I am embarassed to say that in my 5 previous visits to BKK I have never taken a klong tour! So on our upcoming stay there in Feb I thought we would give it a go! So how do you organize this and is there particular areas we should ask to be taken? Any other tips. Thanks in advance
J

jules39
I just took my first klong tour Monday of this week, so it's still very fresh in my mind. It was a great experience, very high on our list of what we enjoyed about visiting BKK. You can easily find a "packaged" klong tour anywhere along the river or at the market near the Grand Palace. There are several water taxi stops and at and around them people will spot the big "T" for tourist on your forehead and come up to you and show you a paper with a map of the river and the tours they can give you for one or two hours depending on what you want to see. Or you can just go to the water taxi stops and there are booths set up with assorted Klong Tourist trips you can purchase. You can also get a Chao Phraya Tourist Boat One Day River Pass or 100 Baht which is good from 9:30 to 15:00. You get a Travel Guide Book with your ticket that shows all the river piers, info about the sights you'll see and it also has a Skytrain Map.

Upon the advise in an old thread on this board rather than take the established tour, we took a water taxi to the Oriental Hotel Pier and asked the boatman there to arrange a private klong tour for us. He will ask where you want to go, how long you want to go for and where you want to be brought back to. He tells you a price, then gets you your own longtail boat and "driver" and tells him in Thai all the info you just discussed with him. Don't expect the driver to converse with you unless you know Thai. He's only the driver, not the guide.

We decided on two hours and there were 4 of us and it cost 500 Baht per couple for the trip. Based on info on my Fodors 2006, I asked to travel some smaller klongs and Klong Bankgok Noi and Klong Bangkok Yai, the Royal Barge Museum and a visit to Khoo Wiang Floating Market (but was told it wasn't open, not too sure about what that was about, but not knowing any better I said OK) and the Pak Khlong vegetable and flower market. Shortly after we began our tour the boat stopped at a pier and we were told to get out, we were not sure why but the driver said "market". I thought it was a floating market but it wasn't, we got out anyway and decided to look around. It was obviously not a regular tourist stop but a large working market where goods were brought in and distributed. It was very interesting and photo worthy. Further along the street was the flower area which was quite beautiful. Since the Loi Krathong Festival was taking place that week (actual event was today, November 16!) the market was filled with all the makings for the floating flower offerings used for that celebration, quite beautiful.

Back on the klong we saw how the river people lived and worked and it was very interesting. With a stop to visit the Royal Barge Museum for as long as you want to visit. (you purchase your ticket for I think 30 Baht per person plus 100 Baht to take a still camera or 200 Baht to take a video camera inside the museum). It took exactly two hours to get back to the Central Pier where we planned to take the Skytrain for the second part of our day to visit the Central Shopping Area (but that's another story in itself).

We had a general plan on what we wanted to do, but don't get too hung up on details and make an exact itinerary b/c it doesn't always work out the way you plan it. Just go with the flow, no pun intended . Things don't always go exactly the way you plan them so if you fret about your plan and agonize over how and what to do, it's too stressful. Whatever you do will be a great experience.

Hope I wasn't too windy, but that this info will be helpful.
MaryAnn

i have been twice...the first time i went to the local pier on the opposite side of the shangri-la hotel from taskim pier and asked for a tour of the thornburi klongs....we haggled about the price and were off...the second time i asked the bell captain at the marriott to call a boat for me...he did and it was there in 10 minutes....this guy was a bit more difficult and held us up for extra money but it was peanuts really...

the two places i have seen boats offered lately are in the station at taskim and down on the pier under taskim...they have a little table with maps...the other place is the kiosk behind the river city shopping center...prices seem to be 400-500 B per hour per boat, not per person or per couple...so you can have quite a few people if you want---6 maybe??? or 1 if you want...

sometimes the driver will point a few things out to you but not often....just sit back and enjoy...its loud by the way...the huge engines are fully exposed above the water with no mufflers....kids love it...usually there is a small tarp over the top to shield you from the sun...wear confortable clothes...slacks are suggested...

Very useful thread, so I'm topping it.

I think I may have given the wrong impression on price of our klong tour. It wasn't 500 Baht per couple it was actually just 500 Baht per hour, just happened to be two couples. Bob is correct, cost is not based by number of people, just by amount of time booked.

We had originally asked a boatman at the Marriott if he could get us a private longtail, but he really did't understand us, so we opted to just hop on the Marriott boat and go up river a bit and start from there. Worked out fine.

I've always booked mine at the Oriental and at this point talk to the boatman at the pier about what I want to see-- last time asked that he tell the driver to take me to smaller klongs etc because I'd done the typical tourist ones etc.

For a first klong trip I would make sure you stop at Wat Arun unless you've already been there and the flower market unless you can go there after dinner when it is actually MUCH more interesting and busy. Otherwise the klongs described above are good suggestions. I do a klong trip once a trip which means I've done it 18 times. For me it is always a high point of the trip and it's been fascinating to see how the klongs have changed over the last 20 years.

We are planning a klong tour when we go in February - would it make sense to set it up so that we could include Wat Arun at sunset (for photos)? or should we just do the whole tour during daylight hours?

Wat Arun is a fabulous temple -- actually my favorite in Bangkok and I would think you would want to be there in the day to see the detail of the building. But if you arrange to end there about 45 minutes before sunset that should work well. Just do it on the way back to the hotel because you want to be able to see the shore on your trip,

Gloria, we visited Wat Arun on our last trip - Not that it wouldn't be worth seeing up close again, but I think we'd rather spend most of the time touring the klongs - don't know if that would change your advice.

I checked the web site Gloria - it is a tented "camp" in the Golden Triangle 1-1/2 hours from Chiang Rai near the border between Mai Sai and Chiang Saen.

Whoops - meant to post the above on another thread...

Thank you very much everyone. This is all great info.

J

it is also very easy to arrive at wat arun via taxi which i have done twice now so you can really get there at any hour you want...might they close down the grounds at some time??

one other thing i ment to mention yesterday is that divediva did a klong trip recently and she said that the boatmen charged them individually....this is not the norm, but obviously there are some enterprising people out there....

So, I would assume that the "tourist" things to do on a klong tour are the temples, the flower market, the barge museum, and the snake farm?

We have not been on a klong tour, but have been to Arun and the palace and plan on visiting the flower market on foot. We really want to take a klong tour to get a feel for how Thais live and interact with the river. So, do we ask to just visit some smaller klongs? How do we communicate this to the boatman?

We did a similar "boat" tour on the south side of Hong Kong island (don't remember the town) where there was a large boat community, with people that had never even set foot on land. Just touring around and getting a glimpse into how people in a different culture live was absolutely incredible. This is what we want our BKK klong tour to be...

You have the person who gets you the boat communite your wishes. Most of the drivers I've had speak very little english.

i think if you avoid the central pier area...the price will be much less. both at the central pier tourist desk and at the shangri-la, we had no choice but to pay per person. it was hot and we were tired so we decided to pay and not shop around any more.

last year, it cost us 1/2 as much...we paid per hour not per person. either way...it was worth it both times.

on our two trips we made only one stop and that was at the royal barges....the drivers did ask us if we wanted to stop here and there and we said no thank you, especially at the restaurants....btw you cannot get too close to them (the barges), at least when we visited both times you were held back by a fence, which made picture taking quite difficult, but you could get a good view of them....i did my water arrival at wat arun at a different time....

the klongs i have visited have all been in thornburi, the side of the river where the marriott and the peninsula and the new hilton are located....i just pointed to the other side and he took us there....there is plenty to see along the way: kids swimming (ugh), ladies washing dishes (we saw a boy peeing right next to where his mother was washing the dishes---ugh, ugh),fabulous houses, houses falling apart and almost unlivable, small riverside restaurants, tropical gardens, small wats, the naval college as you re-enter into the river and a great view along the river itself....

i think the tour is pretty standard...

we even had a quick rainstorm on our way back to the hotel the last time...

the main flower market is near to china town and that can be done totally seperately...you can arrive at it via a chao payra express boat if you want or via foot or taxi...many feel a nite time visit is best...i have only been during the day...

We visited the Royal Barges on Monday. I had assumed they were out on the river and you just drove up next to them and looked at them in maybe a cordoned off area. Not sure were that notion came from, but they were actually floating in sort of long canals under a roofed area, kind of like a very large garage if you will. There were sidewalks on either side of them that you could walk along with signs telling about how many oarsmen and crew they held, when they were built etc. There were approx. 8 of them and you could actulally get right next to them look at the intricate work and take photos. You probably only need to allow 20-30 minutes to visit them properly.

things have totally changed in two years from this description then....both times we were there all the boats were out of the water and up on cradles under a shed type building...the shed was fenced off so you could not enter...sounds like a great improvement....there were not descriptions as i remember either...

We took a klong tour last week, on the Thornburi side.

This may stir up a hornet's nest, but it was depressing to me.

You can name other blighted areas (and I have seen others), but it was still depressing.

Having said that, I wouls still recommend a tour. It is reality. It is Bangkok.