Kaweewat Siwanartwong

According to psychology (the hangout edition), that amber-coloured glass with its soft, smooth foam has the power to soothe exhaustion after a hard week, revive you from that post-project slump and give your body a refreshing boost of energy. And in Bangkok, where the working day rarely finishes on time, beer drinking is now a long way from a casual afterthought. These days it comes with good music, sharp interiors and a proper crowd. You step off a hot, busy street, the door swings shut, the air-con hits and someone behind the bar is already pouring your first of the night. So whether you know your DDH IPA from your vanilla porter or simply want a cold pint, decent music and somewhere comfortable to spend the evening, these are 20 of the best beer bars in Bangkok. Also worth bookmarking: our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks and galleries, plus the best things to do in Bangkok.Map out the rest of this month with our guide to what’s on, and keep an eye on our picks of Bangkok’s best things to do. Subscribe to our free newsletter for the best of Bangkok, straight to your inbox.

Another weekend arrives, and if your diary looks a little bare, Bangkok has more than enough to fill it. Thailand Coffee Fest makes a solid starting point, gathering roasters, cafés and serious amounts of caffeine under one roof. Wander the stalls, sniff out a fresh bag of beans and watch baristas pull shot after shot. More of a galleries? The Spirit of Sculptors: A Dialogue Across Three Generations at Museum Pier puts Professor Silpa Bhirasri, Watchara Prayoonkum and Wayuphat Rattanaphet in conversation, tracing Thai sculpture across three generations. Cat people can head to the Thai Stamp Museum, where Ma Ma Meow fills the galleries with more than 1,000 feline-themed stamps. For something livelier, Art Battle Bangkok puts painters on stage with blank canvases, a running clock and an audience vote. Motion Fest 2026 also returns with talks, exhibitions and a live contest for students and working designers. At Cloud 11, Unfest’26 explores art and real-time technology through virtual production, 360-degree cinema, audiovisual sets and hands-on workshops. Still undecided? Browse our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks and galleries, or start ticking off the city’s essential things to do. Planning ahead? Map out the rest of September with our monthly events guide and keep an eye on our latest picks of Bangkok’s best things to do. Subscribe to our free newsletter for the best of Bangkok, straight to your inbox.

Bangkok hides some of its best galleries down side streets and up quiet staircases, right in the thick of its busiest neighbourhoods. Hop off the BTS, walk for two minutes and you can land somewhere cool, calm and blissfully air-conditioned – free to linger over a painting and, perhaps, dodge another visitor’s tote bag. This month brings plenty of reasons to make the trip. Mystical by Nattiwut Choomanowat turns old Thai sayings and folk beliefs into playful paintings, while The Blursed Sandwich leaps  to 2067 and imagines monkeys inheriting human civilisation. For something quieter, A Gray Lens explores memory, identity and how we understand the world. WHITE EYES, meanwhile, removes the eyes from its portraits to ask how much we rely on a person’s gaze to read them. Whether you fancy a full gallery crawl, a slow afternoon with contemporary art or simply an escape the usual Bangkok routine, see what’s showing and make a day of it. Need more ideas? Explore our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks, galleries and interviews, or work through our bucket list of the best things to do in Bangkok. From galleries to creative spaces, discover  Bangkok’s best spots to live the art life. Track down alleyway masterpieces and paint-splashed corners you might otherwise miss with our guide to the top spots to see street art. Subscribe to our free Time Out Bangkok newsletter and get the best of the city delivered straight to your inbox.

Welcome to September, Bangkok’s wettest month – a proper test of patience involving umbrellas, soaked trainers and downpours timed for the moment you step outside. Make it through without losing a shoe to a flooded soi and you’ve earned a reward. Luckily, the city stays busy when the rain sets in. Art lovers have plenty to explore. Giving Life at Dib Bangkok gathers more than 160 works by 33 Thai and international artists, including kinetic-art pioneer Alexander Calder. For something more hands-on, Beyond the Rainbow explores the bond between people and their pets across three experiential zones – and you can bring yours along in a carrier or stroller. Music leans into nostalgia. Pink Symphonic Concert reworks songs from Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper and Barbie of Swan Lake for an orchestra of nearly 45 musicians, while The Click Five reunites in Bangkok. Art Battle Bangkok adds live painting, timed rounds and audience voting. Elsewhere, centralwOrld fills up with Disney characters and collectibles, Thailand Coffee Fest brings together everyone from farmers to baristas, and ‘Drag Race Thai Fans vs The World 3’ stars Raja Gemini, Morphine Love Dion and Gawdland. If that sounds like too much effort, ‘Do F**ing Nothing’ offers the opposite: pocket your phone, sit quietly and do nothing for an hour.  When in doubt, fall back on our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks, galleries and interviews, or tick off our bucket list of the best things to do in Bangkok.

News of club closures and sober youngsters might have you thinking that nightlife is dead. We’re here to tell you – with proof! – that you couldn’t be further from the truth.  The way we go out might be different, but people are by no means staying in. Cities are adapting to our changing nightlife habits: as summers get hotter, street parties and rooftop raves are bigger than ever. Rather than heading to one or two big-name venues, locals are flocking to new nightlife districts for an evening of bar-hopping and curbside drinking. And, trust us, the nightclub isn’t going anywhere – in fact, communities and local governments have successfully rallied to save historic nightlife venues (in Berlin’s case, they’ve even managed to grant techno UNESCO-listed status). So, we’re here to celebrate going out in the city. From Bangkok to Berlin, Medellin to Mexico City, Time Out’s Best Cities for Nightlife with Intrepid Travel is the ultimate guide to today’s after-hours capitals. To curate the ranking, we went straight to the people who know their city best – the locals – and asked them to tell us all about the nightlife scene in their hometown right now. We asked them about everything from clubbing to cocktail bars, how affordable it is to go out at night, the overall quality of nightlife in their city, how easy it is to find community, and how safe, exciting, welcoming and diverse their city is. After crunching all that data, a panel of nightlife experts – Time Out’s city editors, cult

You might never have met Ray MacDonald, but if you grew up in Thailand in the 1990s he was part of your week all the same, on the telly after school, up on the big screen with your mates, or talking you through a train ride halfway across the map. Ray, one of the most recognisable faces of a generation of Thai youth, died on August 19. His career runs close to three decades and takes in film, television and the travel programmes that sent a lot of us reaching for an atlas. Plenty of people first know him from the show Teen Talk; others picture him in O-Negative, Dear Galileo or Phobia 2. And for a whole crowd of viewers he plays a travelling companion they never actually meet, someone whose journeys make the wider world seem that bit closer from the sofa. So his story runs richer than the word 'actor' lets on. Over the years he turns up as a shy young man, a hitman, a monk, a graphic designer and a traveller, each part catching a particular moment in his life and the times around it. Here are 14 of his screen roles, from his first day on set to the work that still brings him to mind.   Fun Bar Karaoke Photograph: Fun Bar Karaoke, 2540Ray Macdonal Ray's first screen appearance comes in Pen-ek Ratanaruang's debut feature, and it wins him Best Actor at the Suphannahong National Film Awards straight out of the gate. He plays Noi, a shy convenience-store worker who turns hitman the moment he falls asleep. The character is odd, cheeky and quietly lonely, and you can already hear

This year hands us more choice than we know what to do with, the parties rolling on til the end of December. A little strategy pays off. The schedule stretches from gentle seaside sets in the cooler months to giant year-end send-offs, so plan ahead.  Do you want a slow day by the water or a midnight thrash in a warehouse? Can you handle a tent, or does the shower queue alone put you off? Loyal to one sound or happy to gamble on whatever lands next, one of these has your name on it. Sandy chill-outs, rooftop hip-hop, jazz under the trees, all-night electronic marathons that run til dawn – Thailand serves the whole spread, often across a single week. From Bangkok venues to island beaches and jungle clearings, the map fills up quick. Yet to book? No stress, because we keep this rundown current with day parties still holding tickets. Get moving before you miss the big names. 808 Festival, DIAGE Festival, Wonderfruit and Tomorrowland Thailand all touch down on Thai soil in the months ahead. Give our guide a scroll, refreshed constantly as new line-ups drop, and pick out whatever grabs you. Still undecided? You can always turn to our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks and galleries, or consult our bucket list of the best things to do in Bangkok. Map out the rest of the month with our guide to what’s on, and keep an eye on our picks of Bangkok’s best things to do.  Subscribe to our free newsletter for the best of Bangkok, straight to your inbox. 

Craving ice cream? Course you are. Bangkok has a way of sending even the most grown-up among us in search of something cold and sweet  – and the city’s gelato scene has never offered more ways to cool down, dairy-free included. The only problem is choosing. We’ve rounded up the spots worth seeking out, whether you fancy a cone or cup of the good stuff, soft-serve that actually delivers, a cheeky ice cream sandwich or a sundae big enough to share (or not). The choices border on absurd, in a good way: brioche and tacos, fairy floss clouds, candied bacon, charcoal, sea salt and ube. However you roll, here are 16 of the best gelato and ice cream spots across Bangkok and the greater metro area. Still undecided? You can always turn to our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks and galleries, or consult our bucket list of the best things to do in Bangkok. Subscribe to our free newsletter for the best of Bangkok, straight to your inbox.

Vinyl ruled the way we listened long before streaming put millions of songs at our fingertips. Yet the warmth and crackle of a needle hitting the groove still draw collectors and casual listeners back to something a playlist cannot quite replicate. Listening bars are flourishing around the world, and Bangkok is no exception. New spots keep appearing down sois and above shophouses, paying as much attention to turntables, valve amplifiers and acoustics as to what lands in your glass. Everything is tuned for switching off and listening properly.  Whether you collect rare pressings, simply love a good song or fancy a change from the usual after-work haunt, few things beat watching a record turns slowly through the night becomes one of those small, perfect hours. That's the whole appeal. We round up 14 vinyl bars around Bangkok that stand out for their atmosphere, their selections and their pours. Pick the one that catches your eye, and go make a night of it. Still undecided? Turn to our guides to Bangkok’s best bars, restaurants, parks and galleries, or consult our bucket list of the best things to do in Bangkok. Map out the rest of this month with our guide to what’s on, and keep an eye on our picks of Bangkok’s best things to do. Subscribe to our free newsletter for the best of Bangkok, straight to your inbox.

Fried chicken belongs to everyone. From the United States to Korea and Taiwan, almost every country and culture has a version. But ask Bangkok diners where Thailand’s best comes from and one answer rises above the rest – Hat Yai.You know the type: skin that shatters, meat still steaming underneath and fried shallots piled so high they border on showing off, with sticky rice to catch whatever survives. It is Southern Thailand’s great contribution to the fried chicken canon, and the rest of the country has happily claimed it.The strange part is that half of Bangkok advertises Hat Yai fried chicken, yet very little tastes as it should. The marinade lacks depth, the oil goes tired or the shallots come straight from a packet. Anyone raised down south can tell in one bite.We went looking for the real deal. Four proper Hat Yai and Songkhla-style specialists made the cut, joined by one Bangkok fried chicken institution too good to leave out.Order at the counter, wait for the batch that is still spitting and eat with your hands. Obviously.   What is it?Hat Yai fried chicken begins long before the oil gets hot. Garlic, coriander root and white pepper worked are worked into the meat, which is left to marinate for hours before frying to a deep gold: crisp skin outside, juicy flesh within. Unlike fried chicken that depends on the dip, the seasoning runs through the meat – peppery, savoury and faintly herbal. Crisp, sweet fried shallots are scattered over the top by the fistful. Att a road

 What beats a margarita or two after a long day? Not much, honestly. And this month, Bangkok gets a whole run of them. PATRÓN launches Margarita Your Way, a month-long love letter to the world's most famous tequila cocktail, on now until July 31 and turning the city loose on flavour, discovery and a proper bit of self-expression. The heart of it all sits on the M Floor of Siam Paragon, where the Margarita Your Way Pop-Up poses one simple question. Which one are you?  Four personalities set the tone – classic, fruity, spicy and cool – each a different attitude, a different flavour, a different way of drinking. Are you the purist? The fruity show-off? The one who orders a chilli rim and dares the table to keep up? Photograph: PATRÓNMargarita Your Way Come Friday evening, the guest shifts hand space to some of Bangkok's sharpest bartenders, who reimagine the drink their own way. And the fun spills out across town. All July, PATRÓN teams up with a hand-picked cast of bars, restaurants, hotels and lifestyle spots. Sunset rooftops, buzzy nightlife dens, tucked-away cocktail hideaways and plush hotel lounges – each one shaking up its own take on the classic. So, thirsty yet? Here’s where to go.

When it comes to art and exhibitions, Bangkok has a lot. From poky little independent spaces to avant-garde galleries and the big crowd-pleasing museums, the city brims with shows that perplex, challenge, inspire, educate and leave you thoroughly awestruck. The trouble is, there's an absolute mountain to get through. Too much, you might say. So we're here to tell you where to spend your precious time. Whether you're a bona fide art connoisseur or simply the type who likes to stand about looking pensive in front of a canvas (we've all done it), these galleries promise to inspire and entertain in equal measure. So if you're wondering what's genuinely worth a trip across town, start right here. Have a browse through the best museum exhibitions and art in Bangkok at the moment, take your pick and make a day of it. We refresh this list regularly, so do pop back regularly for our latest and greatest picks.Stay one step ahead and map out your plans with our round-up of the best things to do in Bangkok. Whether you're a regular gallery-goer or just art-curious, these are Bangkok’s best spots to live the art life. From alleyway masterpieces to paint-splashed corners you might walk past without noticing, here are our top spots to see street art.

BrewDog Ploenchit is the Scottish brewery’s official Bangkok taproom, occupying a clean, contemporary space in the Canvas Building. Sixteen taps do most of the work, with BrewDog beers joined by rotating guest pours from Thai brewers. American-style smashed burgers provide the obvious match, while live music and jazz run Wednesday to Saturday from 7.30pm. It’s pet-friendly too, so dogs and cats can come along while you order a flight and work through the taps. Canvas Building, Phloen Chit Road, Lumphini. Open Monday-Thursday, midday-1am, Friday, midday-2am, Sunday 11.30am-1am. Call 062-826-6464.

At 12 Plato Brewing in Bang Na, the beer is made and fermented just a few steps from where you drink it. The microbrewery’s ‘pick your °Plato, pick your moment’ idea plays out across a 21-tap wall featuring house brews alongside selected premium imports. There’s a large outdoor patio that catches enough breeze to make evening drinking comfortable, plus live bands rotating through the night. Come after work or nose around the brewing kit while you make your way through the taps. 52 Soi Bang Na-Trat 30, Bang Na Tai, Bang Na. Open daily, 5pm-midnight. Call 088-639-5928.

Thai craft beer pioneer Wichit ‘Ja Chit’ Saiklao has turned the former Turtle Bar in Nonthaburi into Chit Terminal, a much larger home for his beer operation. Forty taps span Chitbeer signatures, brews from around Thailand and selected premium imports, while freshly baked sourdough pizza provides the food pairing. The new location is only a few minutes from the old Ko Kret base, making it considerably easier to reach. Arrive hungry, order a flight and start working your way across the tap wall. 19 Soi Chaeng Watthana-Pak Kret 19, Pak Kret District, Nonthaburi. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 5pm-11.30pm. Call 089-799-1123.

Sitting between Asok and Phrom Phong BTS stations, Upper Deck Sports Bar backs its central location with nearly 30 taps of draught beer and cider, ranging from easy lagers and Thai craft to familiar international brands. Sport is just as important: giant screens carry major international fixtures, while a golf simulator, pool tables and dartboards fill the gaps between games. Large windows look onto the passing BTS trains and a menu of international dishes keeps you fuelled if you’re staying for the long haul. 392/15 Sukhumvit Road (Soi 20), Khlong Toei. Open daily, 9.30am-2.30am. Call 080-825-0999.

Gaginang takes its name from a Teochew phrase meaning ‘one of our own', and the fourth-floor rooftop near Phra Sumen Road has the relaxed feel to match. Chinese design details meet an open-air deck overlooking the low-rise rooftops of old Phra Nakhon, while an ice-cold chrysanthemum tea greets you before the beer starts. The Thai craft selection is intended to work for both newcomers and seasoned drinkers, with live music and Chinese-style plates rounding out an easy rooftop evening. 71/4 Phra Sumen Rd, Ban Phan Thom, Phra Nakhon. Open Thursday-Sunday, 3pm-11pm. Call 081-668-4224.

Two Palms Taproom occupies a handsome two-storey colonial building on Phra Sumen Road, with elegant arches, a warm retro interior and live music kept at a level that still allows conversation. The rotating taps lean towards newer-generation Thai brewers including Vana Brewing, Brainfill and SpaceCraft. A tasting flight is the easiest way to explore them. Thai bar food is taken seriously too, with som tam, fragrant grilled corn ribs and tender crying tiger all built to sit comfortably beside a cold beer. 591 Phra Sumen Rd, Phra Nakhon. Open Wednesday-Monday, 5pm-midnight. Call 02-282-0311.

Haze Bar works because it feels like a genuine neighbourhood local. Long-time regulars mix with craft beer obsessives drawn by 12 taps pouring mostly Thai brews, with more cans and bottles waiting in the fridges. Live music fills the room and screens show major sporting fixtures. There’s also a Michelin-listed noodle shop only a few steps away, so dinner followed by a pint here makes for an easy Luang Road combination. 425 Luang Road. Open Wednesday-Monday, 6pm-midnight. Call 094-656-5635.

Hair of the Dog in Phrom Phong, with another branch in Ploenchit, takes its hospital theme much further than a couple of novelty props. Two Canadian friends built the bar around stainless-steel counters, eerie lighting and drinking tables fashioned from old operating beds. Downstairs, 13 taps rotate craft beer from around the world, backed by a fridge of properly chilled bottles. It’s particularly good territory for drinkers who favour bigger flavours and higher ABVs – and one of Bangkok’s more memorable places to drink them.Soi Sukhumvit 33/1. Open Monday-Saturday, 11am-midnight. Call 02-030-2538

Taproom Experience Craft Beer at The COMMONS Saladaeng makes navigating a big tap list surprisingly straightforward. Draft beer and bottles fill the menu, with taps one to 10 covering smoother, easier-drinking styles, 11 to 18 stepping up the ABV and flavour, 19 to 24 moving into richer stouts and the final two pouring sweet, fizzy cider. Food can be ordered from the restaurants around the complex and eaten at your table, which makes this an easy place to settle in rather than hop elsewhere after the first glass.Soi Sukhumvit 26. Open daily, 5pm-midnight. Call 087-460-2626.

Tucked beside Charn Issara Tower 1 on the Silom and Rama IV stretch, Bottle Rocket feels more like dropping round a friend’s place than entering a formal bar. The selection covers easy-drinking pours, stronger options and frequently rotating craft beer on tap, and newcomers can simply ask the bartender where to start. The kitchen serves straightforward home-style food with a few twists of its own. Weekdays are generally relaxed, but call ahead on Friday and Saturday nights when the better tables disappear quickly.942/26 Rama IV Rd, Bang Rak. Open daily, 6pm-midnight. Call 091-808-4338.

Banthat Thong Road has become one of Bangkok’s busiest food-and-drink strips, and Beer Pradith is a strong place to finish the crawl. Big glass windows keep the room bright and give you a view of the street, while 24 taps pour a constantly changing line-up made entirely by Thai craft brewers. If choosing one feels impossible, order a tasting flight. Popcorn is free with unlimited refills all night, and live music runs Thursday to Saturday – handy after you’ve already eaten your way down Banthat Thong. 2030 Banthat Thong Rd. Open daily, 5pm-2am. Call 084-125-5592.

Blues Doo Bar Doo on Nak Niwat gets the small things right. Its rotating ‘fresh craft taps’ are deliberately chosen to taste different from one another, so ask the bartender for samples before committing to a glass. Food goes well beyond standard bar snacks, with wagyu, dry-aged steak, delicate yukhoe and salt-fried beef among the full plates. Live music plays most nights, the sound is taken seriously and pets are welcome, making this an easy choice whether you’re drinking solo or arriving with friends and the dog . 450 Nak Niwat Road. Open daily, 6pm-1am. Call 095-653-1313.

We could've told you Bangkok is the city you leave already planning the next visit. Turns out the numbers agree. Agoda's latest Repeat Visitor Ranking puts us second among the Asian cities travellers come back to most, behind Tokyo and just ahead of Bali. The platform tallies accommodation bookings from the first half of 2026, and the results, out on Tuesday September 8, keep us in the top three for a second year. Tokyo holds first place, while Bali makes its top-three debut. Photograph: AWL ImagesBangkok Here's how the full top 10 shakes out: 1. Tokyo – Japan2. Bangkok – Thailand3. Bali – Indonesia4. Seoul – South Korea5. Osaka – Japan6. Da Nang – Vietnam7. Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia8. Fukuoka – Japan9. Taipei – Taiwan10. Johor Bahru – Malaysia Photograph: Sylvain SonnetBangkok Closer to home, the Thai favourites stay put. Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Hat Yai hold the same five places as last year. Agoda reckons it comes down to what each one is good for. We're the base for a wellness trip around the region; Phuket suits long stays and workations; Pattaya wins with families; Chiang Mai draws slow travellers and digital nomads; and Hat Yai stays the weekend regular for anyone popping over from Malaysia or Singapore. And here's the bit we're most chuffed about. Bangkok is officially the world's greatest city for nightlife in 2026. Time Out's Best Cities for Nightlife, put together with Intrepid Travel, rounds up where the world goes out after dark, built from surv

In under a year Dib Bangkok has built a reputation at home and abroad, and picked up a spot on TIME magazine's World's Greatest Places 2026 list along the way. Giving Life is a new exhibition of more than 160 works by 33 Thai and international artists, running from September 26 to May 3, 2027. Alexander Calder is the headline draw. He is the artist who took sculpture off its plinth. Where a traditional statue stands fixed in place, his mobiles hang from the ceiling and turn with the slightest current, moving as people pass through the gallery. He counts among the pioneers of Kinetic Art, and he changed what a sculpture could be. His work sits in the collections of MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Met in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate in London, which says plenty about the company he keeps. Seeing it in Bangkok, without booking a flight to any of them, is the part worth pausing on. This is not simply a matter of importing a famous name, though. Calder shares the space with 32 other artists, his pieces set in the same conversation as Thai and Asian art. 'Giving Life' also traces a formative stretch of the 1970s (B.E. 2513–2523), a turning point for Thailand's own art scene, shown beside them so the connections come through. The aim is a broader reading of what contemporary art holds, and how many directions it runs at once. 'Giving Life' runs from September 26-May 3, 2027 at Dib Bangkok. The museum opens Thursday to Monday, 10am to 7pm, and closes on Tuesdays and W

Peaches. Apricots. Long silences across a sun-baked Italian courtyard. If you already know exactly which novel we mean, then 'Call Me by Your Thirst: An Adult Bookclub' might be a lovely way to spend a midweek evening. This September 2, shortshorts.bkk invites you to sit, read and talk about literature in a small, unhurried room. Thai author Pim Wangtechawat leads a close reading of chosen passages from Call Me by Your Name, André Aciman's story of longing, restraint and desire set against a sweltering summer on the Italian Riviera. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Regi T. (@shortshorts.bkk) You don't need to turn up having read the book. Even if reading isn't usually your thing, you'll be right at home. The point isn't landing on the 'right' answer, but giving everyone room to read it however they like, from how language carries desire to the smaller details of the body, the senses, place, shame and freedom. Photograph: Call Me By Your Name Movie version (2017)Bangkok The night ends with a quiet prompt to think about what 'intimacy' actually means to each of us, and why a novel can sometimes say what we'd never manage out loud. You leave with a book to finish and, quite possibly, a few new people to talk it over with. 'Call Me by Your Thirst' runs on September 2, 6.30pm-8pm at 6th Fl Bangkok.  Take the BTS to Phrom Phong, Exit 4, walk through the clatter of Ebisu Shoten Izakaya and catch the rear lift up to a much calmer room. Entry B150

Here's some good news for your next night out. Bangkok has been officially crowned the world's greatest city for nightlife in 2026.  Time Out’s Best Cities for Nightlife with Intrepid Travel is the ultimate guide to today’s after-hours capitals, drawing on surveys of city-dwellers around the globe, mixed with verdicts from Time Out's worldwide network of writers.  Up from 13th in 2025, Bangkok has stormed to the top to beat a roll call of long-time party cities to the top. Sitting above the likes of Berlin, New York City, Melbourne and São Paulo that round out the top five. Photograph: ÆTHERBangkok If you ask us, it’s well deserved. With the boom in nightlife (of all kinds far beyond the clubs and bars, watch this space) there’s no better moment to head out and see what the city has to offer.  Clubs such as DUAL and Bar Temp fill up most nights, with big-name lineups and a litany of new rooftop bars opening across the city, far and wide.  Take ÆTHER, a cocktail bar on the 44th floor of Dusit Central Park, where the drinks come with 360-degree views. Or Sato San, a Japanese-style bar with an Isan twist on the 32nd floor of Moxy Bangkok Ratchaprasong. And then there’s Sala Saneha, a 70-year-old building on Soi Decho in Silom that squeezes in a wine bar, restaurant, small cinema and bookshop all under one roof, run by a team who simply want to 'make cinema romantic again'. Photograph: Tep BarBangkok For our writers, the real reason Bangkok takes the crown is not because of t

Ever wondered how a small ceramics studio in Chiang Mai ends up on a shelf in Shanghai? More and more, the route runs through a single website. That site is ThaiTradeChina.com, a free B2B marketplace from Thailand's Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP). The pitch is simple. It connects Thai makers straight with Chinese buyers, cuts out the middlemen and costs nothing to join, which counts for a lot when you're a two-person operation eyeing a market of 1.4 billion people. It suits smaller firms in particular, the ones that can't stretch to a Shanghai showroom or an agent on the ground. Photograph: Department of International Trade PromotionIn Partnership with Time Out The catalogue runs from food to homeware, with rice snacks and sauces alongside handwoven textiles, rattan furniture and glazed pottery. Buyers browse the range, read up on the brands and message distributors without leaving the page. This year the platform takes a stand at two of China's big home and design fairs. First is the Nanning Huaxia Home Expo (August 14-16), then Maison Shanghai & Modern Shanghai Design Week (September 7-10) in one of the country's busiest trading cities. Picture a Bangkok sauce-maker handing out spoonfuls between the furniture stands, swapping cards with a buyer from Guangzhou. Photograph: Department of International Trade PromotionIn Partnership with Time Out It's a neat shortcut – minus the usual trade-show small talk. And if you make something worth selling, gettin

Anyone who follows Thailand's indie scene knows the pain of a good clash. Three bands you love, three different venues and one night, with no way to be in all three at once. Fungjai, the homegrown platform that has backed the local scene for more than a decade, fixes that. Last year the tenth-anniversary show 'Fungjai Jud 2025' reunited musicians from different generations of the scene. This year it returns with a fresh event, 'Fungjai Mun', and the idea stays the same. It rounds up a wildly mixed roster, puts everyone under one roof for a single evening and spares you the agonising choice of who to watch. Photograph: FungjaiBangkok The bill runs deep this time, with eight acts and one DJ. Expect BLVCKHEART, Mirrr, WAV, DOTDOTDOT, Television Off, The Richman Toy, Jazz Spooknick Papillon Kook Kook and NAP THE NAP, covering indie, pop and rock, with no two acts sounding alike. Holding it together is DJ Bookythestrider from the 'Nuea Mek' crew, who keeps the music running through every changeover so nobody stands around waiting between sets. It suits anyone who hates picking favourites. You turn up once, find a spot in the crowd and let the whole lineup come to you, drink in hand, with no dashing across the city halfway through the evening. Ticket phases: Early bird (Sep 4-13): B890  Regular 1 (Sep 14-15): B990  Regular 2 (Sep 16-17): B1,090  Regular 3 (Sep 18-19): B1,190  Regular 4 (Sep 20-21): B1,290  Regular 5 (Sep 22-Oct 9): B1,390  On the door (Oct 10): B1,590  'Fungjai

Standing in respectful silence in front of a painting, hands behind your back, is one way to spend an afternoon with art. Wandering a riverside with a cold drink while somebody paints a canvas a few feet away is another – and the L’On Bangkok team is fairly sure you’ll go for the second. L’On Art Festival is the crew’s debut festival, and it takes over Yodpiman River Walk from September 10 to 13. You might already know the name. These are the people behind Bangkok Art Walk, the roving art day out that has run more than seven times and steadily built a loyal following. This is the supersized version, bringing art, music and live performance together on one patch of ground by the Chao Phraya, right next door to the flower market at Pak Khlong Talat. Across four days, that stretch of riverside becomes a loose, unhurried hangout. Food booths cover the eating, and a decent range of Thai drinks brands turn up too, alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Graze between the stalls, grab a local craft beer or a fruit mocktail and settle in for a full evening rather than a quick lap. With the lighting, the colour, the sound systems and a busy line-up of performers, something is always going on from the 3pm start until things wind down at midnight. The whole point isn’t to look and leave. L’On wants you to actually meet the Thai artists behind the work, chat to them, buy a piece if one grabs you and head home with fresh ideas. It’s a warmer, more human way to spend time with art than most white-wal

You know Idris Elba from Luther, from The Wire, maybe from lending his voice to a cartoon animal or two. What you might not know is that he spends a serious chunk of the year behind the decks, and on Saturday September 26 he brings that side of himself to Cloud 11 Theatre. The show is Sound International, a house night run by Asia-based music agency Collective Minds, and doors open from 7.45pm. Elba plays it billed simply as ‘IDRIS’, the name behind a CV that takes in Ibiza institutions Pacha, Pikes and Hï, plus slots at Glastonbury and Coachella.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sound International (@sound.intl)   He doesn’t play alone, either. Sharing the booth are Wildealer and Elaheh, two of the artists pushing Bangkok’s house scene forward right now, and both turn up with their own version of the genre. If you’ve spent any late nights in the city’s clubs over the past couple of years, you’ve probably danced to one of them already. Sound International runs on an idea it calls ‘Never-ending House’, which means festival-grade sound stitched together with whatever the room happens to be dancing to. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Idris Elba (@idriselba) House music grows fast in Thailand, moving out of a handful of clubs and onto bigger stages like this one. Putting two homegrown names on the same bill as a globe-trotting headliner shows how quickly things move. Tickets are on sale now here, priced at B2,690. Sat

Bangkok doesn't clear its river for just anything. But on Friday November 6, the ferries, longtails and dinner cruises all give way to something the city stages only once every few years: the Royal Barge Procession. Fifty-two gilded barges move down the Chao Phraya, crewed by 2,200 navy oarsmen who row in time to a slow, chanted beat. The lead boat is the Suphannahong, carved as a golden swan and reserved for the King. Behind it, the Anantanakkharat carries the sacred robes under a raised pavilion. The formation stretches over a kilometre and takes months of practice. It all forms part of the royal kathin, the Buddhist rite where the monarch travels by water to hand robes to monks at the close of the rains retreat. It also marks Queen Suthida's forty-eighth birthday, and the boats finish at Wat Arun, whose steep prang stands over the river on the Thonburi bank. Photograph: CanvaBangkok The navy practises the full route beforehand, and you can watch from the bank for free. The next four sessions fall on September 3, 8, 17 and 23, with more across October and two full-dress runs on October 21 and 28. Those two come closest to the real thing, decorated barges and all, without the crowds. Crowds gather on both banks, between Krung Thon Bridge and Wat Arun. On the Thonburi side, try the riverside park by Siriraj Hospital or the pier at Wat Rakhang. Over on the Phra Nakhon bank, Santichaiprakan Park by Phra Sumen Fort, Tha Maharaj and Tha Chang all have clear sightlines. The Wat

You don’t need a boarding pass to reach the South of Thailand this month, though you do end up standing beneath an aeroplane. ChangChui Creative Park – the ramshackle Thonburi lot known for its junkyard sculptures, indie shops and the retired jet parked at its centre – hosts Fly 2 South Now Festival III, now in its third year and run jointly by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and Flynow, the veteran Thai fashion house. The whole thing takes place from September 11-13, and getting in costs nothing. The theme this year is ‘Colours, Lines and Patterns’, and the promise is simple enough. You get the far South, without the long drive down the peninsula. That means the cooking most people make the trip for, from fiery khua kling to sour gaeng tai pla and generous piles of sator, alongside desserts, coffee and cold drinks spread across more than 100 stalls. Photograph: ChangChuiBangkok The big night is Friday September 11. At 7.30pm the passenger deck beside the plane becomes a runway, and more than 30 models walk it, led by Paweensuda ‘Veena’ Singh, Miss Universe Thailand 2025, and Anyarin ‘Tubtim’ Teerathananpat. The looks come from student teams at Princess of Naradhiwas University, Prince of Songkla University’s Pattani campus and Yala Rajabhat University, plus up-and-coming labels Ramai, Adel Kraf, Sureeya and Natpichairat, all reworking traditional Southern fabric patterns for now. Photograph: ChangChuiBangkok Six zones cover the rest. One is given over to food and

Daft Punk called it quits back in 2021, and plenty of us still aren’t over it. Good news, then, for anyone who never caught the duo live. ‘Daft Funk Live’ bring the full show to Mustache Bangkok on Saturday January 16 2027. The two brothers behind the act started the tribute in 2018, and they take it seriously. Rather than a couple of blokes behind laptops, you get a proper band on stage, with drums, bass and guitar all played live, plus a custom light rig and those replica robot costumes, glowing LED visors and all. Mustache is a small room, so nobody is stuck far from the stage. The setlist runs from Homework through to Random Access Memories, so expect ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’, ‘One More Time’ and a handful of reworked mixes done in true Daft Punk style. It is louder than the records and a good deal closer than you’d ever get at an arena. Bangkok rounds off a three-city Thai run from promoter Midnight Sun, which starts on Koh Phangan on January 13 and stops in Phuket on January 14 before the finale two nights later. Daft Funk Live play Mustache, Bangkok on Saturday January 16 2027. Tickets are B990 and go on sale on September 29, with pre-registration open now here.

The 'hot bus' has been part of Bangkok's self-image for decades. Now they face their biggest shake-up yet, as the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) prepares to bring in 1,520 electric air-conditioned buses to replace the same number of the old ones. The first 500 arrive in March 2027, and the rest of the fleet follows by May 2027. To start with, the electric buses run on nearly 50 of the roughly 107 lines the BMTA operates. Photograph: BRIDGESTONEBangkok Those 50-odd lines split two ways. City Bus routes stay inside town, from the loops that circle Bangkok to the ones threading through Silom, Bang Rak, Khlong Toei and Rama IV. Commuter Bus routes do the longer haul, linking the suburbs to the centre so the daily trip in gets a bit easier. The BMTA is also redrawing some of its network, and the Department of Land Transport wants that work sped up so each line suits the new buses. On board you get air-conditioning, plus CCTV, GPS tracking and proper access for wheelchair users and anyone who struggles with steps. This runs deeper than a cold breeze, though. It rethinks how the BMTA pays for everything, moving from buying buses outright and covering repairs itself to leasing the whole service from private operators. On paper it is cheaper and tidier, and it marks a real shift in how the city funds public transport. Photograph: Madan B. RegmiBangkok Here is the catch, and it matters for regular riders. The hot buses charge a flat B8 start to finish. The electric replaceme