Things to Do Near Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

The railway market is the standard second stop

Mae Klong sits 20 to 30 minutes by road from the canal, which is why almost every itinerary out of Bangkok strings the two together. The track market trades daily from 07:00 to 16:00, so the lane can be walked at any hour, but what people come for is a train pushing through, and only four run the Ban Laem to Mae Klong section each day, arriving at roughly 08:30, 11:10, 14:30 and 17:40. Leave the canal around 09:30, by which time the main stretch has filled with tour boats, and the 11:10 is comfortably within reach.

Allow about 1.5 hours on the lane. Put that together with roughly two hours at Damnoen Saduak from 07:30 and you are back in Bangkok in the early afternoon with the rest of the day still usable. This pairing also holds on any day of the week, which none of the other combinations on this page manage.

Attractions near Amphawa floating market

Amphawa is 14.4 km from Damnoen Saduak, about 15 minutes by car, and it comes with one hard constraint. The market's own site lists trading Friday to Sunday, 2 pm to 9 pm, with nothing from Monday to Thursday, and it is worth re-checking that a few days before you travel. On a Tuesday there is no point driving over. Friday to Sunday, the thing to solve is the gap between a canal morning and a 2 pm opening, and the stops below are what fill it.

Wat Bang Kung fills that gap better than anything else in the province. It stands 6.6 km from Amphawa, roughly 8 minutes by taxi, in Bang Khonthi district, and its ordination hall is held inside the roots of four kinds of tree: bodhi, sai banyan, krai and krang. The hall is thought to date from about 1765, late in the Ayutthaya period, and it sits on the site of Khai Bang Kung, a camp ordered by King Ekathat during the Burmese invasion; a monument to King Taksin the Great stands in the grounds. Inside the single-entrance hall is Luang Pho Nil Mani, popularly Luang Pho Dam, in the Maravijaya posture. Visiting hours are 08:00 to 16:30 daily and an hour covers it.

Tha Kha lies 8.7 km from Amphawa, about 9 minutes by taxi, and it keeps the old calendar: the 2nd, 7th and 12th days of both the waxing and the waning moon, six days in each lunar month, with Saturdays and Sundays added because those lunar dates rarely land on a weekend. Trading runs from about 06:00 until noon and winds down by 2 or 3pm. What the boats and stalls carry here is kitchen stock rather than souvenirs: salted fish, shrimp paste and fish sauce from the river mouth, coconuts off the orchards, palm sugar, vegetables, shallots, garlic and chillies. Go in the morning or leave it off the plan.

The firefly boats are an after-dark trip out of Amphawa, and they only make sense in the rainy months, roughly May to October, on a night with little moonlight; nobody can promise you will see any. If you can pick your month, adults of Pteroptyx malaccae were counted at their peak between September and November in a Thai study. The show happens in the mangrove trees on the Mae Klong, within the first 5 to 20 metres back from the water where the larvae concentrate, so you are looking at the bank rather than out across the river; ask for a smaller boat and for the engine off near the trees. Allow about 1.5 hours, and accept that it puts the drive back to Bangkok in the dark.

The great chedi at Nakhon Pathom and the dragon temple at Sam Phran

Phra Pathom Chedi stands north of the market in Nakhon Pathom, 52.9 km from Bangkok and about 46 minutes of driving from the city, which makes it a stop on the way home rather than a detour from the canal. The spire reaches 120.45 metres, the tallest stupa in Thailand, on a base 235.50 metres round, with a cloister measuring 562 metres and 24 belfries set along it. Prince Mongkut found the old stupa in ruins in 1831 while still a monk, and the Sri Lankan-style structure raised over it was completed in 1870 under Chulalongkorn. The four viharas hold the 7.2 metre Phra Ruang Buddha with King Vajiravudh's ashes to the north, murals and Phra Nirantarai to the east, a Dvaravati stone Buddha to the south and a 17 metre reclining Buddha to the west.

The complex opens daily from 7:00am to 8:00pm, so an afternoon arrival is fine. The Phra Pathom Chedi Museum runs Wednesday to Sunday, 9:00am to 4:30pm, and the National Museum Wednesday to Sunday, 9:00am to 4:00pm, which rules both out on a Monday or a Tuesday. A large amulet market sits beside the chedi, and the annual fair falls in the twelfth lunar month, usually November. Respectful attire is required inside the complex.

Wat Sam Phran, the pink tower with a dragon coiled around it, stands in Sam Phran district of Nakhon Pathom, around 40 kilometres west of Bangkok and 30 to 45 minutes from the centre by car. The building runs to 17 storeys and 80 metres, the dragon is hollow, and a spiral staircase climbs inside it, though parts of it have deteriorated. Opening is 6am to 6pm every day, and the temple was registered in 1985. A visitor account reports the door to the upper floors closed on weekdays and opened by the nuns at weekends, with a donation requested before going up, so save this one for a Saturday or Sunday. Counting travel it takes about half a day, which is why it works better on a Bangkok day than bolted onto a 07:30 start on the canal.

Salt pans and coconut sugar between Mae Klong and Bangkok

The coastal flats on the Samut Songkhram side are worked for salt, and the canal villages behind them for coconut sugar. Sap is tapped from the palms morning and evening, boiled on a sugar stove until it thickens, then packed into tins or set into lumps. That sugar turns up again in the Amphawa desserts and in the dried fruit and snacks sold as food souvenirs across the province, alongside handmade soaps, woven bags, herbal products and wooden crafts.

No official source publishes visiting hours for the salt pans or for any one sugar farm, so treat both as something a driver or a guide works into the route rather than a stop you can time. For the sugar without the detour, buy it at Amphawa or Tha Kha, where it is sold as produce.

Add-ons that need more than an afternoon

The River Kwai area lies north, in Kanchanaburi, and it does not fit onto a market morning. No drive time from Damnoen Saduak could be verified for this page, and none of the tours covered here pairs the two, so give it a separate day with its own early start.

Ayutthaya, the old capital upriver and north of Bangkok, is the other long add-on, and that one is sold as a single packaged day. Damnoen Saduak Floating Market & Ayutthaya Tour from Bangkok runs 10 to 11 hours, from THB 960, rated 4.9 ★ (627 reviews), with an English-speaking guide, air-conditioned transport, one bottle of water per person and a long-tail boat ride at the canal; lunch and entrance fees are not included. Pickup is from one of two points: in front of Starbucks on Khao San Road near Chana Songkhram Police Station, or Silom MRT Station Exit 2 beside Dusit Central Park, opposite Lumpini Park.

Which things to do near Damnoen Saduak floating market fit in one day

Three combinations hold up. The canal with the railway market works on any day: about two hours on the water from 07:30, about 1.5 hours at Mae Klong from 10:00, back in Bangkok by early afternoon. The canal with Amphawa runs only Friday to Sunday, needs a private car, and makes a very long day; shared tours do not pair them. The canal with Ayutthaya fills 10 to 11 hours and comes packaged.

Swap the canal morning for an Amphawa-led Friday-to-Sunday day and the stops on this page slot in like this: about 1.5 hours at the railway market, an hour at Wat Bang Kung, two hours at Amphawa, then about 1.5 hours on a firefly boat. Add Tha Kha only if one of its lunar or weekend mornings lands on your date, and leave the chedi and the dragon temple out of any day that already includes two markets.

Of the tours on this site, three already bundle the stops above:

• Day Trip to Bangkok Floating Market & Maeklong Railway, 9 hours and from THB 850, rated 4.9 ★ (1703 reviews). It covers the first pairing on this page and includes 30 to 40 minutes on the water, admission to attractions, bottled water, transfer both ways from the Hug Thai zone behind Central World, and a guide who can work in Chinese or English.
• Private Excursion to Maeklong Railway and Floating Markets: 6 to 7 hours, from THB 4100, 5.0 ★ (877 reviews). The same two stops with your own vehicle and boat: hotel pickup and drop-off in Bangkok, though not at hotels by the airport or outside the city area, private transport, a licensed English-speaking Thai guide, a private long-tail canal tour of about 20 to 30 minutes, local fruits, desserts and a drink, plus accident insurance, which needs passport names at the time of booking.
• Damnoen Saduak Floating Market & Ayutthaya Tour from Bangkok: 10 to 11 hours, from THB 960, 4.9 ★ (627 reviews). A long-tail boat ride at the canal, an English-speaking guide and air-conditioned transport; lunch and entrance fees are not included.

Questions people ask

Read also