Cultural Treasures of Bangkok: Temples & Royal Palace Tour
Description
Bangkok's spiritual and royal heritage shines on this immersive half-day tour through its most iconic landmarks. Discover serene beauty, architectural splendor, and cultural depth of Thailand's capital in few unforgettable hours. Journey begins at Wat Trimitr, home to world's largest solid gold Buddha statue standing 15 feet tall and weighing 5.5 tons. Located in Bangkok's thriving Chinatown district, this 700-year-old statue has fascinating history. Next, step inside Wat Pho, Bangkok's oldest and largest temple complex neighboring Grand Palace, where majestic 46-meter-long Reclining Buddha awaits with beautifully inlaid mother-of-pearl soles. Considered world's most famous temple, also regarded as Thailand's first university. Grand finale is Grand Palace, most spectacular royal complex in Thailand. Built in 1782 by King Rama I, former residence of Chakri Kings was centre of power for over 150 years, housing ceremonial halls and Temple of Emerald Buddha.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Offering this tour both in the morning as well as in the afternoon, our guide and driver pick you up from your hotel in Bangkok for 4 hours of getting an impression of the most stunning temples of Bangkok and the Grand Palace, Bangkok’s well-known building that breaths grandeur. Our tour commences at the temple with the invaluable Golden Buddha. Located in Bangkok’s thriving Chinatown district, Wat Trimitr (also called Wat Traimit) is best known as the home of the largest known solid gold Buddha image in the world. Standing at 15 feet tall and weighing in at approximately 5.5 tons, this 700-year old statue has an interesting history.
Driving through Chinatown, we arrive shortly at the grounds of Wat Po. This large and extensive temple neighbours the Grand Palace enclave and contains a gigantic gold plated Reclining Buddha, some 46 meters long and 15 meters high, with beautifully inlaid mother-of-pearl soles. Considered to be one of the worlds’ most famous temples, Wat Pho is also regarded as the first centre of public education and is sometimes called ‘Thailand’s first university’
Situated close to the Chao Phraya, Bangkok’s River of Kings, the Grand Palace occupies nearly one square mile. The former royal residence of the Chakri Kings, the palace is the perfect example of an ancient Siamese court. Built in 1782 by King Rama I, it was the centre of power for more than 150 years. Today, the palace is Bangkok's major landmark and most popular tourist attraction and is often used for the occasional ceremony. The interiors of most of the buildings in the Grand Palace are closed to the public. After this introduction to Thai Buddhist temples and the home of the former Kings of Thailand, we bring you back to your hotel.
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
Hotel pickup is available from most centrally located Bangkok hotels. Please contact tour operator if your hotel is not listed in the dropdown list of pick up hotels.
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- This tour is operated both on private basis as well as on joint / Seat-In-Coach basis.
- Joint tours are operated with an English-speaking guide only with other languages for joint operation on selected days of the week only.
- Transfers are only operated within the downtown Bangkok areas and restricted to main hotels only. Regions outside the central business district such as Khao San Road, Rattanakosin, Nonthaburi, Thonburi, Minburi, both International Airports, Ratchadapisek and upper Sukhumvit (Soi 55 and further) are excluded and supplementary charges apply.
- We regret that are unable to provide pick-up and drop-off transfer services from and to apartment complexes, local guest houses or private apartments. We advise you kindly to head on your own arrangement to the nearest hotel inside the downtown Bangkok area.
- Should you have booked a joint / Seat-In-Coach excursion, we are unable to communicate with you with accurate participation numbers, as these may change until the very last moment.
- Royal temples and palaces uphold a very strict dress code: it is essential that you dress appropriately during this excursion by wearing clothes that cover shoulders and fall below the knees. Customers wearing shirts with obscene and disrespectful prints and pictures and brightly-coloured clothing may be refused entrance.
- To respect local customs and respecting the religious sites and temples on this tour, it is customary for guests to take off their shoes before allowed entrance. Your guide will inform you in advance for which of these sites this is applicable.
- We always will make efforts to confirm the exact pick-up time upon reservation. For any operational issues in which are not able to confirm the exact pick-up time in advance, we reserve the right to inform you the day before the departure of the tour.
- Certain sights in this excursion may not be photographed for specific reasons. We kindly ask for your understanding by following local regulations.
- Please ensure that you bring sunglasses, a hat /cap and sunblock with a high SPF factor when traveling with us on this tour – even when it is cloudy, the sunrays still have an immense power.
- It is the responsibility of the customer to provide us with the correct hotel information, should pick-up and drop-off services be included in the package. Any changes in accommodation outside 24 hours will be handled accordingly: changes within 24 hours may be on request.
- In the event of no-show or change of accommodation without prior consent and confirmation from us within 24 hours may result in the applicable cancellation charges as outlined in the terms and conditions.
Reviews(70)
Luckily not so many people. Otherwise, you queue for a long time and barely get anywhere. The palace and temples are really worth seeing and once in a lifetime you must have seen it!
Thank you for sharing your experience! We're glad the timing worked in your favour and that you could enjoy the Palace and temples without too much of a crowd. We hope Bangkok left you with wonderful memories, and perhaps we'll have the pleasure of welcoming you back to the region one day! Asian Trails Thailand
It was a great tour. Suree was the best tour guide ever!!! She was a pleasure and so knowledgeable!!!
Thank you so much for your kind words! We’re thrilled to hear you enjoyed the tour and that Suree made your day in Bangkok so special. She’s indeed one of our most passionate and knowledgeable guides, and we’re lucky to have her on the team. We hope to welcome you again on another Asian Trails experience in Thailand or across Asia!
We've just finished 12 magnificent days in Thailand (Bangkok, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Krabi). Many thanks to everyone for their invaluable tips and advice, but especially to the spectacular Khun Sai. See you (soon) in Thailand!
Thank you so much for your review! We're thrilled that our team's made your Thai adventure so memorable. We're especially pleased to hear about Khun Sai's exceptional service. Sai will be delighted to know how much his expertise meant to you. Thanks for choosing Asian Trails and see you soon in Thailand!
Excellent private tour with a guide KANOKRAT. She was very knowledgeable, and it was interesting to listen to her. She took a lot of photos of me and, upon my request, she took me to a lovely cafe for lunch. Great experience overall!
Great to see a must if you’re in Bangkok! The guide was excellent, the driver didn’t show up though but she managed to get us to all the destinations via taxi and tuk tuk drivers which was good to experience !
AVOID! I just want also to let you know that - I have 30 years of tours/traveling so this is not my first experience - This is a private tour (but, honestly, 80% of what I am going to write would be bad for a group trip too….) and the price isn’t cheap - After this excursion we had very good tours, so, yes, we were unlucky You can just read title of each point or read the whole thing if you want to know more. 1) English tour guide and no English 😳 ? The guide (Mark) speaks little to no English. To the extent that when we were asking questions slowly, the broken English answers he gave were unrelated to the topic. 2) A real tour guide? - During our car trip to the different attractions Mark didn’t give us any context: we didn’t know we were going, what we would see, and the location’s basic history. Zil, none, zero, nada… we tried multiple times in different ways to let him know we wanted to know more. It always fell on deaf ears. The trip was him either talking to the driver or on his phone. - All the information he gave us was a game of true or false. We would get out of the car and all he would say was “we are at X/Y/Z”. As afore mentioned, he gave very basic information: when asking other guides afterwards, we discovered what he said to be mostly wrong. Since he was checking Google most of the time to answer at our basic questions, I am wondering why he didn’t get the info right? - For Thai people the Royal family has an immense value. This guide wasn’t able to even distinguish one king from another (not even to say if the figure portrayed was a king or not 👀 ) , even in front of photos. This left us wondering whether he even is a real tour guide. 3) Let’s keep up with the pace! Mark would quickly walk ahead, neither waiting for us nor checking where we were, leaving us slightly lost at times. 4) History and math test time! I think this is less important but was a kind of the cherry on top of the pie. - His answers assumed we were already aware of every step in Thai history and that what he was saying was common knowledge. - When we were asking for dates on events/buildings, Mark replied using the Thai calendar. When asking for clarification, he would always say either 100 or 250 years ago, which we later discovered was also not true for most information. To sum up, RUN away from this tour!
Ms. Nipaporn was a great tour guide. Very knowledgeable about all the sites. Made sure to get us into the sites promptly even if they were very busy. Would recommend this short tour for anyone wanting to see 3 of the best sites to visit in Bangkok!! Don't hesitate and ask for Ms. Nipaporn.
The guide Grace was very informative and worked hard to make sure we had a great time. The temples and palace are amazing works of art. Highly recommend this tour!
You can visit the templates and the palace on your own but it is not the same without have someone explain the history and architecture of the building. Our guide was very pleasant and professional. We enjoy the tour very much.
My partner and I decided to take this Enterprise for the trip and it was a success. We were touched that day by a guide named Victor and he explained absolutely everything about Thailand, the excursion we did also liked a lot. But we want to make special mention of Victor for his human quality and his great professionalism. A 10 to both the Enterprise and its employees. In love with Thailand and its people.
