Chatuchak and the outskirts

Chatuchak Weekend Market (JJ)

With over eight thousand open-air stalls to peruse, and wares as diverse as Lao silk, Siamese kittens and designer lamps to choose from, the enormous Chatuchak Weekend Marker, or JJ as it’s usually abbreviated, from “Jatu Jak” is Bangkok’s most enjoyable – and exhausting –shopping experience. It occupies a huge patch of ground between the Northern Bus Terminal and Mo Chit Skytrain (N8)/Chatuchak Park subway station, and is best reached by Skytrain or subway if you are coming from downtown areas; Kamphaeng Phet subway station is the most convenient as it exist right into the most interesting, southwestern, corner of the market. Coming from Banglamphu, you can either get a bus to the nearest Skytrain stop (probably National Stadium or Ratchathewi) and then take the train, or take the #503 or #509 buses all the way from Rajdamnoen Klang.

Thought its primary customers are Bangkok residents in search of idiosyncratic fashions and home wares, Chatuchak also has plenty of collector and tourist-oriented stalls. Aside from Trendy one-off clothes and accessories, best buys include antique lacquerware, unusual sarongs, traditional cotton clothing and crafts from the north, jeans, silver jewellery and ceramics, particularly the five-colour bencharong. The market is divided into 26 numbered sections, plus a dozen unnumbered ones, each of them more or less dedicated to a particular genre, for example household items, young fashions, plants, second-hand books, or crafts. If you have several hours to spare, it’s fun just to browse at whim. But if you are looking for souvenirs, handicrafts or traditional textile you should start with sections 22, 24, 25 and 26, which are all in a cluster at the southwest (Kamphaeng Phet subway) end of the market; sections A, B and C, behind the market’s head office and information centre, are also full of interesting artefacts. Nancy Chandler’s Map of Bangkok and Google Maps on our website has a fabulously detailed and informatively annotated map of all the sections in the market; it’s best bought before you arrive but is available at Teak House Art in Section 2, near Kamphaeng Phet subway’s exit 2. Maps are also posted at various points around the market and for specific help you can also ask at the market office near Gate 1 off Thanon Kamphaeng Phet 2.

The market also contains a controversial wildlife section that has long doubled as a clearing-house for protected an endangered species such as gibbons, palm cockatoos and Indian pied hornbills, many of them smuggled in from Laos and Cambodia and sold to private animal collectors and foreign zoos. The illegal trade goes on beneath the counter, and may be in decline following a spate of crackdowns, but you are bound to come across fighting cocks around the back, miniature flying squirrels being fed milk though pipettes, and iridescent red and blue Siamese fighting fish, kept in individual jars and shielded from each other’s aggressive stares by sheets of cardboard.

There’s no shortage of food stalls inside the market compound, particularly at the southern end, where you will find plenty of places serving inexpensive phat thai and Isaan food. Close by these stalls is a classy little juice bar called Viva where you can rest your feel while listening to the jazz music. The biggest restaurant here is Toh Plue, whose main branch is on the edge of the block containing the market office and makes a good rendezvous point. For veggie food, head for Chamlong’s (also known as Soke), an ultra-cheap food-court-style restaurant just outside the market on Thanon Kamphaeng Phet (across Thanon Kamphaeng Phet 2; 5 mins’ walk from Kamphaeng Phet subway’s exit 1. You can change money in the market building at the south end of the market, and there are several ATMs here too. A few very small electric trams circulate around the market’s main inner ring road, transporting weary shoppers for free, thought they always seem to be full.

Muang Boran Ancient City

A day-trip out to the Muang Boran Ancient City open-air museum (daily 8am-5pm; B300, children B200 including bicycle rental or tram ticket), 33 km southeast of Bangkok is a great way to enjoy the best of Thailand’s architectural heritage in relative peace and without much effort. Occupying a huge park shaped like Thailand itself, the museum comprises more than 116 traditional Thai buildings scattered around pleasantly landscaped grounds and is best toured by rented bicycle (B50, B150/tandem, B200/three-sitter), though you can also make use of the circulating tram (B150 round trip, kids B75), and country’s most famous monuments, and are located in the appropriate “region” the park with everything from Bangkok’s Grand Palace (central region) to the spectacularly site hilltop Khmer Khao Phra Viharn sanctuary (northeast) represent here. There are also some original structures, including a rare scripture repository (library) rescued from Samut Songkhram (south), as well as some painstaking reconstruction from contemporary documents of long-vanished gems, of which the Ayutthaya-period Sanphet Prasat palace (central) is a particularly fine example. A sizeable team of restorer and skilled craftspeople maintain the building and helps keep some of the traditional techniques alive; if you come here during the week you can watch them at work.