Shop the BTS Skytrain
Bangkok has thousands of shopping options and a couple of dozen shopping complexes within easy access of Bangkok's famous Skytrain.
In compiling the list below, it was, at times challenging to differentiate among the various department stores and malls.
Yet, we did find some major differences.
We’d suggest scanning the list before you shop for the first time, which might save you time, and most certainly will save you money.
For stores specializing in antiques, see our antiquities shopping page.
For an up-to-date map of the Skytrain and subway (MRT), including the Airport Rail Link, click here.
Here's a digest of major air-conditioned department stores and malls, along the BTS Sukhumvit and Silom lines, station by station.
BTS Sukhumvit Line:
Ratchathewi station |
Siam Square station |
Chitlom station |
Ploenchit station |
Nana station |
Asok station |
Phrom Phong station
BTS Silom Line:
National Stadium station |
Sala Daeng station
The Sukhumvit Line
BTS Ratchathewi station [top]
• Pantip Plaza
Pantip Plaza
|
Inside Pantip Plaza
|
|
For electronic exotica, including software, hardware gizmos, and inexpensive, good binoculars, taxi a few blocks north to the amazing Pantip Plaza, a five-story electronic shopping emporium that sells everything under the electronic sun, including items being offered in the shady realm of the barely legal.
Do note that many items will cost more than in your own country.
Digital cameras, for instance, will cost you considerably less over the internet through shops in New York City.
Caveat emptor applies here.
A charger we obtained for our camera battery heated up like the dickens, even though it was a branded name.
It’s probably a very good-looking counterfeit, but we paid the going rate.
Still, if it’s electronic and isn’t here, it’s probably not to be found anywhere else in Bangkok.
Pantip plaza is a 5-10 minute walk from the Ratchathewi station.
BTS Siam Square station [top]
BTS National Stadium station (Silom Line, but adjacent to Sukhumvit Siam interchange station)
• MBK
MBK is a glitzy, newer center, with offerings similar to those found in the Siam Discovery Center, located diagonally across the street.
MBK does have a fairly decent group of electronics stores, although its not in the Pantip Plaza class (see above).
The northern end of MBK houses the multi-storied Tokyu Japanese department store.
• Siam Centre
Siam Center has older shops, and tends to have cheaper prices than either MBK or Siam Discovery center, located to the immediate west.
• Siam Discovery Center
More upscale than Siam Centre next door, shops are trendier.
Siam Discovery is located immediately to the west of Siam Centre
BTS Chitlom station [top]
Without a doubt, Chitlom has the largest number of multi-storied shopping plazas as anywhere in Bangkok.
The choices are extraordinary.
In alphabetical order, they are:
• Amarind Plaza
Located to the south of BTS Chitlom, Amarind Plaza is accessible by elevated walkway.
Amarind is best differentiated by the numbers of business selling Thai silk clothing to women, including several custom tailors (House of Siam was one), mostly on the second floor.
In addition, there are a number of textile shops, and stores specializing in Thai crafts.
There is a food court on the 5th floor.
You may want to go up one more floor to the little-marked 6th floor, and eat at cheaper Thai food stalls catering to Amarind’s Thai workers.
• Big C Supercenter
Sitting immediately to the north of the Narayana Phand Pavilion, Big C has cinemas, a huge supermarket, and a monstrous discount floor, the 3rd, with great deals on everything from luggage to sportswear.
The 3rd floor also has a UPS-Mailboxes Etc. kiosk, as you enter the floor from the escalator.
• Central Department Store Chitlom
East of Gaysorn, one block away, same side of street, is the Central Department Store (one of many in the Bangkok area).
Considered by many to be the most comprehensive department store in Bangkok.
Central offers a 5% tourist discount card.
See the information counter on the first floor, and show your passport to receive the card.
The card is also good for expats, who may use it for the ensuing twelve months.
• Central World Plaza
West of Gaysorn, across the street, Central World Plaza is an unbelievably large series of shops, with cinemas, and a skating rink. The building also encompasses the Isetan and Zen stores. The building resembles Chernobyl, and there’s a noisy, huge LED screen out front that blasts television commercials up and down the street, with speakers placed along the sidewalk ever few meters.
Central World Plaza has just about everything, in a frenetically-paced environment.
You could easily make this complex an all-day experience.
There’s a lot going on here, and the building includes the Tokyu, Isetan, and Zen department stores:
1) Isetan, which occupies the northern end of Central World Plaza, is a Japanese-designed, orderly, quiet, and most welcome experience. Sightlines in the stores are designed to allow the visitor to see, at a glance, everything else on the floor, impossible in most other Bangkok complexes. Isetan’s 4th floor is our favorite, with a stationery department loaded with interesting Japanese-designed items, and a personal service center which will make 100 instant business name cards, from your computer-designed files, or theirs, for 400 baht.
There is a good Kinokuniya bookstore, and a Japanese noodle shop, on the 6th floor.
2) Tokyu is an average, pedestrian multilevel department store, and includes a small supermarket.
3) Zen, which occupies the southern end of Central World Plaza, is a branch of the Central Department store, specializing in housewares and women’s clothing and accessories
• Gaysorn
Gaysorn occupies the northeast corner of Rama I/Ploenchit and Ratchadamri.
It positions itself as the highest-end shopping complex in Bangkok, with high-design flagships stores such as Porsche design and Louis Vuitton.
Its top two floors, however, are a must for any shopper wishing to see the work of top-notch contemporary Thai design.
There are a number of other good shops, featuring Thai-designed products, and a nice tea room on the top floor.
• Narayana Phand Pavilion
Narayana Phand Pavilion
|
|
Narayana Phand Pavilion, sandwiched between Gaysorn and Big C on Ratchadamri, encompasses the enclosed Narai Phand, a two-story government-sponsored crafts emporium, and other non-affiliated shops on the top floor, and around its perimeter.
If you’ll be doing shopping for any Thai crafts, you’d be well-advised to go here first, see what’s available, note the prices, and use those for comparison when shopping at the weekend Chatuchak market, or elsewhere.
Prices aren’t always cheap here; the khaen (Thai musical instrument) we saw was, at 1,800 baht, double what we’d paid elsewhere.
On the other hand, Narai Phand carries spirit houses (san phra phoum), and sells them for prices we’ve seen elsewhere.
Of special note are the wonderful bone china Thai-designed tea sets of remarkable craftsmanship.
Narai Phand was initiated by the Thai government in 1937, and represents crafts from all over Thailand.
• Peninsula Plaza
Peninsula Plaza is located south of Gaysorn, across Ploenchit, and down several hundred meters, between the Hyatt and Regency hotels.
Here, you’ll find high-end boutiques such as Davidoff’s, a number of high-design shoe shores, and jewelry shops.
There is also, somewhat incongruously, an antique shop with a stuffed, two-headed goat as part of the window display.
• President Tower
There is a two-story “Thai Craft Village”, occupying the lobby and ground floors of the President Tower building, attached to the Intercontinental Hotel, and by walkway to Gaysorn.
Of particular interest is the store called “Tribal crafts” on the Lobby level, which features some nice indigenous headgear from northern hill tribes.
BTS Ploenchit station [top]
Ploenchit Centre is a combination of mostly lower-priced clothing stores, outlets, jewelry shops, and a Villa Market.
BTS Nana station [top]
Nana Square
|
|
The Nana Square complex features designer clothing and accessory shops, with a Starbucks on the ground floor.
The area around Nana, particularly along the Sukhumvit-Soi 4 nexus, has dozens of predominantly Indian-owned tailoring shops, specializing in custom suits for men.
While most display offers of two or more suits for under $100 USD, you get what you pay for.
In our experience, buying high quality suits at these stores is worth the additional money you”ll pay, and will be far less than you”d pay in any western country.
Discuss quality before price, and you”ll end up with the best of both worlds.
BTS Asok station [top]
• Robinson’s Department Store
Robinson’s Department Store Asok is part of the large Thai chain.
Each Robinson’s has general merchandise you’d ordinarily find in a department store.
We found their stationery department to be above average, by Thai standards.
BTS Phrom Phong station [top]
• The Emporium
The Emporium complex (not associated with the venerable U.S. marque) is largely upscale, and is surrounded in the complex itself with internationally-known luxury goods stores.
There are at least two decent restaurant-coffee shops (Oriental and Greyhound), a babyware store, bookstores, food court, and cinema.
The Silom Line
BTS Sala Daeng station [top]
• Central Department Store
See the Central Department Store entry under BTS Chitlom, above, for the kind of merchandise it carries.
• Robinson’s
See the Robinson’s Department Store entry under BTS Asok, above, for the kind of merchandise it carries.