"Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going...” - Paul Theroux
Date: 24 September 2026, Thursday
Route: Bangkok Free & Easy
Hotel: Nasa Bangkok Hotel
It was our usual breakfast of bread and half-boiled eggs this morning - simple, familiar and enough to get us ready for another day of exploring Bangkok.
Today, we planned to visit a mosque and a couple of popular tourist spots. We boarded the Airport Rail Link (ARL) at Ramkhamhaeng Station, just a few minutes’ walk from Nasa Bangkok Hotel. The hotel is conveniently connected to the station by an elevated pedestrian walkway.
The fifteen-minute train ride brought us to Ratchaprarop Station. From there, our first destination was Masjid Niamatul Islam, located about 1.5 kilometres away. What looked like a short walk on the map turned into a sweaty thirty-minute walk through smaller commercial alleys, with narrow and uneven pavements. The lanes were crowded with street vendors, parked motorbikes and the constant bustle of local life, surrounded by a mixture of shop-houses, budget hotels and small eateries.
With its prominent minaret, the mosque is tucked away inside a densely packed neighbourhood, behind local parking structures and the Bangkok Palace Hotel. Like many community mosques in central Bangkok, reaching it means navigating narrow side streets and tightly packed buildings.
At first, the street-facing entrance looked rather small and hidden. But once inside, the mosque opened up into a surprisingly spacious and well-maintained multi-level building. Unfortunately, we could not photograph the main prayer hall as it was outside prayer time and the hall was locked. Nevertheless, the caretaker warmly invited us to return and join the Juma'at prayer here tomorrow.
After leaving the mosque, we stopped at a roadside café for a tall glass of pineapple and mango smoothies each. In Bangkok, smoothies seem to be more popular than plain fruit juice. Blended directly with ice, they make a thick, refreshing drink - just what we needed after our hot walk.
From there, we crossed over to Indra Square, a well-known air-conditioned indoor wholesale and retail shopping centre, particularly popular with South Asian, Chinese and Indian visitors. The complex has numerous shops selling Indian-style textiles, fabrics, clothing and jewellery.
After cooling down at Indra Square, we headed next door to Pratunam Market, one of Bangkok's best-known shopping areas, with hundreds of stalls offering clothing, textiles and accessories at budget-friendly prices. The market is especially popular with those looking for wholesale and inexpensive fashion items.
By the time we were ready to return, the ARL train from Ratchaprarop back to Ramkhamhaeng was already packed. Still, travelling by train was much more convenient than taking a taxi, especially with Bangkok's notorious traffic congestion. The fifteen-minute train journey completely bypassed the traffic that could easily turn a short trip by road into an hour-long journey. No wonder the trains are almost always full!
For lunch, we enjoyed a delicious combination of savoury tom yam beef noodles, chewy Thai-style murtabak and orange coffee. Finding all three on a single restaurant menu would be unusual, but here they were readily available from the various halal stalls at the Al-Mubarak NASA Food Court.
The orange coffee, also known as an Iced Orange Americano, was particularly interesting — a shot of robust espresso layered over chilled, sweet orange juice. The citrusy freshness balanced the bitter coffee beautifully and made a refreshing finish to our flavourful lunch.
Back at the hotel, we retrieved our travel documents and travel bags. There was still some repacking to do before our flight to Dalat, Vietnam, later this weekend.
Another easy day in Bangkok came to an end - a day of mosques, markets, trains, halal food and the simple pleasures of exploring the city on foot.
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