8 Best Sights in Bangkok, Thailand

Also known as Pak Khlong Talat, the Flower Market covers several city blocks near the river and is filled with flower vendors busy around the clock. It's most interesting at night when more deliveries are heading in and out. This is where individuals and buyers for restaurants, hotels, and other businesses purchase their flowers and bargain prices. Just stroll into the warehouse areas and watch the action. Many vendors only sell flowers in bulk, but others sell small bundles or even individual flowers. As everywhere else where Thais do business, there are plenty of street stalls selling food. This very photogenic area that sees few tourists is well worth a visit.

This is one of Bangkok's most revered spots and one of its most visited. King Rama I built this walled city in 1782, when he moved the capital across the river from Thonburi. The palace and adjoining structures only got more opulent as subsequent monarchs added their own touches. The grounds are open to visitors, but the buildings are not. They're used only for state occasions and royal ceremonies. On rare occasions, rooms in the Chakri Maha Prasat Palace—considered the official residence of the king, even though he does not live here—are sometimes open to visitors. Admission for the complex includes entrance to Dusit Palace Park. Note, proper attire (no flip-flops, shorts, or bare shoulders or midriffs) is required, if you forget, you will be loaned unflattering but more demure shirts and shoes at the entrance (deposit required). You can buy tickets online.

After starting his career as an architect in New York City, Jim Thompson ended up in Thailand at the end of World War II after a stint at the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA. He eventually moved into the silk business and is credited with revitalizing the industry in Thailand. This alone would have made him a legend, but his former home is also a national treasure. Thompson imported parts of several up-country buildings, some over a century old, to construct his compound. Three of six are still exactly the same as their originals, including details of the interior layout. With true appreciation and a connoisseur's eye, Thompson furnished the homes with what are now priceless pieces of Southeast Asian art. Adding to Thompson's notoriety is his disappearance: in 1967 he went to the Malaysian Cameron Highlands for a quiet holiday and was never heard from again.

The entrance to the house is easy to miss—it's at the end of an unprepossessing lane, leading north off Rama I Road, west of Phayathai Road (the house is on your left). A good landmark is the BTS National Stadium station—the house is north of the station, just down the street from it. An informative 30-minute guided tour starts every 15 minutes and is included in the admission fee.

The grounds also include a silk and souvenir shop and a restaurant that's great for a coffee or cold-drink break.

The Thai Red Cross established this unusual and fascinating snake farm and toxicology research institute in 1923, and it is well worth a visit. Venom from cobras, pit vipers, and some of the other 56 types of deadly snakes found in Thailand is collected and used to make antidotes for snakebite victims. Venom extraction takes place on weekday mornings at 11. The snake handling show and photo op is at 2:30 on weekdays and 11 on weekends and holidays. 

This riverside spot is inspiring at sunrise, but it's even more marvelous toward dusk, when the setting sun throws amber tones over the entire area. In front of the monastery facing the river is a square courtyard containing an impressive 341-feet tall prang (Khmer-style tower), surrounded by four smaller ones. All five prangs are covered in mosaics assembled from broken Chinese porcelain originally used as ballast on ships coming from China. Energetic visitors can climb the steep steps about halfway up the main tower overlooking the Chao Phraya; the less ambitious can linger in the small riverside park.

The city's largest wat has what is perhaps the most majestic representation of the Buddha in Bangkok. The 150-foot sculpture, covered with gold, is so large it fills an entire viharn. Especially noteworthy are the mammoth statue's 10-foot feet, with the 108 auspicious signs of the Buddha inlaid in mother-of-pearl. Many people ring the bells surrounding the image for good luck. Behind the viharn holding the Reclining Buddha is Bangkok's oldest open university. A century before Bangkok was established as the capital, a monastery was founded here to teach traditional medicine. Around the walls are marble plaques inscribed with formulas for herbal cures, and stone sculptures squat in various postures demonstrating techniques for relieving pain. The monks still practice ancient cures, and the massage school is now famous. Thai massages (which can actually be painful, though therapeutic) cost around B400 for one hour. Appointments aren't necessary—you usually won't have to wait long if you just show up. Massage therapy courses of up to 200 hours are also available at a clinic nearby the temple.

This is the most sacred temple in the kingdom and no single structure within the Grand Palace elicits such awe, and no other wat in Thailand is so ornate or so embellished with glittering gold. As you enter the compound, take note of the 20-foot-tall statues of fearsome creatures in traditional battle attire standing guard. Turn right as you enter the compound, where the inner walls are lively murals depicting Thailand's national epic the Ramakien. Several kinnaree (half-woman, half-lion creatures) stand guard outside the main chapel, which has a gilded three-tier roof. Inside sits the Emerald Buddha. This most venerated image of Lord Buddha is carved from a single piece of green jasper 26 inches high.

While this temple isn't especially notable for its architecture, off to its side is a small chapel containing the world's largest solid-gold Buddha, cast about nine centuries ago in the Sukhothai style. Weighing 5½ tons and standing 10 feet high, the statue is considered a symbol of strength and power. It's believed that the statue was brought first to Ayutthaya. When the Burmese were about to sack the city, it was covered in plaster. Two centuries later, still in plaster, it was thought to be worth very little; when it was being moved to a new Bangkok temple in the 1950s, it slipped from a crane and was left in the mud by the workmen. In the morning a temple monk, who had dreamed that the statue was divinely inspired, went to see it. Through a crack in the plaster, he saw a glint of yellow. In addition to the Buddha, Wat Traimit's museum devoted to Thai-Chinese history is worth checking out.