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When you’re searching for travel tips for your visit to Bangkok, you’ll soon see travel blogs about the top 10 things to do and visit while in Bangkok. Which include places like Wat Arun, Wat Pho, Grand Palace, Khao San Road, China Town and Chatuchak Weekend Market. And those are indeed must-sees. But there is much more to see. Especially if you’re a second, third or, like us, eighth time visitor. So in this post I’d like to tell you about 2 other amazing places: Erawan Museum and Ancient City.

They are a bit further away than the other places, therefor often not on people’s list to visit, when it’s their first visit or they are just in Bangkok for a couple of days. But these places are absolutely worth your time! And if you like to take ‘Instagram worthy’ pictures, Erawan is the place to be! And also Ancient City provides beautiful images.

At Erawan Museum and Ancient City you can discover Thai culture and history. And snap some amazing pictures along the way. And I’ve found a great deal for a combo ticket to these places. 

Ancient City

Ancient City is one of the largest outdoor museums in the world. You could say that the complex essentially is a scaled-down version of the country. But with life size temple replicas and reconstructions. 

Erawan Museum

The Erawan Museum is well known for its giant three-headed elephant sculpture. Which is the first and biggest hand-carved sculpture in the world. And you may also know it for the amazing (pink) interior. The museum houses various collections, offering people a look into local heritage and craftsmanship. 

Costs / tickets

The entrance fee for Erawan Museum at the counter is 400 THB and for Ancient City it’s 700 THB. But I recommend purchasing a combo ticket online before visiting. That saves you a lot of money. 

I bought our tickets via Klook. The Combo ticket price was €30 for 2 persons! So way cheaper.
You can get the tickets here.

Opening hours

At the moment of writing this blog (Jan 2023) these are the opening hours:

• Erawan Museum is open on all days from 9 a.m. till 6 p.m.
• Ancient City is open on all days from 9 a.m. till 6 p.m.

Dresscode

For Erawan museum you need to have your knees and shoulders covered. And you need to take your shoes off before entering. 

So for women: bring a sarong or put on a dress or pants that are over the knee. 

In Ancient City there is no dress code. But keep in mind it’s a huge complex, with not much trees and shade. In the sun it can get really hot. So dress accordingly. Bringing a hat or cap can be a good idea. And don’t forget your sunscreen. 

Getting around at Ancient City 

It’s a really big place, and walking through it really isn’t an option. There’s just too much ground to cover. They provide you with two options: renting a bicycle or renting a golf cart. If you’re young, fit and love to ride a bike, the cheapest option obviously is to rent the bicycle. You get a map of the complex, so you can just choose the route you’d like to take. And ride through Ancient City at your own pace. 

The other option is to rent a golf cart. Besides the fact that it’s really fun driving the thing, and a great solution for physically challenged people to be able to visit Ancient City, it also provides some needed shade during those warm Bangkok days.

Renting a bicycle will set you back only 150 BHT for the whole day. So a pretty good deal.

To rent the golf cart, it will cost 350 THB to start with. And every hour following your entrance will cost 100 THB per hour. You need to bring your passport/ID card (a copy will not be excepted) or drivers license, which they keep as a deposit for the golf cart. We were not aware of this, so didn’t have any official ID’s with us. So it took some convincing on our part to be able to rent the golf cart anyway. They ended up asking 5000 BHT on my credit card as a deposit. Which was fine. And I got the deposit back in cash. I just was really happy I didn’t have to go on a bicycle in my long dress 😉 

How to get there. And also important: how to get back to your hotel.

You can get a Grab car or taxi to Erawan Museum. Or go with public transport. 

Take the BTS skytrain train (light green line) towards Kheha. For Erawan, step off at ‘Chang Erawan BTS’ Station. For Ancient City, step off at ‘Kheha BTS’ station. 

To get a taxi from Erawan Museum to Ancient City, you can best cross the street on the left of the exit from Erawan Museum, so you’re standing on the right side of the road for taxi’s to drive by.

Getting back to your hotel in Bangkok from Ancient City is way harder. We thought there would be taxi’s waiting at the exit. And there were. But they either were booked in advance by people or weren’t willing to drive us into Bangkok. Too far away. So even though I don’t prefer to have a scheduled departure time at something like Ancient City (since you don’t know how long you want to spend there), I do however would recommend booking a Grab or taxi in advance to pick you up. Maybe at like 5 p.m. That way you can go to Erawan in the morning, have lunch at Ancient City and still have time to see the major complexes/temples there.

We were fortunate enough that eventually we could catch a ride with an other couple who did book a taxi. And they needed to get off at Khao San Road like us, so in the end it worked out. And saved them money, since we now could split the costs. But yes, if you don’t like the insecurity of getting back home to your hotel, definitely book a taxi or look into other options. Like let the taxi drive you half way and then get another taxi for the last part.

I’m normally not a person that dresses up on vacation, or wears dresses period. But since I had the dress in my closet, and had never taken pictures of myself in a dress before, this was by far the best location for me to get my Instagram mood on hahaha. And I’m really happy with having seen these two amazing places, and having nice pictures as a memory of it. “Create moments, not things.” And this day will definitely be a great moment in my memory. 

You can pin this article for later. And check out my other Asia tips!

Klook.com