The temples sit on the river and the hotels sit on the elevated railway, and those two halves of the city are joined by some of the slowest road traffic in the region. That single fact decides how much of a short stay actually gets used. The old royal quarter holds the Grand Palace, Wat Pho and the piers that face Wat Arun across the water, while the Skytrain corridor through Sukhumvit and Silom carries the malls, the rooftop bars and most of the rooms. Older advice said the old city could only be reached by boat or by sitting in a taxi, and that is no longer true: an underground line now surfaces beside the palace walls, so the temples can be reached without touching the road at all. The Chao Phraya itself is public transport rather than a sightseeing extra, with commuter boats calling at piers that connect to the rail network. Plan around water and rail, and a stay of a few days holds far more than it looks like it should.
Arrival deserves the same thinking, because the city has two airports rather than one. Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang sit on opposite sides of town on different rail lines, and a road connection between them is the worst thing anyone can put into an itinerary. From the main airport a dedicated rail line runs to an interchange with the elevated network, and metered taxis are reasonable provided the meter is actually running, which is why the drivers quoting a flat fare in the arrivals hall are the ones to walk past. It is worth taking time to compare flight and transfer options for Bangkok at https://destination.chat before you commit, especially if a domestic connection puts you at the second airport. One step comes before all of it: every foreign arrival now has to file a digital arrival card online in the days before travelling, in place of the old paper form. It is free on the official immigration portal, and any page charging a fee for it is not the official one.
Where you sleep decides which grid you wake up on. Rattanakosin, the old royal quarter, has guesthouses and small hotels within walking distance of Wat Pho and the express boat piers, quiet after dark and further from the rail lines. Sukhumvit stacks modern hotels along the elevated line around the Asok interchange, dense and convenient and never quiet. Silom and Sathorn hold business hotels beside Lumphini Park, orderly by day and busy after it. Along Charoen Krung the riverside hotels sit near ICONSIAM and run their own shuttle boats out to the nearest pier, which puts the temples closer than a map suggests.
A rental car is the one thing to rule out entirely, since the traffic that makes the city hard to cross is exactly what you would be sitting in, and parking in the old quarter barely exists. What replaces it is a patchwork rather than a system: the Skytrain, the underground lines and the airport rail line run on separate ticketing, so no single card covers everything and a contactless bank card is accepted on some gates but not all. On the river, the commuter boats are ordinary public transport, while the tourist boat costs more and stops at the sights, so choose deliberately rather than boarding whatever arrives. Day trips split the same way: Ayutthaya is straightforward by train on your own, while the floating markets are awkward enough to reach that an organised excursion earns its place. Checking transfer and activity options at https://destination.chat before you fly is the sensible way to settle the airport run, a guided temple morning and any day trip at once. Personally, I would build the first day entirely on the water and rail, and never once ask a driver to cross the city at rush hour.
One correction worth carrying to the gate. The Grand Palace ticket covers Wat Phra Kaew and the textile museum inside the same walls, and nothing beyond them: Wat Pho and Wat Arun charge separately, so anyone implying that one ticket opens the whole old city is selling something. Tickets are sold at the official counter inside the walls, not by anybody on the pavement outside, and a stranger announcing that the palace is closed today is running the city's oldest routine, which ends in a gem shop. The dress code is enforced rather than suggested, with shoulders and knees covered and refusals at the gate, though sarongs can be rented at the entrance. As for timing, the cool season is the most comfortable and the most crowded, the hot months that follow are punishing by midday and suit early starts, and the wet season brings short heavy downpours rather than lost days, with noticeably thinner queues at the temples.
Q: Does the Grand Palace ticket cover Wat Pho and Wat Arun?
A: No. It covers Wat Phra Kaew and the textile museum inside the palace walls. Wat Pho and Wat Arun sell their own tickets, and buying at the official counters is the only reliable way to do it.
Q: Is there anything to complete before flying to Thailand?
A: Yes. Every foreign arrival must submit a digital arrival card online shortly before travelling, replacing the old paper form. It is free on the official immigration portal, and sites charging for it are not official.
Q: Does one travel card cover the trains in Bangkok?
A: No. The elevated network, the underground lines and the airport rail line use separate ticketing, so expect to buy or tap more than once. A contactless bank card works on some gates and not others.
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