Shopping in Bangkok

Bangkok’s malls line the BTS Sukhumvit line, and the Skywalk connects most of the Siam cluster so you never touch the pavement. All open 10am to 10pm daily.

Siam Paragon in Siam is the flagship: a Gourmet Market basement for Thai snacks and spices, every luxury house on the ground floor, and a top-floor cinema with 500-baht reclining seats. Siam Center and Siam Discovery next door are better for shopping you cannot do at home, with Thai labels like Greyhound, Sretsis and Kloset on Siam Center’s first floor. MBK is the opposite: eight floors of small stalls selling phone cases, cheap electronics, luggage and T-shirts, where you bargain politely and check anything electronic before paying. Terminal 21 at Asok is the fun one with a different world city per floor and the best cheap food court in the city, and ICONSIAM across the river is worth the trip for its ground-floor Sooksiam market of regional Thai food and crafts, laid out as an indoor floating market.

Chatuchak (also written Jatujak or JJ) is the largest market in Thailand: 27 sections and around 15,000 stalls across 14 hectares, with 200,000 visitors on a weekend day. The main market runs Saturday and Sunday from about 9am to 6pm; stalls open gradually and the heat peaks at 1pm, so arrive by 10am. A Friday night market, aimed at wholesale clothing buyers, runs 6pm to midnight with far fewer tourists, and the Wednesday and Thursday daytime market is plants and gardening only. Take the MRT to Kamphaeng Phet (exit 2 brings you up inside the market) or BTS Mo Chit and MRT Chatuchak Park, which drop you at the clock-tower gate.

The sections roughly cluster by goods: sections 2 to 4 for home decor, art and design, sections 5 and 6 for vintage denim and secondhand clothes, section 7 for galleries and contemporary art, sections 8 to 11 for crafts and pets (the pet zone is best skipped), sections 17 to 19 for ceramics, Benjarong and handicrafts, and sections 22 to 26 for antiques, furniture and the shipping agents who will crate it home. Prices: cotton elephant trousers 100-150 baht, a handmade ceramic bowl 150-400 baht, a leather bag 800-2,500 baht, vintage Levi’s 1,000-3,000 baht. Bargain 20-30 percent on anything without a price tag, less on food. The food courts near the clock tower do coconut ice cream (40-60 baht) and the Viva 8 paella stall is a weekend institution. Next door, Or Tor Kor (MRT Kamphaeng Phet exit 3) is the city’s best fresh-produce market, with premium mangoes, durian and curry pastes vacuum-packed for flying.

Pratunam, around the Phetchaburi and Ratchaprarop junction below the Baiyoke Tower, is where Thailand’s clothing retailers buy stock, and tourists get wholesale prices by buying three pieces or more. Platinum Fashion Mall is the air-conditioned heart of it (9am-8pm), with 2,000 small shops of dresses, bags, shoes and accessories at 150-400 baht a piece; the open-air Pratunam Market across the road and the Baiyoke garment towers sell the same cheaper and hotter. The Khlong Saen Saep canal boat from Pratunam pier is the fastest way back to Banglamphu (Phan Fa stop) for 10-20 baht.

In Chinatown, Sampeng Lane (Soi Wanit 1) is a one-metre-wide alley running a kilometre from Pahurat to Songwat Road, lined with fabric, ribbons, toys, stationery and trinkets sold by the dozen; it is a wholesale street, so expect 50-200 baht price points and shopkeepers who would rather sell you ten. Pahurat, at its western end, is Bangkok’s Little India: silk, cotton and sari fabric by the metre at 100-400 baht and the India Emporium mall. Yaowarat Road itself is gold shops, where 96.5 percent gold is sold by weight at the day’s rate plus a small fee, with a receipt you can resell on. MRT Wat Mangkon serves the whole district. Pak Khlong Talat, the 24-hour flower market south of Pahurat by Memorial Bridge, is a sight rather than a shop, busiest between 2am and dawn when the trucks unload; marigold garlands cost 20-50 baht.

Bangkok’s night markets are for eating first and shopping second, but they are the best places for vintage clothes, Thai streetwear brands and quirky souvenirs. Jodd Fairs Rama 9 (MRT Phra Ram 9, daily 4pm-midnight) has a few hundred stalls of secondhand denim, sneakers and handmade jewellery alongside the food; Talad Rot Fai Srinakarin (Yellow Line to Suan Luang Rama IX, Thursday to Sunday 5pm-1am) has the antique warehouses, retro furniture and classic cars that made the train markets famous. Asiatique The Riverfront (free boat from Sathorn pier, 4pm-midnight) is 1,500 fixed-price souvenir and fashion shops in restored warehouses, convenient and charmless, with a Calypso cabaret attached. Wang Lang Market, opposite the Grand Palace by Siriraj Hospital (cross-river ferry from Tha Chang), is a daytime local market of cheap clothes and the best street food on the west bank.

The floating markets are a different proposition. Damnoen Saduak, 100km southwest, is a tourist set-piece where boats of souvenirs circle for photographs and prices are double the city; it is worth it only as a photo stop combined with the Maeklong Railway Market. Amphawa, open Friday to Sunday afternoons and evenings, is the one Bangkokians go to, for grilled seafood eaten on the canal steps and firefly boat trips after dark. Within the city, Khlong Lat Mayom (Saturday and Sunday mornings, taxi from BTS Bang Wa) is a food-focused canal market with almost no tour buses, and Taling Chan next to it is similar.

• Tailored suits: Sukhumvit between Soi 4 and Soi 23 has hundreds of tailors and a few dozen good ones. A two-piece suit in decent wool runs 10,000-20,000 baht ($290-580) and needs two fittings over three to five days; anything advertised at 4,999 baht with “free shirts and ties” from a tout on the pavement will be fused, not stitched, and fall apart. Choose a shop with its own workroom, insist on a fitting with the jacket basted, and pay no more than half up front.
• Thai silk: Jim Thompson’s flagship on Surawong Road (BTS Sala Daeng) and its outlets at Siam Paragon and the Jim Thompson House museum sell the benchmark: scarves from 1,500 baht, ties 1,500-2,500, fabric by the metre from 1,200. The Jim Thompson factory outlet on Sukhumvit Soi 93 (BTS Bang Chak) discounts by 30-70 percent. For hand-woven silk at Isan prices, Pahurat and Chatuchak section 26.
• Benjarong: hand-painted five-colour porcelain. A small bowl is 300-800 baht at Chatuchak sections 17-19 or the Benjarong shops in Siam Paragon’s fourth floor; museum-quality pieces run into the tens of thousands.
• Spa products: Thann, Harnn, Erb and Panpuri are the Thai brands worth carrying home: lemongrass oils, jasmine soaps and rice-based skincare at 300-1,500 baht, found in every mall. Boots and Watsons pharmacies sell Tiger Balm, Snake Brand prickly heat powder and herbal inhalers (ya dom) for 30-100 baht.
• Thai snacks: dried mango, Tao Kae Noi seaweed, Koh-Kae peanuts, Mae Ploy curry paste and ChaTraMue tea at Gourmet Market, Big C Ratchadamri (opposite CentralWorld, cheaper) or any 7-Eleven. Vacuum-packed durian and mangoes from Or Tor Kor fly fine in checked luggage; fresh durian is banned on planes and in most hotels.
• Naraya: the quilted cotton bags and pouches in every Thai gift suitcase, 100-800 baht at the Central World, Siam Paragon and Asiatique shops.
• Street fashion: Platinum and Pratunam for 150-400 baht pieces, Siam Square’s lanes for student labels, Chatuchak sections 2-6 for vintage and independent designers.
• Amulets and Buddha images: small amulets from the Tha Phra Chan market by the Grand Palace are fine; larger Buddha images need an export licence (see below).

Bargain in markets, on the street and in MBK and Platinum stall shops; never in department stores, brand boutiques or supermarkets, where prices are fixed and asking is slightly embarrassing. Open at 50-60 percent of the asking price for souvenirs and clothes at Chatuchak and Khao San, settle around 70-80 percent, and buy multiples for a better rate. Smile, keep it light and walk away if the number is wrong; vendors call you back if there is margin. A fair outcome in Bangkok is a few dozen baht either way, not a battle.

Malls open 10am to 10pm every day including public holidays. Platinum runs 9am to 8pm, Chatuchak 9am to 6pm at weekends, Pratunam from early morning to late afternoon, night markets from 4 or 5pm to midnight or 1am. Pay by Visa or Mastercard anywhere in a mall (some small shops add a 3 percent card fee; most do not) and by cash in markets. Thai QR payments via PromptPay are everywhere but need a Thai bank account; the TrueMoney and Thai tourist wallets that accept foreign cards are patchy, so carry cash. ATMs charge foreign cards 220 baht per withdrawal, so take out the maximum (20,000-30,000 baht) or exchange cash at SuperRich in Ratchadamri or Silom for the best rates.

Thailand refunds the 7 percent VAT to tourists leaving by air within 60 days of purchase. The rules: spend at least 2,000 baht (including VAT) in one shop on one day and ask for the P.P.10 form plus the original tax invoice at the “VAT Refund for Tourists” counter or customer-service desk; your passport is required. Total claims must reach 5,000 baht over the trip. Almost every mall participates (Siam Paragon, CentralWorld, ICONSIAM, EmQuartier, Terminal 21, Jim Thompson, Boots and King Power all do); markets and small shops do not.

At Suvarnabhumi go to the Customs VAT Refund inspection office on the departures level (4th floor, behind rows D and W) before checking in, with the goods, forms and invoices; staff stamp the forms, then after immigration you hand them in at the Revenue Department counter in the concourse (near gates D and W) and receive cash in baht for refunds under 30,000 baht, with a 100-baht handling fee, or a card or bank credit for more. Expensive single items such as jewellery, watches, phones and laptops may need a second check at the Revenue counter airside, so keep them in hand luggage. At Don Mueang the inspection office is on the departures floor of Terminal 1 before check-in. Current thresholds and the list of airports are on the Revenue Department’s VAT Refund for Tourists site, which is also where you check the rules before you go.

Counterfeit bags, watches and football shirts are sold openly at MBK, Patpong night market, Khao San and Pratunam, and buying them is legal in Thailand. The problems come at home: the EU, UK, US and Australia seize fakes and can fine the importer, and a 400-baht “Rolex” is not worth the conversation at the border. Buy real Thai design instead. Thailand itself bans the export of Buddha images, antiques and art objects without a licence from the Fine Arts Department; small amulets and new souvenir-grade figurines are tolerated, but anything larger than a hand needs the permit, which reputable antique dealers at River City and Chatuchak sections 22-26 arrange in about a week for a few hundred baht. Cannabis products cannot leave the country. Fresh fruit, meat and plants fall under your own country’s biosecurity rules; vacuum-packed dried goods are fine almost everywhere.

For bulky purchases, Chatuchak’s furniture sections and River City have shipping agents who crate and send by sea (a 1-cubic-metre crate to Europe or the US is roughly 15,000-25,000 baht, taking six to ten weeks). Thailand Post at the Chatuchak post office or any branch sends boxes by air economy from around 1,500 baht for 5kg to Europe; DHL and FedEx are two to three times that. Most hotels will pack and post for you. Keep receipts for anything over a few thousand baht for your own customs declaration.