Mercure's travel guides

Whatever you want – jewellery, fine silk, designer goods, musical instruments – someone in Bangkok sells it. In the heat of summer or the rainy season, shelter in one of Bangkok's malls: Panthip Plaza for electronic goods, Paragon for clothes, Emporium in Sukhumvit for everything else. If the weather's fine, shop in Bangkok's outdoor markets. As well as the Chatuchak Weekend Market, explore Chinatown's colourful 24-hour Pak Khlong Talad Flower Market or even the daily 100-year-old Damnoen Saduak Floating Market west of Bangkok, where women in straw hats paddle boats laden with fruit and vegetables.

Chatuchak Weekend Market

Chatuchak Park and Mo Chit Skytrain stations, Bangkok
02 272-4440-1
http://www.jjmarketplace.com

Description:

With its rows and rows of stalls selling everything from furniture to clothes, plants, antiques, books, carvings and dried goods, as well as the many little restaurants, this place makes for a great outing whether you want to shop or not. The area is huge and labyrinthine, but that's half the fun. The shopping is great, but bargaining is the name of the game: go in at about a quarter of their stated price. Most stalls start packing up at around 6pm; some stay open much later.
Sat-Sun 6am-6pm

River City Complex

Yotha Rd, next to the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel, Bangkok
02 237-0077-78
http://www.rivercity.co.th/

Description:

For high-end antiques and very good imitation artefacts, the stores in this fancy, five-storey riverfront shopping complex are the place. As late as the '90s real Angkor artefacts were stolen snuck out of Cambodia and sold here. The shops are reportedly on the up-and-up now, and most merchandise is high quality, but for the budget shopper it's still worth a look for the few places that sell less expensive items.
Mon-Sat 10am-9pm

Siam Paragon

991 Rama I Rd, Siam Skytrain station, Bangkok, 10100
02 690-1000
http://www.siamparagon.co.th

Description:

Malls rule, and Siam Paragon is the newest and glitziest of them all. Connected to the central Siam Skytrain station, this is an upmarket centre with everything from a grocery store and fancy restaurants in the basement and on the ground floor to bookstores and clothing outlets further up. You'll find Victoria's Secret and Piaget, plus cinemas up on the top floor that stay open beyond the stores' closing time of 10pm. Other malls that are smaller but still worth looking out for are Gaysorn Plaza (Intersection Rama I and Ratchadamri roads) and Peninsula Plaza (153 Ratchadamri Road), both down the street, and The Emporium (Sukhumvit Road and Soi 24), just five stops down the Skytrain line.
Daily 10am-10pm
Visa, MasterCard, American Express