Are receptions at Mandarin Oriental or pool parties at Sofitel So Bangkok not really what you are looking for? Then maybe this exploration will get you up from the chair.
Text and photos by Louise Bihl Frandsen
Sky bars, food markets, temples and endless shopping malls. Bangkok has a wide range of places to visit and places to see, but if you are looking for something quite different, there is particular one exploration hidden in the city that you should consider paying a visit.
The plane graveyard
It is not an elephant graveyard as in the classical Disney movie ‘The Lion King’, but it is kind of the same feeling you get, when you arrive from the trafficked road and suddenly look into the massive hole of a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet.
Opposite the Disney movie, when Simba ‘laughs in the face of danger’ it is not three hyenas welcoming you, but a humble man on his bicycle and his three beloved dogs. The plane is his home.
A plain home
After welcoming his loyal friends the plane man invites us to have a look inside. “Just go and look” he says and points at some tires we can jump up on to enter the ‘living room’.
An abandoned adventure
The abandoned jet airplane graveyard, right in the middle of Bangkok, Thailand, offers an adventure around in all of its old parts. And it is not only a weird experience to sit in the cockpits or walk the empty passenger sections, the view from the Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet is amazing – especially in sunset.
How to get there?
The planes are around 200 meters passed Ramkhamhaeng Road Soi 101 in the Bang Kapi district of Bangkok. If you are going there from central Bangkok, just take the BTS to Ekkamai, and get a taxi from there.
Besides the man and his three dogs, there is a family living near the gate. Ask for permission to enter, when you come from the big road and pay them 100 Bath to enter the graveyard.