Bangkok highlight for kids – not your usual suspects either!

I am super excited to share a guest post from Elisabeth Fahrni Mansur, a very special person in our lives, part of a unique family who share our ethos and love for nature, wildlife, sustainability and ‘style’ (for lack of a better word) parenting. Adventurers, conservation scientists, environmental educators, wildlife photographers, wonderful parents and dear friends to us. In a months time Liz and Rubai –Mowgliz – are off to travel in South America followed by North America for 5 months with their 5 year son Dylan and 2 year old daughter Amaya. I look forward to following their family travels and hopefully sharing future posts on our blog 🙂 We just spent a wonderful four days together in Koh Samet, Thailand where we had stopped on our way to England from New Zealand. The Mowgliz family continued their stay in Bangkok for a few more days and discovered some pretty unique spots in Bangkok for kids.

Mowgliz family

Guest Post by Elisabeth Fahrni

After a brief and most enjoyable summer holiday with good friends on Ko Samet, we added three days to explore some of Bangkok’s child-friendly attractions with our two little ones before returning home. We chose a different activity for each day, and each made for a fabulous day out: Ice-skating on the Olympic-size rink at Imperial World Samrong, exploring the marvelous National Museum, and visiting the Children’s Discovery Museum. Besides the actual destinations, our family enjoyed traveling with the skytrain and riverboats as well as tasting fresh lemonade and street food everywhere we went.

But the highlight of our children’s first visit to Bangkok (other than the swimming pool in the place we stayed) was certainly the Children’s Discovery Museum. Here are five reasons why we highly recommend a visit for families with children between the ages of 1 and 7:

Highly recommended: A day (or more) exploring the family-friendly, cheap and fun Children’s Discovery Museum in Bangkok.

Discovery Museum in Bangkok.

1. Budget friendly – The entry to the museum is free. We went on a Saturday, and even though there were lots of visitors, it didn’t feel crowded. It was worth getting there just around opening time (10am), as we got tired around 3pm and the museum closes at 4pm. Interactive exhibits have different operating hours, so we chose the order of sections to visit accordingly. There are lots of food stalls along the streets outside the museum: The four of us had a yummy and filling lunch for just 220 Baht (including two big bowls of noodle soup, fried chicken pieces, fresh lemonades and beer). You can walk in and out of the large complex freely, so organizing your own food is very easy and cheap. And the museum is located just a short walk away from the Mo Chit BTS Skytrain station, in the Chatuachak Park (northern end of the famous Chatuachak Weekend Market). So getting there and back is easy, too.

The walk through the Chatuachak Park was an added attraction for our kids who loved feeding the pigeons and ginormous fish.

2. Feeding Dinosaurs – The ‘Dino Detective’ park was certainly the favorite exhibit of our 5-year old. You enter the exhibition through an impressively large T-Rex skull. On the inside, framed by the prehistoric beast’s bones, there are a number of displays and engaging interactive elements. Although all information is in Thai, it was easy enough to narrate. Our children’s favorite game was figuring out which of the three dinosaurs prefer meat, plants or nuts based on the shape of their teeth and jaws. If the food items are placed on the correct plate, the heads of the dinosaur models move and respond with a startling roar. The kids also enjoyed dressing up as fierce dinosaurs using various costume-body parts. The best part however was the outdoor archeological site: Adjacent to the indoor exhibition there is a big sandpit with several dinosaur skeletons, each one missing a few bones. Equipped with shovels we started digging for these treasures. Unfortunately the strong sun and hot sand forced us to give up before we had actually uncovered anything. But it was a blast nonetheless!

The entrance to the dinosaur exhibit is itself an attraction.

Feeding the carnivores and herbivores rewards the courageous.

Enlighting insights into the lives of the prehistoric beasts are attractively displayed.

We felt like archaeologists digging for dinosaur bones in the scorching hot sand.

3. Climbing high – Both our children loved the outdoor playground ‘Jungle Adventure’. In the shade of large trees multi-level wood-steel-rope climbing structures including slides, tunnels and a suspension bridge offer adequate challenges for children of various ages. It’s safe, and parents have the opportunity to relax or join the fun.

Climbing to the very top of the ‘Pyramid Net’ is challenging and thrilling.

4. Water Play Zone – At the end of our visit, the kids stripped off their clothes and thoroughly enjoyed playing with the water jets, rain showers and fountains. This was a welcome way to cool down (although all indoor facilities are air-conditioned) and interact with other children. We were glad to have read about this attraction beforehand and brought a towel and change of clothes along.

The fountain area with water spurting in every direction offered respite from the midday
heat.

5. And so much more – This cheap, easily accessible and highly attractive museum has so much more to offer. We only saw a fraction of the exhibits and activities, and all four of us look forward to coming back to the Children’s Discovery Museum Bangkok for more fun.

By the time we return to explore more attractions including the urban planning space, the science gallery, Lego paradise, and Junior Thai cooking classes, our little one will have outgrown the attractive indoor play area for babies and toddlers.

To learn more about the conservation work Mowgliz does see here for the amazing wildlife photography as well as their work on dolphin conservation in Bangladesh.

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