Sober Bangkok: 7 Things to Do Before the Night Train

I lived in Bangkok and Chiang Mai for years, and have taken the night train between them many times. Everything in this article is something I truly love, and writing it has me itching to do it all again.

Bangkok has a reputation, and if you let it, the city will hand you a bucket of something neon and call it a night. I lived here, and that reputation is a thin film over one of the most texture-rich cities on earth. More international travelers arrive here than any other city in the world, 30.3 million in 2025 by Euromonitor’s count, and almost everything worth coming for happens in daylight, on the water, or over food. None of it needs a drink. Traveling sober here just puts you on the city’s real schedule: sunrise on the river, markets before the heat, and food you’ll actually remember.

Here are seven things to build your days around, ending with the one that carries you into the second half of this trip: the overnight train to Chiang Mai.

1. The Chao Phraya Express Boat

The Chao Phraya at Wat Rakhang · Photo: Vera Tikhonova

The river is Bangkok’s oldest highway, and the express boat was my go-to every single time somebody came to visit. A few baht buys you a spot on the deck while temples, warehouses, barges and grand hotels slide past. It is transport, not a tour, which is exactly why it works.

This one has its own full write-up: The Chao Phraya River Taxi: My Favorite Day Trip from Bangkok, with which boat to catch and where to board.

• Go early in the day, before the heat sets in.
• Ride the express boat north, the scenic stretch past all the good stuff, and hop off at whatever pier pulls you in. It runs under an orange or yellow flag depending on the day and hour, so check the current schedule before you board.
• Pick it up at Sathon Pier, straight off the BTS at Saphan Taksin.
  
  

2. The Thonburi Klongs by Long-Tail Boat

Through the klongs by long-tail boat · Photo: Ali Kazal

Everybody gets sold the floating market. When I did the market trip, the part that stayed with me was not the market at all. It was the long ride in by boat, watching how people actually live on the water. That is the part to book.

Take a long-tail through the Thonburi canals on the west bank, where an older Bangkok never left, and give it a couple of hours on the small waterways. Houses on stilts, kids going off ladders into the water, laundry strung between posts, somebody selling coffee out of a canoe. If a market turns up at the end, treat it as a bonus.

Ask specifically for a Thonburi canal tour that also includes a floating market, not a floating-market shuttle, and book ahead rather than turning up at a pier. When the river runs high, canal trips can get suspended, so free cancellation saves you the wasted morning.

3. Wat Pho, Wat Arun, and a Real Thai Massage

Start at Wat Pho in the morning for the reclining Buddha, then stay for the thing most visitors walk past: the traditional massage school on site, the source of Thai massage rather than a copy of it. You can book an hour as a walk-in.

A proper Thai massage after a long day of walking became my default end to a heavy day here. It does the job a drink used to do and does it better. You leave loose, tired in the good way, and ready to sleep.

Then take your sunset at Wat Arun instead of a rooftop bar. Cross on the little ferry as the light goes gold and the porcelain on the spire lights up over the water. It is the view every rooftop in Bangkok charges a premium for, at the price of a temple ticket and a boat. Cover shoulders and knees, and expect a ferry queue at peak hour.

4. Bang Krachao, the Green Lung

Across the river from the towers, Bang Krachao sits inside a horseshoe bend of the Chao Phraya and stays stubbornly green: mangrove, canals and smallholdings that survived the surrounding development.

Cross by ferry, rent a bike at the pier for pocket change, and ride the raised concrete paths that thread through the mangrove. It is flat, it is shaded, and the shade matters enormously here. Go early. On weekends the Bang Nam Pheung market skews Thai families out for breakfast rather than tour groups.

If you only have one day to spend off the postcard, spend it here.

5. Benjakitti Forest Park

Not everybody has a full day for Bang Krachao. Benjakitti is the version you can do on a spare morning without leaving central Bangkok: a nature trail, a running track and a dedicated cycling path around the lake, with an elevated walkway connecting it to Lumphini so you can do both parks in one loop.

Bike rentals are easy to find near the park entrance; bring ID for the deposit. Go before the heat, same as everything in this city.

6. Street Food in Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown

Yaowarat Road after dark · Photo: Miguel González

If you have ever wondered what to actually do at night without a bar, Yaowarat is the answer. Chinatown turns into an open-air kitchen after sundown: charcoal smoke, woks going, whole streets of grilled seafood, noodles, congee, mango sticky rice, toasted coconut, all of it under stacked neon.

Go hungry and eat small portions across several stalls instead of committing to one. Bring cash. Busiest and best from about seven onward, and the MRT drops you at Wat Mangkon a short walk away.

Come with a shortlist. One of the dishes this street is known for is guay jub, a peppery rolled-noodle soup with crispy pork belly that people cross the city for, and a couple of the stalls serving it carry Michelin Bib Gourmand nods; the queues will point you to them. After that: charcoal-grilled toast with pandan custard, roasted chestnuts, and a cup of fresh pomegranate juice from one of the ice carts.

Give the alleyways some daylight hours too. Yaowarat Road itself is Bangkok’s gold street, lined with the city’s famous gold shops, and the lanes behind it are a wholesale world of herbs, dried goods, lanterns and fabric. I have been down them, and you can lose an hour without noticing.

This is the most alive Bangkok gets, and there is not a drop of alcohol required to enjoy any of it.

7. Ayutthaya by Train

Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya · Photo: julen

An hour and a half north by rail sits Ayutthaya, the capital that was sacked in 1767 and left as a UNESCO field of brick temples and toppled Buddhas. You explore it by rented bicycle, riding quiet local roads between ruins. The stone Buddha head grown into banyan roots is at Wat Mahathat.

Two practical things. A combined ticket covers the main ruins, because the site is split across separately ticketed compounds. And go early, because there is almost no shade and it is punishing by nine.

It is also a useful rehearsal. It gets you on Thai rails and out of the city, which is precisely where we are going next.

Getting to Chiang Mai: Take the Night Train

The night train between Bangkok and Chiang Mai

When it is time to leave, do not fly. I have taken the overnight sleeper to Chiang Mai many times, and it is the thing I recommend with the most confidence in this whole guide. You board in the evening, the berths fold down, and you wake up in the mountains.

One detail most guides still get wrong: long-distance northern trains no longer leave from Hua Lamphong. Since 2023 they depart from Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal, also called Bang Sue Grand Station, up in Chatuchak. Go there. The station name is no accident: locals do not always call the city Bangkok. In Thai it is Krung Thep (กรุงเทพหูานคร), the City of Angels, and the new station carries the city’s Thai name.

Worth knowing if you are traveling sober: Thai trains have been dry since 2014, and as of May 2026 the same rules cover railway stations, public passenger piers, and scheduled boats. The two best journeys in this guide, the river boat and the sleeper north, are legally dry end to end. The nicest way to move through this country happens to be the one where nobody around you is drinking.

Several sleepers make the run every evening; Special Express 9 is the pick. First class is a private two-berth cabin. Second-class air-conditioned sleeper is an open car of curtained berths, costs considerably less, and is a more social night.

Tickets go on sale a few months ahead, and The Man in Seat 61 has the definitive booking walkthrough with berth-by-berth photos. Or do it the way I always did: show up at the station and buy a ticket at the counter for that night. Around Songkran and New Year, book ahead; outside the big holidays the walk-up has usually worked for me, but do not bet a sleeper berth on it.

Set an alarm for first light. The leaving is not the good part. The waking up is, and that is exactly where Sober Chiang Mai begins.

Bangkok & Chiang Mai · A Two-Part Sober Guide

Part 1 · BangkokSober BangkokYou're reading this one

Part 2 · Chiang MaiSober Chiang MaiNext: you wake up in the mountains

Hero photo: Nirjhar Basak