🇹🇭 Bangkok - Thai Food, Nightlife, and Shenanigans
Having a blast in my favourite Asian city (so far)
I love Bangkok. I spent over a week here, and could have spent longer. It ticked a lot of boxes for me - the food was incredible, there was an engaged local music scene, and it was easy to get around. It’s also much more edgy and camp in parts compared to where I’ve been so far, which I really loved - it’s a very comfortable city to do whatever you want in.
Like Vietnam, I had to work a little harder than in India or Nepal to meet like-minded travellers. Thailand’s very tourist-friendly, so you get all sorts of people visiting. Connecting with locals has so far been much easier than in Vietnam, though, with many young Thai people speaking good English in Bangkok.
I ended up doing a lot over the week I was there, so this post ended up being quite long, even after I tried to limit it to the highlights. I hope you enjoy the read!
Songkran Festival
I timed my stay so that I could make it to Thailand for Songkran - the Thai New Year festival. The festival lasts 3 days, and entails splashing others with water and smearing them with clay as a symbol of blessing and protection.
There were a few main streets for celebrating the festival, and many bars and clubs held their own special events for it. You won’t be safe from the celebrations outside these places, though. I’ve gotten splashed by locals and their kids many times when just trying to go about my business.
I met up with Rain to celebrate (a friend from home who’s travelling while remote working, we also met in Hanoi) and her friend, Kar. We got some waterproof phone pouches and bought some water guns to join the madness.
Silom Road was pedestrianised for the duration of the festival and had various music stages set up. Most were playing American-flavoured EDM, which seems to be the genre of choice amongst young people.
The festival was, essentially, a massive water fight. I also couldn’t underestimate the kids - some of them had incredibly good aim. It was good fun, with laughs all around. Some roads were more packed than others, with me only braving Khao San Road (the backpacker and party street) once, only to be stuck in a tired one-way convoy.
Songkran was a fun time, but after a day, I had had enough (similarly to how I felt after celebrating Holi in Kathmandu). It also got a little treacherous biking getting Grab bikes around the city, too, with the drivers having to dodge puddles and water gun shots.
Food
The food in Bangkok is outstanding. Not only is Thai food incredible in itself, but the standard of it and the establishments that it’s served in are also high. For example, there are many boards and organisations rating food spots. The most popular ones are Shell’s Shuan Shim and the Bangkok government’s “Clean Food Good Taste” scheme. Food stalls can also only open at certain times and can only operate in certain areas, giving everything some order.
Shuan Shim is an initiative by Shell, which recognises places that serve good food (akin to Michelin’s Bib Gourmand - it was made to promote cooking with gas). These places can display a green bowl symbol as an accolade.
“Clean Food Good Taste” is awarded to places that serve tasty food, use high-quality ingredients, and meet certain hygiene standards. It’s awarded by the Bangkok local government, and its logo is a chef.
Note that I mentioned food “spots” or “establishments”, as a lot of the food I ate in Bangkok came from street food stands. With the standards being so high, I don’t need to wonder which street food stand will serve my last meal. India could take some notes.
Food tour
After enjoying the food tour I did in Hanoi so much, I found a similar one in Bangkok. I’ve been finding this to be a great way to see how the locals eat, try a bunch of dishes, and find out how to eat them. The tour ended up being fantastic, with the guide being very knowledgeable.
Bangkok is a much busier city than Hanoi, so a lot of the value from the tour came from having a runner save our spot in lines and ordering for us. I was impressed with the food we ate and how many places we ended up going to. My favourite dishes were:
Stewed pork leg from Kha Moo Tee Sam - despite being someone who avoids meat, this was some of the best pork I’ve ever had. Super tender and flavourful.
Thai green curry from Jek Pui - the best Thai green curry I’ve had. It had a lot of nuance to its flavour and a great texture. Also, while this place was featured in a street food documentary by Netflix, mainly locals were eating there.
Soy sauce ice cream - a bit of a gimmick by Deksomboon (Thailand’s most popular soy sauce brand), but the sweet and savoury worked surprisingly well.
Some oddities
With such a large variety of street food on offer, there were also some rogue options. I tried scorpion and durian for the first time.
The scorpion didn’t have much meat to it, and you had to work to get the meat out from under the hard shell. It tasted a bit like crab and was pleasant, but it was hard work.
I’ve been curious about trying durian for a while, so I decided to finally buy some and try it. Honestly, I wasn’t a massive fan, with it tasting similarly to how it smells. The taste also lingered in my mouth for the rest of the night. I can’t really see how its smell and lacklustre taste make it so popular - maybe you had to grow up eating it to like it.
50-Year-Old Perpetual Stew
There’s a place in Bangkok that’s been serving the same batch of soup since 1976. It’s called Wattana Panich. I’ve been really curious to try it, reminding me of this guy on Instagram who’s cultivating his own perpetual stew.
In contrast to the perpetual stew guy, the chef of this place balances the flavour of the stew daily, maintaining the stew that was started by his father. I got a bowl of the stew, which contained a few floating bits of beef and miscellaneous vegetables.
The stew was rich, thick, and fatty. If you didn’t tell me that the soup was 50 years old, I probably wouldn’t notice, but there was depth to the flavour if you paid attention to it. It’s still soup in the end, but it was a fun experience to visit.
Cooking class
After doing a cooking class in Hanoi, which included meat, I thought I’d go for a vegan one instead in Bangkok, as I never cook with meat. There was one that was particularly well-rated - May Kaidee. I’m glad I chose it, as it ended up being so much more than just a cooking class.
The cooking itself was great. The teacher, Jenny, was really fun and taught well. The food we ended up making was also incredible. I’ve never had massaman curry before, and I made it here for the first time, and it’s now my favourite Thai dish. I’ve been ordering it everywhere.
Throughout the class, we sang this Thai song that we had been given the lyrics of about Thai food.
Later on, the owner, May, joined us. She’s a character. She lives in New York, where she owns another restaurant, and this was her first time back in Thailand in 8 years. She would spontaneously break out into song and dance, and is probably the most unintentionally funny person I’ve ever met due to how she speaks English.
May also had some traditional Thai clothes on for Songkran, and got us to dress up too. That eventually escalated to her teaching us traditional Thai dances out on the street, and one of the chefs livestreaming the whole thing on Instagram. Locals also joined in, and a policeman on a bike recorded a fair bit of us dancing. I expect to be granted prolonged visa-free entry when I come back.
Fish and chips crisps
To close off the food section, I got some limited edition “English-style fish & chips” flavour Lays crisps in 7-Eleven. I’m unsure how they managed to mess up so badly, but the crisps tasted like sour cream and neither fish nor chips. I’d buy them again.
Unhinged activities
Other than the 50-year-old soup, Bangkok was home to a bunch of other strange things I had to do.
Cum coffee
I’ve had the coffee shop called “cum” pop up on my Instagram explore page a few times over the last few years. Since then, it’s become my mission to check it out when I’m in Bangkok. I was particularly intrigued as the name sounded ridiculous, and yet the coffee shop itself seemed pretty fancy.
The coffee shop ended up being one of the boujeeeiest places I’ve gone to for a long time, with prices to match. The drinks were pretty fun - I got a matcha that had the whole inside of a coconut popped on top.
As to the name, it’s supposed to mean “with” in Latin, as in the context of “cafe-cum-office”, as they offer a coworking space. With Thai pronunciation, the name is pronounced more like “coom”, sounding like “funny” in Thai. The owners kinda messed up, but are leaning into it now.
Staneemeehoi
Staneemeehoi is a seafood restaurant where all the male staff wear women’s night gowns. Every 30 minutes or so, they’d put on a show, going around the tables and dancing with and around the patrons.
This was great fun. The food was good, too, even though it really didn’t have to be, as I’m sure they’d get enough people visiting for the show.
Sightseeing
There are a lot of temples in Bangkok. Wat Arun was my favourite, which is a Khmer-style Buddhist temple with lots of intricate details.
The most interesting landmark I found was the Mae Nak Shrine. I found out about it through Atlas Obscura, and it really intrigued me. To paraphrase, it’s a shrine dedicated to a ghost bride, Mae, and her unborn child. Her husband was sent to war, and in the meantime, the bride died. When her husband returned, Mae and their child were ghosts, and only later did her husband realise. The story then goes a bit crazy with Mae terrorising the town, and being repeatedly captured in a jar and escaping.
The locals were offering various offerings to the shrine and whispering things in Mae’s ear. There were also jars with numbered ping pong balls on the side, which you could take out to suggest numbers to play in the national lottery (note that most forms of gambling are illegal in Thailand, with this being one of the only legal forms).
There was also a nearby lake, which was teeming with fish. You can release fish and turtles into it as offerings. Interestingly, there were many people on the side selling fish and turtles that you could buy and release into the river yourself. I guess there’s some business in people buying the animals, releasing them into the river, and someone fishing them back out to resell.
The whole shrine had a very eerie feeling to it, with the walls being plastered with paintings of Mae and her unborn child. There were also no other foreigners when I went there, apart from Rain and me. I loved it.
Live Muay Thai
The Rajadamnern Muay Thai Stadium is the world’s first Muay Thai stadium, and it hosts fights every night. I was curious, so I got some people together from Hostelworld and went with them. The tickets were well-priced if you got the cheapest seats, and honestly, the cheapest ones were really good.
I didn’t expect to enjoy the fights as much as I did. Everything in the stadium was really well designed, and it felt like being in an IMAX cinema, with incredible sound and lights. My whole group ended up rooting for their favourites towards the end, and I’m very curious to try Muay Thai now (although I’ll likely be terrible at it).
They also had American-style karaoke breaks and dance cams, which I thought were a fun touch. I’d highly recommend coming here if you’re in Bangkok; your entire evening will be sorted.
Art
I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA BANGKOK). It’s my favourite gallery that I’ve been to while travelling so far. It has a huge variety of art over many floors, focusing on Thai artists. The space itself was also well designed and looked great in itself.
Bangkok itself has many areas with prominent brutalist architecture. I loved getting lost amongst the concrete.
Nightlife
When I was in Hanoi, I wrote a post specifically dedicated to the nightlife there. I went out twice while in Bangkok, and with the scene being so much more developed than in Hanoi, I didn’t find it to be too dissimilar from going out in Europe. Given this, I’ll talk about nightlife here and not in a separate post.
Clarisa Kimskii at Bar Temp
Clarisa Kimskii was playing in a bar/club around the corner from where I was staying in Chinatown (RA event link). I’ve listened to her sets before, and she plays a flavour of techno that I’m fond of, with a good bit of variety and groove. Chinatown itself has proved to be a fantastic location to stay - it’s central, offers great food options at all times, and is near to cool bars and nightlife.
The night was set in a venue that reminded me a little of The Glove That Fits in London. It was small and intimate, featuring a bar with a limited menu and a small outdoor smoking area. The crowd was in their late 20s to 30s and felt dedicated. It also seemed to mostly consist of locals, which I missed in Hanoi.
I had a great night, with the residents playing a sound that closely matched Clarissa’s. The club was low-lit, and the sound system was tuned for the space perfectly, perhaps lacking a little in the low end. For such an easily accessible night, I couldn’t complain.
Many of the same aspects of Asian clubs that I experienced in Hanoi also persisted - there was AC, and drinking water was expensive.
DJ Sweed and bunnyman.dogs at Trinity Mall
I stayed in Bangkok to make this night. I found out about these DJs just by researching nights from RA, and both of these DJs aligned closely with my taste and were Bangkok-based (RA link). Both have a bass-heavy sound, edging into the experimental, blending techno with some electro. I particularly enjoyed listening to this bunnyman.dogs set, and was eager to see him live as a result.
I’m unsure what the venue was called. It’s under a mall called “Trinity Mall”, and its name is just the street address. It was obvious that I was in the right place after seeing the neon sign.
The club was nowhere near full and had a lot of space to dance. It also had many areas to sit down and relax in, providing comfy sofas, which were much appreciated. The lighting was nice and subdued, complemented by artificial smoke. The sound system, like in Bar Temp, was a little light on the lows, but otherwise provided a precise sound. I slightly missed the feeling of bass reverberating through my body, though, especially given that the music was bass-heavy.
Both of the DJs I was interested in delivered, and time flew. The residents were also nothing to scoff at. The selections stayed somewhat slow and dark, but I think that may be due to the night not being too busy.
This was the first venue I’ve been to on my travels that had security, and I was surprised at just how nice the security guards were. In Europe, it always feels like security is on a repressed power trip and will try to find any reason to kick you out or otherwise cause drama. Here, the security guards were eager to help and were smiling while looking towards the music.
There was also a spinning stuffed sculpture next to the bar, which I thought was a nice touch.
I loved Bangkok. I will be back.