Asiatique The Riverfront
A converted teak warehouse district turned open-air night market, with a Ferris wheel over the Chao Phraya.
Illuminated Ferris wheel and warehouse-style shops of Asiatique at night
What to expect at Asiatique The Riverfront
Asiatique opened in 2012 in a set of century-old teak trading warehouses on the west bank of the Chao Phraya that once served the Danish East Asiatic Company's steamship line. The developers kept the wooden gantries, added a 60-metre Ferris wheel, and filled 1,500 boutiques, restaurants and street stalls into what became Bangkok's most polished evening shopping-and-eating destination. It is not a bargain market — prices are close to mall rates — but the setting is genuinely lovely: strings of lights across the water, teak beams overhead, and a breeze off the river that central Bangkok simply doesn’t get.
You come here for the evening rather than for the shopping. Start with a cocktail at the riverfront terrace of Baan Khanitha or Happy Fish, watch the sunset over the west bank, then eat at one of the food-court kitchens (better Thai food than most of the sit-down restaurants), ride the Ferris wheel for 20 minutes ($8) and finish with the Calypso Cabaret ladyboy show (7:15pm and 8:45pm, from $30). The shops are open until midnight — mostly clothing, Thai handicraft, silk scarves, coconut oil skin products.
The best bit: getting there. Asiatique runs a free shuttle boat from Sathorn Central Pier every 30 minutes between 16:00 and 23:30 — a 10-minute cruise downstream that is itself a small tourist attraction. The last shuttle back is 23:30 sharp; miss it and you are on a $6 metered taxi through late-evening Charoen Krung traffic. Combine with a sky-bar drink beforehand at Lebua, five minutes' walk from Sathorn Pier.
Questions about Asiatique The Riverfront
Free entry. Ferris wheel $8. Calypso Cabaret $30-45 depending on seat.
Always free to enter the complex.
About three hours — dinner, walk, one attraction.
Open every night 16:00-24:00.
Only for Calypso Cabaret (its website, 24 hr ahead). Everything else walk-up.
BTS Saphan Taksin exit 2, then free shuttle boat from Sathorn Central Pier.
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