ICONSIAM
A riverside mall, with a recreated floating market on the ground floor.
Duration
1 hr 30 min – 3 hrs
Best time
in the late afternoon
Open
Every day, 10am – 10pm
Entry price
Free
ICONSIAM opened in 2018 on the west bank, facing the business district. It is a shopping mall, and that could be the end of it — except that its ground floor, SookSiam, recreates a market of Thailand's seventy-seven provinces under a timber roof, with stalls selling each region's speciality.
It is artificial and makes no secret of it, but it is the only place in Bangkok where you taste in an hour what would otherwise take a month on the road. Prices there are market prices, not those of the floors above.
The river frontage hosts a fountain show every evening, and the terrace has the clearest view of the Chao Phraya and the Sathorn towers.
Getting there
Free shuttle boat from Sathorn (BTS Saphan Taksin) and Si Phraya piers, every ten minutes. It is the nicest way in, and it costs nothing.
Rules on site
Shop prices are those of a luxury mall. The ground floor, though, is a covered market at ordinary prices — that is where to eat.
Other places in Bangkok
- Grand Palace and Wat Phra KaewThe former royal residence and the Emerald Buddha, inside the same walls.
- Wat Pho, the Reclining BuddhaForty-six metres of reclining Buddha, and the country's oldest school of Thai massage.
- Wat Arun, the Temple of DawnThe porcelain spire on the west bank, at its best in the setting sun.
Chatuchak MarketThousands of stalls, weekends only. You come to get lost in it, not to tick off a list.