Where to Stay in Bangkok: Silom

We keep coming back to Bangkok because we love it. Also because Bangkok is a transport hub of this part of the world. That title has shifted towards Kuala Lumpur recently with the rise of Air Asia, but Bangkok is still where you need to be for overland connections. It’s also cheaper than Kuala Lumpur, so we would prefer to hang out here for a few days than in Malaysia. Thailand has amazing food, of course, so it makes a great place to stay while you sort out onward travel.

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Silom is Very Different to Khao San Rd. Area.

A beautiful and fragrant Hindu temple in Silom, Bangkok.

 

We adore the Khao San Rd. area and up ’till now we’ve always stayed in that part of Bangkok. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but we love the crazy backpacker vibe, the clothes stalls, the souvenirs and all-round energy of that part of town. Circumstances lead us to try something different and Silom has won us round very quickly, we thought we’d be taking tuk tuks over to our old favourite within hours of arrival, not so. We like it here.

Souvenir stalls and wanderring street sellers are much thinner on the ground in Silom and you don’t see the carts laden with bugs-on-a-stick at $1/photo or dodgy pad-thai. Instead there is great food and plenty of it. The stalls and tiny pavement restaurants seem to never end and everything we’ve eaten so far has been good and cheap.

Plenty of Bangkok street food still, but no $1 per photo signs. Bugs for sale near Silom pier.

 

It’s cleaner too, you can eat without that characteristic Khao San aroma of cat pee. In places all you can smell is flowers strung ready to make beautiful offerrings in the Hindu temple at the end of Pan Rd.

On a previous visit to Bangkok I got very stressed out about how much everything was costing us, I wrote a post about how Bankok was blowing our budget. In Silom our food dollar is happily going further but accommodation is costing us a little more, both are better quality. Bangkok is more expensive than most other parts of Thailand ( excluding popular tourist beaches, of course) but it’s well worth the extra few dollars.

Where To Stay in Silom, Our Favourite, Mile Map.

Cheap hotels and guest houses are fewer over here, but what we have found are a some really good hostels. We’ve stayed in a four-bed room in Mile Map Hostel (click through to check prices and availability, it gets busy, so book in advance), Pan Rd, and there are other family friendly hostels in the area. We are seeing a few hostels that don’t take children as we continue to search. Mile Map is a particularly good choice for families as 1 child under 12 can stay free in existing bedding.

Cool modern industrial Mile Map Hostel in Silom Bangkok. A hostel that’s great for families.

I’f you’re looking for another place to stay in Bangkok maybe start here. There are some larger, fairly expensive hotels in the Silom area, Holiday Inn and all the big chains cater to your more cashed-up visitor.

We are not sponsored by Mile Map in any way but son 2 made this little video, just for fun, they love making videos.

 

Things to Do in Silom.

Catch the water taxi from Silom to the Grand Palace, Wat Po, Wat Arun, Khao San Rd, most places. It’s ultra cheap and lots of fun. Silom also has Bangkok’s fast monorail (BTS) system.

Silom is south of the Khao San Road area, the Grand Palace and Wat Po are to the north, sandwiched between the two areas. The river and water taxi connections are to the west.

 

It would be easy to base yourself in Silom and see all of Bangkok. The monorail or BTS runs through this part of town, although it only covers a small part of the city.

Silom also has its own special attractions.

A blogging friend of mine, Manf or Renegade Travels lives in Silom and put this post together on things to do in Silom. I’d add a couple of places to his list.

Lumphini Park

Bangkok’s green Lumpini Park, or Lumphini Park is an easy walk or monorail ride from Silom.

Lumpini Park is a green oasis in the middle of the city. A perfect spot to take the children to play and watch the huge monitor lizards swimming in the lakes.

Jim Thompson House

Photo credit Scheherazade on Flickr under Creative Commons license

Thompson was an American architect, entrepreneur and silk merchant. The Jim Thompson House is an archetectural and atistic treasure, well worth a half day visit.

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We’ve loved our short stay in Silom and I think this could well be our new favourite base in Bangkok, one of our favourite cities in the world.