Siam Bangkok: a guide to Siam Square, BACC and the malls
Siam Bangkok is the centre of the modern city. The two BTS lines cross here, the biggest malls stand shoulder to shoulder, and Siam Square's grid of lanes fills with students from Chulalongkorn University across the road. It is also, less obviously, home to the city's main contemporary art centre and one of its best small museums. Everything is within a ten-minute walk of the station, most of it under cover.
Siam Square
[Siam Square](/?q=Siam Square) is the low-rise grid of lanes south of the BTS station, owned by the university and leased to shops, cafes, tutoring schools and street-fashion stalls. It is where young Bangkok shops and hangs out. The open plaza by Siam Square One mall often hosts busking, pop-up markets and student events in the evenings. Lido Connect, a converted cinema, puts on film screenings, gigs and exhibitions. The lanes are good for cheap Thai food, bubble tea and the kind of shops that sell one thing well.
The malls
Across the road from Siam Square, three connected malls line the north side of Rama I. [Siam Paragon](/?q=Siam Paragon) is the biggest, with a large basement food hall, a cinema complex and the SEA LIFE Bangkok Ocean World aquarium below ground. Siam Center next door is fashion and younger brands; Siam Discovery is design and homeware. One stop west at National Stadium, MBK Center is the old-school version: floors of phone shops, souvenirs, cheap clothes and a food court, and still the place to go for a phone repair or a bargain. The malls connect by skywalk and the walkway continues east to Chit Lom and the Ratchaprasong malls; see the Ratchaprasong and Pratunam guide.
BACC
The BACC, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, is the white curved building at the Pathumwan intersection opposite MBK, linked to National Stadium BTS by skywalk. Entry is free. The upper floors hold rotating exhibitions of Thai and international contemporary art; the lower floors have small galleries, craft shops, a library and cafes around a spiral ramp. It is the best single stop for a sense of what Thai artists are doing now, and a cool, quiet place in the heat of the day. The art galleries by district post places it in the wider scene.
Jim Thompson House and Wat Pathum Wanaram
Two quieter stops sit within a few minutes of the malls. [Jim Thompson House](/?q=Jim Thompson) on Soi Kasemsan 2, near National Stadium, is the teak house complex assembled by the American who revived Thai silk after the war and then disappeared in Malaysia in 1967. It is visited by guided tour and is one of the best small museums in the city.
Wat Pathum Wanaram, between Siam Paragon and CentralWorld, is a working temple with a quiet garden that most mall shoppers never notice. It is a good place to sit for ten minutes away from the crowds.
Eating in Siam
Siam Paragon's basement food hall is a safe, wide-ranging choice. MBK's food court is cheaper and more Thai. For something closer to the ground, the lanes of Siam Square have noodle shops, grilled-meat stalls and the student cafes, and the lane beside the National Stadium has cheap rice and curry counters at lunchtime. Siam is not a nightlife district; the bars are in the hotels. For the evening, Ratchaprasong is a walk east and Silom is two stops south.
Getting there
Siam BTS is the interchange between the Sukhumvit and Silom lines, with exits into Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Siam Square. National Stadium, one stop west on the Silom line, is for MBK, BACC and Jim Thompson House. From the airport, take the Airport Rail Link to Phaya Thai and change to the BTS, two stops. The Khlong Saen Saep canal boat stops at Hua Chang pier on Phaya Thai Road, a short walk north of Siam Square, and runs west to the Old Town and east to Sukhumvit. Taxis in the Siam area are slow at all hours and the skywalk is faster for anything along Rama I.