One of the main tourist activities when visiting Bangkok is to visit their magnificent temples. There are hundreds of temples scattered throughout the city – the most popular being the Grand Palace. Within the Grand Palace, there are several buildings worth seeing including the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Contents
Hours
The Grand Palace is open every day from 8:30AM to 3:30PM.
Directions
There are several ways of getting to the Grand Palace. We wanted to try Bangkok’s public transportation so we attempted to take the BTS Skytrain. In Japan, we took public transportation 99% of the time with no problem so we thought it would be fine in Bangkok too. But somehow, we took the wrong train and ended up further down than we wanted to be. Turns out, to get to the Grand Palace and the other temples along the Chao Phraya River, you need to take a boat/ferry. You can either purchase an all day pass to use the ferry (with unlimited stops) or you can just purchase a one stop ticket.
Since we weren’t sure of how to get around yet, we decided to do one way tickets each time we used the ferry.
The ferry went along the river and stopped at these locations above. If we had wanted to visit more than 2 places along the ferry, we would have opted for an all day pass as that would have been cheaper. But we were playing it by ear.
During the ferry ride, they urge people to move to the front of the ferry. Do not stand around the back unless there isn’t enough space. They have English speaking announcers during the rides. They even give a small background behind each stop.
When you get off the stop, the Grand Palace is a short walk away from the ferry stop. You do not need to take any tuk tuks to get to the destination. You will walk straight from the ferry stop and turn right. Then you’ll enter a busy street, turn left once you see the corner of the palace perimeter.
Make sure to watch out when you cross as there are no stop signs or cross walks.
To find the entrance, keep walking straight and follow the crowd of people, even if they’re going the opposite way. You will run into the first security post, but that’s the exit as you will notice people are walking OUT of the palace. Keep walking straight until you run into the other post where people are walking IN.
Admission
Unlike other temples in Bangkok, admission to the Grand Palace is not free for foreigners – it is free for Thai people though. You can either buy your ticket at the gates or online. If you do buy them online, you need to purchase them at least 24 hours in advance through this website for 500 baht (about $15 USD).
We bought ours online and manage to dodge a small line. It was short and fast.
Initially we planned to go to the Grand Palace a different day and already bought our tickets for that date. So we emailed their customer service on their website to try to change the date if possible, and they were able to change the date for us! This is a usual feeling for us since most American ticketed events do not allow you to change the date.
The Grand Palace
We bought our tickets online for the 10:30AM slot. But after reading more reviews about this temple, I realized that we should have bought the tickets for an earlier time. Since the Grand Palace is one of the most popular temples to visit, it can get very crowded.
They also have pretty strict rules on the dress code. If you don’t dress appropriately they will turn you away. On the day that we visited the temple, the weather was really hot so it didn’t help that we had to cover ourselves up.
If you are wearing inappropriate clothing, on the way to the palace you will run into some vendors selling pants and other cover-ups.
When we finally arrived to the Grand Palace, it was already extremely crowded just to walk to the entrance gates. Inside the gates was the same story – it was impossible to find any area to take a photo without anyone in the background. We just had to go with it.
At the entrance, they have pictures of items NOT allowed. Clearly you can see that drones are not allowed in the picture above haha.
Brea used her DJI Osmo Pocket a lot here and did a lot of slow-mo shots.
After we were done exploring the Grand Palace, we were very hungry (both from all of the walking and from the extreme heat). There are some food couriers along the way or you can go to some of their nearby restaurants. We stopped at this cafe place for their brick toast called After You Dessert.
We spent less than 2 hours total at the Grand Palace and even though it was ridiculously crowded, we did manage to get a few good photos. If you do decide to visit this temple, make sure to go early!
When you’re done with the Grand Palace, make sure to check out Wat Arun too.
