Chinese New Year in Bangkok: Yaowarat, and where to sleep

Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar, so the date moves each year between late January and the middle of February. Check the specific date early, because it drives everything else about the trip.

It is not an official public holiday in Thailand, which surprises people. Offices and schools mostly stay open. What happens instead is that Chinese-Thai businesses close, sometimes for several days, and the celebration is concentrated in the Chinese-Thai community rather than spread across the country.

Traditionally the festival runs over three days: a shopping and preparation day, a day of paying respects at temples and to family, and a day of going out and enjoying yourself. On Yaowarat the street celebration usually peaks on the first day of the new year itself, in the evening.

The main stretch of Yaowarat Road is closed to traffic and given over to the crowd. Red lanterns go up along its length, stages appear, and lion and dragon dance troupes work their way through the district accompanied by drums you will hear several streets before you see them.

The food, which is the reason to be in Chinatown on any night of the year, goes up several gears. Stalls that normally open in the evening run longer and busier, and the side sois off the main road are where the better eating usually is once the centre becomes impassable.

The temples are the other half. Wat Mangkon Kamalawat is the largest Chinese temple in the district and fills with people making offerings, burning incense and lighting candles. It is smoky, crowded and one of the most atmospheric things you can see in this city.

The crowd is not constant. Late afternoon and early evening, from about four to six, the lanterns are up and lit, the stalls are open, the dances have started, and you can still move. From about seven onwards the density rises sharply and by eight, on peak night, walking the main road becomes a slow shuffle.

So go early and stay late, or go late and skip the middle. What does not work is arriving at eight with a plan, because you will not execute it. If you are travelling with children or anyone who dislikes crowds, treat six o'clock as your hard limit on the main road and move to the side streets after that.

The morning is a completely different and underrated option. Chinatown before ten, in the days around the new year, is decorated, calm, and full of preparation rather than performance. The gold shops are busy, the temples are working, and you can actually see the architecture.

MRT Wat Mangkon is the station, and it changed Chinatown completely when it opened. It puts you at the top of the district, and it is by a wide margin the best way in and out on a peak night. Do not attempt to arrive by taxi: the roads around Yaowarat are closed or gridlocked and you will be dropped further away than the station would have left you.

The other approach is by river. Ratchawong Pier is a short walk from the main road, and arriving on a Chao Phraya boat is a genuinely enjoyable way to reach the district on an ordinary evening. On peak night the piers are busy too, so treat the MRT as the reliable option.

Going home, the station is also where everyone else will be. If you are staying nearby you can simply walk out of the crush, which is the argument for sleeping in the district. If you are not, leave before the end rather than with everyone else.

Carry cash in small notes. Bangkok has otherwise gone substantially cashless, but the street stalls specifically have not, and standing in a queue discovering this is a poor use of a festival evening.

Agree a meeting point before you go in, and pick something immovable like a temple gate or a station exit rather than a stall. Phone signal in a crowd of that density is unreliable, and groups do get separated. Carry very little, and carry it in front of you.

One more that catches visitors out: the incense smoke at the temples is thick, and if anyone in your party has asthma or similar, the interior halls on a peak evening are worth admiring from outside. And do not plan a temple marathon for the morning after the busiest night, because you will not do it.

If Yaowarat is the reason you planned this trip, sleep in the district. Arawana Express Chinatown is within walking distance of the main road, which means you can step out, look at the crowd, and decide whether to commit, and, more importantly, walk home when you have had enough rather than negotiating transport at the edge of a closed road.

That ability to leave on your own terms is worth more on this specific night than almost any other feature of a hotel. It also means you can go twice: an hour in the afternoon and an hour late, with a rest in between.

If the festival is one evening of a longer Bangkok trip, stay on Sukhumvit and ride in on the MRT for the peak hours. Arawana Express Sukhumvit 22 or Arawana Regency Park Sukhumvit give you quiet nights and a train to the festival, which suits most people better than they expect.

The constraint at Chinese New Year is not Bangkok, it is Chinatown. The rest of the city books much as it does in any February. The hotels within walking distance of Yaowarat fill first and fill hard, because everyone has the same idea about not wanting to travel home afterwards.

So if the district is where you want to be, book as soon as you know the date. And as with every busy date, the useful room types go before the standard ones: twins, family configurations and quiet floors disappear while a hotel still shows availability.

Ask for a quieter room if you are a light sleeper. Chinatown is a working district that is loud in the evening and starts early in the morning, and that is true year-round, not only during the festival.