8 Bangkok views ranked by height, price and whether you even need a ticket
From a 314-metre glass tray to a free bridge over the Chao Phraya, the view you pay for isn't always the best one on the block.
The queue for the glass tray at Mahanakhon starts forming before the sun has committed to setting, a line of people in their best outfit clutching phones, waiting for the 78th floor to do the thing it does at dusk when the whole city turns the colour of a bruise. Two kilometres south, on a plain concrete footbridge that costs nothing to walk across, a smaller crowd leans on the railing watching the same sky for free. Bangkok's views split cleanly into these two camps: the ones you buy a ticket for, and the ones a bartender or a bridge engineer gave you by accident.
This list is ordered by value first, meaning what you actually get for what you pay, then by how reliable the view is once you're up there, and last by how hard the door is to get through on a Tuesday night in September. Rooftop bars in Bangkok run hot and cold on walk-ins, and an observation deck with a fixed ticket price is a more honest transaction than a bar that reserves the right to decide you don't belong at the railing tonight.
September sits at the tail of the rainy season here, which is bad news for anyone hoping for a crisp horizon and good news for anyone who likes their sunsets with a bit of drama in the clouds. Go early evening rather than dead on sunset if you want a buffer against a squall, and always have a plan B a few floors down.
Chao Phraya Sky Park
Phra Pok Klao Bridge, between Phra Nakhon and Khlong San · elevated public park on a river bridge · free entry, 5:00am–8:00pm daily
This is the argument for free views in one place: a repurposed rail bridge over the Chao Phraya that puts you at deck height with Wat Arun's prang directly across the water, no glass, no queue, no dress code. Come for the last hour before closing so you get the gold light on the temple and then the skyline lighting up behind it. It is not tall and it does not pretend to be, but for the price of the walk over, nothing else on this list touches it.
Sky Bar
State Tower, Silom · rooftop bar, 64th floor, 247m · one drink minimum, open 5:00pm–12:30am daily
Sky Bar's fame arrived by accident of Hollywood casting and it has never really needed to try since. The gold dome and the circular bar put the Chao Phraya on one side and the whole grid of downtown on the other, and there's no cover charge beyond the drink you were going to order anyway. Go right at 5pm before the crowd thickens, because a one-drink minimum is a very different proposition when you can actually reach the railing.
Eagle Nest
Sala Rattanakosin, Maha Rat Road, Rattanakosin · rooftop bar, 5th floor · no cover, roughly 5:30pm–10pm weekdays, later on weekends
You are not up in the clouds here, and that is precisely the point. Eagle Nest sits low enough that Wat Arun fills the whole frame instead of shrinking into a postcard detail, with Wat Pho at your back. Order a drink, angle for a table on the open edge, and accept that the whole appeal is proximity rather than altitude.
Vertigo & Moon Bar
Banyan Tree, Sathorn · rooftop restaurant and bar, 61st floor · Moon Bar open 5:00pm–1:00am, Vertigo dinner seatings 6:00pm–10:30pm
The 61st floor buys you a clean 360-degree spin over Sathorn and the river with none of the tower next door blocking the angle, which is the actual advantage over taller decks that box you in behind glass. Moon Bar is the looser, cheaper way in; Vertigo the restaurant is the one with the table you booked weeks ago and the minimum spend to match. Go to Moon Bar for the sunset, and only commit to dinner if you want the view with a set menu attached.
ThreeSixty Rooftop Bar
Millennium Hilton, Charoen Nakhon, Khlong San · rooftop bar, 32nd floor · smart casual, reservation recommended
The pitch here is the river itself rather than the skyline: ThreeSixty sits on the Thonburi bank looking back at the towers of downtown across open water, which gives it a wider, calmer view than most of the Silom rooftops crowding each other. It suits an early evening rather than a late one, a drink and the boats going by rather than a big night out.
Wat Saket
Golden Mount, near Democracy Monument, Phra Nakhon · Buddhist temple on an artificial hill · 100 baht for foreign visitors, open 7:00am–7:00pm daily
Three hundred-odd steps up a spiral staircase for a view that costs less than a coffee and comes with a bell tower and a gilded chedi thrown in. It's a low vantage compared with everything else here, but it's an honest, unmediated one over the old city's low rooflines rather than the glass towers. Time it for just before closing, when the crowds thin and the light goes soft over the rooftops.
Baiyoke Sky
Baiyoke Sky Hotel, Ratchaprarop Road, Pratunam · observation deck, 77th floor, plus revolving viewpoint on the 84th · around 400–450 baht including one drink, open 10:00am–10:00pm daily, last entry 8:
Thailand's tallest hotel does a genuinely disorienting revolving deck on 84, but the building has aged the way tall buildings in a humid city tend to, and the glass isn't always as clean as the ticket price implies. It's still the cheapest indoor deck on this list, and the daytime light over Pratunam's low-rise sprawl is a different, messier Bangkok than the glossy CBD views elsewhere.
King Power Mahanakhon SkyWalk
King Power Mahanakhon, Narathiwas Road, Silom · indoor deck on the 74th floor, glass-floor SkyWalk at 314m on the 78th · around 880 baht adult, open 10:00am–7:00pm daily
The tallest view in the city and priced like it, with a glass floor that exists specifically to make you feel the height rather than just see it. It's worth doing once for the vertigo alone, timed for the sunset session rather than the cheaper daytime slot, but know going in that the same money buys two rounds at a rooftop bar with a view nearly as good and a lot more atmosphere.
Share this article
Comments
Sign in to join the conversation. Only registered users can comment.
No comments yet. Be the first.