Koh Kret Island Bangkok Day Trip Markets Cycling Temples and Craft Beer

Koh Kret is a small island in the middle of the Chao Phraya River, about an hour’s drive or boat ride away from Bangkok’s city centre. It is a man-made island constructed in the 1800s as part of the King’s Canal building project, which aimed to shorten the distance travelled along the river.

Historically, the island has been inhabited by Mon people, an ethnic minority group from Myanmar, and the island is famous for its Mon pottery.

Nowadays, it mainly serves as a short-trip destination for Thai tourists day-tripping from Bangkok. The island has a distinctly non-Bangkok feel because it is far away from the city skyscrapers, looking and feeling a lot more like Northern Thailand.

It can be visited as a day trip by boat from Nonthaburi Pier, or you can spend the night in one of the many homestays on the island. One of the homestays is very nice and right on the river, and the island in general is a much less developed place than the city. If you’re only in Thailand for a short while, visiting the island is a great chance to see what rural Thailand is like.

Koh Kret Markets and Street Food

The markets in Koh Kret are open all day Saturday and Sunday, and it’s one of the better markets in the city. There’s more of a focus on handmade goods here, with items like local handicrafts, tiger balm and oils being sold.

The highlight of the market is the street food. Some of the specialties on the island include fried vegetables and coconut ice cream.

A Quieter Side of Bangkok

One thing about this trip is that it brings you a lot closer to nature than you would usually experience in Bangkok. Bangkok has a lot of things to love about it, but a lack of green spaces and pollution are definitely problems in the city.

The trip to Koh Kret gets you out of the city and into cleaner air. To get to the island, you’ll have to cross the Chao Phraya River, the river that runs through the centre of Bangkok. However, up here the river is much more peaceful, and on the island there are many places where you can sit and enjoy the river and watch the boats pass by.

To get to a homestay, you may pass through a garden, and the house may be made entirely of wood, a far cry from a city condo.

Cycling Around the Island

One of the things to do on the island is rent a bike and cycle around. Bikes can be rented near the marketplace. It’s a little tricky at first as you ride through the narrow streets, especially on the busy weekend, but once you get further out there’s a lot more open space.

The island is only small, so the loop around the island is only about six kilometres long, but you can extend that by taking detours down the side streets to see what you can find. One of the things you might find on one of those detours is a hidden temple.

Temples and Craft Beer on Koh Kret

This is still Bangkok after all, so there is a new temple every 20 metres or so. There are, however, some pretty interesting temples around the island. Probably the most interesting is Wat Bang Chak, with a 27-metre-high Golden Buddha. This is actually on the other side of the river but can best be viewed from Koh Kret Island.

Another of the most famous is the leaning stupa of Koh Kret, Wat Poramaiyikawas. The three-century-old stupa started to tilt about 100 years ago due to water erosion.

Koh Kret is home to one of the only craft beer bars in Bangkok. Due to the government’s tight restrictions on which alcohol brands can be sold in Thailand, there are very few places in the whole country that serve craft beer. Chit Beer serves a variety of different craft beers, has live music and is in one of the best locations on the island. At Chit Beer you can watch the sunset over the Chao Phraya River after a day of exploring the island.