Visiting Khlong Lat Mayom Floating Market in Bangkok is a fantastic Bangkok day trip to get a feel for local Thai life. This market is a foodie’s paradise with every kind of Thai snack available – there were so many new food experiences for us here.
Unlike most floating markets close to Bangkok, you don’t have to travel far to get to Khlong Lat Mayom. It is easily accessible from the city, meaning you can go in the morning and still have the afternoon to explore the city or chill by your hotel pool.
Khlong Lat Mayom is not the most famous floating market in Bangkok, and this is a good thing as it is not as overrun with tourists as many of the other floating markets.
As a result, Klong Lat Mayom floating market has the reputation for being the best floating market in Bangkok for an authentic local market experience.
The Bangkok floating markets are a memory of the days when the canals of Bangkok were the main transport thoroughfares, before it became the busy metropolis it is today.
Today these floating markets are one of the city’s major tourist attractions, attracting visitors from around the world. Khlong Lat Mayom market however attracts a mainly local crowd who head here for shopping and eating.
However, because of this, it does have less boats than some of the other floating markets in Bangkok. If you have an image in your head of a Thailand river market with hundreds of boats, you would be better exploring another Bangkok floating market such as Damnoen Saduak floating market or Amphawa floating market.
Khlong Lat Mayom does have a few boats of vendors selling fruits and vegetables and the odd boat dishing up made-to-order noodles, but it is definitely not a busy floating market. The majority of this river market Bangkok is on land, with just a few boats pulled up alongside.
We are always keen to get off the beaten track a little and so we chose Khlong Lat Mayom and set off on our floating market Bangkok tour with tour company Withlocals, on their “Ultimate Floating Market Tour”. Here is our floating market Bangkok review.
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Snacks at the Thai Floating Market
The main focus of this floating market near Bangkok is the food. So much incredible food to sample here – really, it’s the whole point of coming here. We sampled some fantastic Thai street food snacks here, including some of the most delicious spicy tod mun pla (fish cakes) I have ever had.
It was fun to spend some time just wandering around the market, watching all the food being prepared and stopping off to sample many of the offerings along the way.
Snacks that were a hit with both kids and grownups alike included thua kea-chok (a sticky sweet sesame peanut bar), khao tan (crispy rice cakes) and khanom buang (a kind of crispy pancake filled with soft meringue and finished with a selection of toppings, including fresh coconut shreds).
All that snacking had helped us build up an appetite for lunch, so we made our way to the seating area and made ourselves comfortable at the bamboo picnic tables while our guide Ivan headed back off into the thick of the market to find us a selection of dishes for lunch: the old favourites of Pad Thai, Satay and Papaya Salad.
We ended our lunch with some of the best Kao Niew Mamuang (that’s mango sticky rice to you and I) we have ever tasted. So delicious! If you go, look out for this lady below, she does the best mango sticky rice!
Boat Tour near the Floating Market
What we really needed now was a good long walk to burn off all those calories. But we instead jumped aboard a longtail boat and set off for a canal tour of the local neighbourhood.
Here we got to get a feel for local Thai life in this Bangkok suburb, peeking into people’s gardens and houses, and passing by schools and temples. We also got to meet a different type of resident too: there were plenty of giant monitor lizards swimming by!
Khlong Lat Mayom Floating Market Opening Hours
This Bangkok water market is open on Saturday and Sunday (and some public holidays) from 9am to 4pm. Aim to get here for around 10am for the best experience.
Khlong Lat Mayom: How to get there
The easiest way to get to Khlong Lat Mayom is to take the BTS Skytrain to Bang Wa station and take a taxi from there. The taxi ride takes around 15 minutes. We had no problem finding a taxi back to the Skytrain station.
Booking with Withlocals
Mum on the Move were guests of Withlocals for our floating market Thailand tour. However, we booked the tour as if we were paying guests in order to understand their booking process.
Withlocals is really easy to book your tour with – you can choose from their selection of Bangkok tours and book online. You can read reviews of their different tour guides, and pick the one you most think suits your touring style.
There is also a messaging function on their website (and also on their app, which is handy to have on your phone), which allows you to easily communicate with your guide both before and after the tour.
You may also like to read about all the other fun things we did in Bangkok. Also check out our review of our Bangkok hotel, the Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit here.
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Note: Mum on the Move were guests of Withlocals for the purposes of writing this review. This in no way affected my review, and all opinions, as always, are honest and my own.