Thonburi Is the Half of Bangkok That Has Not Been Sold Yet
The west bank of the river is older, weirder, cheaper and better than the side everyone photographs, and it is fifteen minutes on a boat from the Grand Palace.
We took the ferry from Sathorn because it was cheaper than the bridge, and got off opposite the Grand Palace, walked up a lane, and found a market selling dried squid in a temple courtyard while a school next door let out three thousand children into a car park the size of a tennis court.
It is the same river. It is an entirely different country.
Last verified 1 August 2026.
Why it is different, historically
Thonburi was the capital before Bangkok was, and remained important down to the early nineteenth century before the capital moved across the river to Bangkok. What is left is a city that grew in a different shape, for different reasons, and never quite became what the other side became.
So the architecture is different, and the commercial geography is different, and the demographic history is different, and the result is a set of neighbourhoods that feel genuinely distinct rather than like a continuation of the same place.
It is also the side the canal communities are on, in places, which gives a quite different view of how Bangkok actually works for a substantial number of its residents.
Wat Arun, from the right side
Everybody photographs Wat Arun from the east bank and almost nobody looks at it properly. This is the point of crossing.
The prang is one of the most remarkable pieces of architecture in the country, and the climb up it is the best view in Bangkok that costs less than a bowl of noodles.
But the real reason to come is the riverside neighbourhood at the foot of it, where there are old wooden houses, a riverside mosque, market stalls and a completely different texture from the tourist plaza on the other side.
Wang Lang market and the flat
The crossing at Wang Lang lands you at a market that is genuinely local, selling food, clothes and household things to people who live within walking distance.
Behind it is a riverside park, which is small, slightly shabby, full of old people sitting in the shade, and the best place in Bangkok to sit for an hour with a bag of rice porridge.
On the Sunday weekend market, the scale of it changes completely and the area becomes one of the better flea markets in the city, and it is worth checking which day you are there before you go.
Thonburi Palace
A reconstruction of an eighteenth century royal residence, and it is a good museum, small enough to actually walk through, and it is a genuinely better introduction to how the old capital worked than most people ever get.
Go early, because the grounds are exposed and the heat in April is a genuine issue, and the interiors are cool and pleasant once you are in them.
The bird market, which is a whole thing
There is a bird market in Thonburi, and it is one of the more unsettling places in Bangkok, because almost everything for sale there is wild-caught, illegally trapped, and in a cage far too small.
It is also an extraordinary place to walk through, and the reason to go is the same reason the klongs are worth riding: to see a part of the city that operates on completely different rules from the one you are planning to photograph.
I would go, look, and not buy anything, and I would be aware that the people operating those stalls are doing something that is probably going to end with the birds dead and the people prosecuted, and that you are not the person who is going to change that.
How to do it
Take a river boat, not a bridge. The Chao Phraya express boat is cheap, it is faster than the traffic, and the arrival at Wang Lang or Tha Tien is the correct way to start because you get the river in the same trip.
Plan a direction and walk it. A morning from Wang Lang along the riverside to Thonburi Palace, then back to the ferry, is a comfortable half day. Trying to cross back and forth repeatedly is a waste of time you do not have.
And combine it with a temple, because that is what the west bank is for. Wat Arun at sunset from the east bank, then the ferry across, is an evening that costs almost nothing and beats most of the paid options in the city.
What it is not
Thonburi is not the undiscovered Bangkok, and anybody telling you that is selling you something. It is heavily populated, highly built up in places, and the riverside developments along the new BTS extension are changing it fast.
What it is, is a Bangkok that has a different history and a different texture, and that is available to everyone for the price of a ferry ticket, which is the entire recommendation.
