04Experiences

Markets and timber

A market, houses and boats

Chatuchak Weekend Market, on Kamphaeng Phet 2 Road in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district, is the largest market in the country. It has more than 15,000 stalls and 11,505 vendors in the 2019 count, split into 27 sections, and more than 200,000 people come each weekend. The goods run from plants and antiques to electronics, food, ceramics, furniture, clothes and books. Morning is kinder than midday, and small notes are more useful than a card in many of the lanes. On Khlong Saen Saep, the Jim Thompson House was built in 1959 from six traditional wooden houses. Many are nineteenth-century houses moved from Ayutthaya, and the largest is a weaver’s house from Bangkrua. In Ratchaburi, about 100 kilometres southwest of the capital, Damnoen Saduak is a floating market that now works mainly as a place visitors come to see. If time is short, pick one of the three: the weekend for Chatuchak, a quiet day for the wooden houses.

More than 15,000

Chatuchak stalls

1959

Jim Thompson compound