Pak Khlong Talat

Pak Khlong Talat has traded on this site since the reign of Rama I and has been the flower market since the 1960s, supplying Bangkok's temples, shrines, hotels, weddings and funerals. It runs around the clock but the working hours are the early ones: trucks arrive from the growing provinces through the night, and between roughly midnight and six in the morning the market is at full volume with porters, wholesale buyers and women stringing garlands at the stalls. Marigolds by the sack, jasmine, lotus buds, roses and orchids are the staples, and the phuang malai garlands hung in taxis and offered at shrines are made here in quantity. A street-vendor clearance in 2016 moved sellers off the pavements and into the covered areas, which changed the character and was contested. It is a working wholesale market and the crowding, wet floors and porter traffic are constant.

What you actually see

• The night trading - trucks, porters and buyers between midnight and dawn.
• The marigolds and jasmine - the temple flowers stacked by the sack.
• The garland stringing - phuang malai made at the stalls by hand.
• The wholesale scale - supply for the city's temples, weddings and funerals.

When to go

November to February; between midnight and six in the morning for the market at work. Daytime shows a quieter retail version. One to two hours.

Honest expectations

The interesting hours are the middle of the night. Wet floors, heavy porter traffic and constant movement - it is a workplace. The 2016 pavement clearance changed the street atmosphere considerably.

Nearby

Memorial Bridge and the river are alongside; Phahurat and Chinatown are north-east.