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The day starts in a building that still smells faintly of its own history. Bangkok Kunsthalle sits down a lane off Soi Nana in Chinatown inside the old Thai Wattana Panich printing house. The building burned, stood empty for two decades and now holds art without hiding the damage. Its staircases are scorched and its beams remain exposed.
At 9.45am on Saturday, the light falls through the upper windows in long, flat slabs. The whole place feels like a room left alone to think.
At 10am,a B500 round-trip shuttle leaves from outside, Thursday to Sunday,. Book ahead because seats are limited. It is an unusually civilised arrangement: turn up at a Chinatown gallery and, a few hours later, step into a forest three provinces away without driving or making another decision.
We sleep for the first hour, as you do.
The road out of Bangkok is dull until it suddenly isn't. Flyovers give way to billboards, warehouses and car dealerships, then limestone appears somewhere past Saraburi. The land stops looking flat before you quite register the change. Approaching Pak Chong, the roadside becomes unmistakably Khao Yai: corn stalls, sunflower fields, garden centres, a farm advertising alpacas and plenty of Tuscany rendered in Thai concrete.
Stop for Isan lunch at Penlaos
Stop at Penlaos on the way in. What began more than a decade ago as a street stall is now a barn-like restaurant with high ceilings, gardens, mountain views, a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a car park that fills with vans. The Isan and Lao menu covers grilled chicken, som tam, the spicy catfish salad singled out by Michelin, house-made condiments and a mushroom soup with its own small fan club. It is loud, quick and costs about a tenth of that evening’s dinner – useful context for a trip like this.
Start the forest walk before 3pm
First, know that this is a proper walk: 2.5km across roughly 260 hectares of reforested land in Pong Ta Long, with slopes and several genuinely steep sections. Buggies are available if needed. Wear the shoes you would choose for a national park, not a gallery – a lesson some visitors learn in real time.
The works do not announce themselves. You walk, then suddenly there is one.
Two Planetscomes first, down a short path peeling off the main route, a log to sit on and a screen among the trees. Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s 2007-08 video series places reproductions of European masterpieces, including Manet’sLuncheon on the Grass, Millet’'sThe Gleaners, before northern Thai villagers, farmers, workers and monks, then lets them talk. Now you are sitting outdoors watching people sit outdoors and look at art, one step inside the same mechanism. The villagers are funnier and less reverent than the average gallery-goer. That is the point, and also simply true.
GOD (2024) by Francesco Arena consists of two enormous stones. Together, they carve out an invisible word between them – the entire argument delivered in seconds, then left for youto chew over all afternoon
Pilgrimage to Eternity by Ubatsat unfolds along the trail rather than occupying a single spot. Fragments of a chedi, made from the forest’s soil using mould-making techniques passed down through his family, appear as the path rises. The base sits low, near the start; the higher you climb, the higher the section of stupa, until you reach where its spire would be. With no plinth or protection, the pieces are slowly returning to the forest. That is intentional:. samsara as a landscaping decision.
Pulsus Vitae(2013) by French duo Scenocosme – Grégory Lasserre and Anaïs met den Ancxt – asks you to press an ear or hand against a tree. Technology hidden inside the living trunk returns a low vibration, the tree’s version of a heartbeat. It is the only work on the route that you must touch, and the one that makes people fall quiet.
‘Then the land opens. Madrid Circle (1988) by Richard Long is a perfect slate ring on a plateau, with hills and canopy rolling away on every side. Long has spent his career arguing that walking is the artwork rather than the route to it. After 2km of forest path, you are in no position to disagree. At the ring’s edge, the arithmetic hits: one human lifetime against the several million years it took to form those stones.
See all current artworks at Khao Yai Art Forest.
Catch the fog at 4.30pm sharp
Fujiko Nakaya’s Khao Yai Fog Forest, Fog Land #48435, follows a strict timetable: one 10-minute round at 4.30pm on Thursday and Friday, then 11.30am and 4.30pm at weekends. The timing is no formality. You turn up and a hillside disappears.
Nakaya is 93 and has been making fog since Expo ’70 in Osaka with Experiments in Art and Technology. This is her largest fog work. A solar-powered system by California start-up Aquaria harvests water from the air and is calibrated so the fog merges with the natural humidity during monsoon season. None of that occupies you once it starts. A visible slope becomes weather, the terrain deflects the fog and 10 minutes feels both brief and oddly expansive.
People walk into it. Everyone walks into it. Nobody stands politely at the edge.
Book the six-seat bar that opens once a month
K-BAR (2024) by Elmgreen & Dragset is a small pavilion at the end of a path through long grass – a working bar and a mixed-media installation about art, architecture and design. Outside, it resembles a dark grey shed you might pass without noticing. Inside is a metropolitan bar dropped into the forest, with a steel counter, red leather stools and terrazzo flooring. Its lighting shifts with the natural cycle of the day, changing what cannot be seen from outside.
The bar honours Martin Kippenberger, the German painter who died in 1997 and was almost as well known for drinking as for his work. A 1996 Kippenberger painting hangs at its centre, visible through the glass even when the bar is closed – which is most of the time. The cocktail menu was developed with Ku Bar, reached by a dark stairwell off Phra Sumen Road in Bangkok’s old town. It occupies another former printing house, a neat coincidence on a trip that began in one. The house cocktail is the Dry Martin – a joke that is either very good or slightly too obvious, but works either way.
The concept draws on Elmgreen & Dragset’s idea of ‘denials’: art that appears functional but withholds itself, as their Prada Marfa installation did in the Texas desert two decades earlier. A European painting permanently installed in a Southeast Asian forest also flips the usual argument over who gets to keep whose art. Six people fit, for 45 minutes per session. K-BAR opens only on the second Saturday of each month. On 12 Saturdays a year, you can drink an artist-designed in a Nakhon Ratchasima forest; the rest of the time, you can only look through the glass.
The scale is both joke and point. After an afternoon among works the size of hillsides, the last one seats six.
Around 7pm: a five-course Forest Dinner
Dinner at Forest Table is ‘Forest Dinner’ – The 4th Element Tasting Experience, a five-course menu by Chef Wuttisak and his team based on your assigned element: Earth, Water, Air or Fire. The premise sounds like a wellness gimmick, but the culinary framework has more substance. Earth draws on soil, roots, fermentation and deep umami, with warm, grounding food for the heavy and tired. Water favours clarity, softness, fermentation and reflection – cooling food for anyone overheated or wound up. Air uses aroma, fermentation, foam, petals and movement to keep things light for the scattered or overthinking. Fire brings heat, smoke, caramelisation, fermentation heat and controlled destruction for anyone feeling depleted.
Ingredients are seasonal and local, with some harvested from the Art Forest. Rice paddies surround Louise Bourgeois’s Maman on the far side of the site, and that rice reaches the kitchen. Menus change with availability. At B1,500 including full site admission, the five-course hillside dinner is good value.
By the time we finish, it is properly dark – the kind Bangkok never quite manages. We do not drive back into it.
Stay overnight, then take the slow way home
We spend the night at Estella Khao Yai and let the area keep us a little longer. The hotel sits in Wang Sai within the Stella Ozone estate, formerly the My Ozone project. Its English-inspired gables and stonework face actual Thai mountains, with the mini zoo downhill, until recently My Ozone Animal Club, is now called Zooniverse. Mornings are cold by Thai standards, with mist low between the hills and no timetable – no fog session, last order or booking. The quiet is a useful reminder that beyond the schedules, this is somewhere people live.
Make one stop on the way back: Old Leng in Pak Chong town. The dining room is crammed with antiques and retro ephemera, with oldies on the speakers, live music some weekends and two very different versions of tom yam from the kitchen. After a day of deep time and artworks meant to return to the forest, eating soup under a ceiling fan in a room full of someone’s accumulated belongings feels like the right ending. Both places mark time passing, though only one does so deliberately.
Then comes the long, flat run through Saraburi. Warehouses reassemble along the road and Bangkok arrives as it always does – suddenly.
Estella Khao Yai 343 Moo 6, Tambon Wang Sai, Pak Chong – in the Stella Ozone estate, formerly My Ozone, alongside Mövenpick Khao Yai Resort. Expect a pool, restaurant, mountain-view rooms and English-inspired architecture. It is a practical base if you want K-BAR and dinner without racing for the 5pm shuttle.
Old Leng Talat Noi Na, Pak Chong town – a retro dining room packed with antiques, open from early morning until late, with live music some weekends. Worth stopping for on the drive back to Bangkok.
Plan your trip
Bangkok Kunsthalle
Where: 599 Pantachit Alley, off Soi Nana, Pom Prap Sattru Phai, Bangkok 10100
When: Opening hours vary by exhibition and programme – check bangkok-kunsthalle.org before visiting. Most exhibitions are free.
How to get there: Take the MRT Blue Line to Sam Yot, around 10–12 minutes’ walk, or Wat Mangkon, around 12–15 minutes. For a taxi or Grab, use the Pantachit Alley address. Ratchawong Pier is about 20 minutes away on foot.
Shuttle departure: 10am from Bangkok Kunsthalle
Shuttle return: 5pm from Khao Yai Art Forest
Days: Thursday–Sunday
Price: B500 per person round trip, excluding Full Site Admission
Booking: Advance reservation required; seats are limited: tickettailor.com/events/khaoyaiart/2128675
Worth knowing: The 5pm return leaves no time for K-BAR or dinner. For the full evening, take the shuttle out and arrange your own return, or stay overnight in Pak Chong as we did.
Khao Yai Art Forest
Where: Pong Ta Long, Pak Chong, Nakhon Ratchasima – roughly a three-hour drive from Bangkok.
When: Thursday–Friday 12.30pm–6pm; Saturday–Sunday 10am–6pm. Closed Monday–Wednesday.
Last admission: 5.30pm for the site and artworks; 4pm for the dinner experience
Admission: B500 adults; B250 students and visitors aged over-65 with ID; free for under-12s accompanied by an adult. Groups of 10 or more pay B400 per person when booked at least three days ahead, with 10% off dining.
How to get there: Take the shuttle from Bangkok Kunsthalle or drive via the Mittraphap Road corridor beyond Pak Chong.
On site: A 2.5km walking route with slopes and steep sections. Buggy hire is available for a fee. Forest Print, a free walk-in eco-print workshop, runs Thursday-Friday 1.30pm-4pm and Saturday-Sunday 11.30am–4pm.
Khao Yai Fog Forest sessions: Thursday-Friday 4.30pm; Saturday-Sunday 11.30am and 4.30pm. Each round lasts 10 minutes.
Good to know: Pets, tripods, drones, outside food and drink, smoking and commercial photoshoots are not allowed. Insects are part of the deal, so dress accordingly. Confirmed bookings cannot be cancelled.
Enquiries info@khaoyaiart.com
Forest Table
What: ‘Forest Dinner’ – The 4th Element Tasting Experience, a five-course menu based on Earth, Water, Air or Fire by Chef Wuttisak and his team. It uses seasonal local produce, including ingredients grown on site. The lunchtime equivalent, ‘Bamboo Journey’ at Bamboo Bar, follows the same elemental concept.
Price: B1,500 per person including Full Site Admission.
Dining hours: Thursday-Friday 12.30pm-6pm; Saturday-Sunday 10.30am-6pm. Last order 4pm.
Booking: tickettailor.com/events/khaoyaiart/1989192
K-BAR
What: K-BAR (2024) by Elmgreen & Dragset, a six-seat bar and installation honouring Martin Kippenberger, with a 1996 Kippenberger painting and cocktails created by the artists.
When: The second Saturday of every month, 4pm-10pm. Last session 9pm.
Session length: 45 minutes, maximum six guests.
Price: B500 per person added to an admission ticket when booked online, including one drink. Walk-ins from 5.30pm pay B600 for K-BAR only, including one drink; Art Forest admission is not included.