) going anywhere in the city. Just make sure that they turn the meter on!
• Tickets to enter the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew cost 500 baht; this also includes entry to Vivanmek Mansion with seven days, located separately. All of these royal grounds have strict dress codes: women must wear pants or skirts well below the knee, and running pants don’t count. They do have skirts you can borrow for a deposit you get back.
• Tickets to enter Wat Pho cost 100 baht.
• Watch out for this common scam around the temples: a friendly local will ask if you need help or proactively offer help (like telling you which direction the Wat Pho temple is), but then follow it up by saying that it’s closed today and you should check this other place out instead. It’s not closed, it’s a scam, and you should just walk away!
• Tickets to enter the Jim Thomspon House cost 150 baht and include a guided tour. (You can only go into the house on a tour, but you can explore the grounds at your leisure.)
• The cheapest Muay Thai tickets at Rajadamnern stadium are the third-class tickets for 1000 baht. This gets you into the section furthest back, though it’s still pretty close to the action (the stadium isn’t that big.) It seemed that the majority of the first-class seats were taken by tourists, which I’m sure is cool to see the action close-up but you miss out on the exciting gambling going on with the locals in the second- and third-class seats! (And you pay a ton more.) Tickets were easy to buy right before the match.
• Street food ran us anywhere from 25-100 baht per meal and was pretty much always delicious. The mall food courts are also surprisingly great, since many of them are actually former street stalls that became really popular and successful. Mall food costs around 100-150 baht per meal.
• Stay at Niras Bankoc Cultural Hostel!