9 Best Things to Do in Sathorn

Blue Elephant Cooking School in Bangkok is the perfect activity if you fancy trying your hand at preparing Royal Thai cuisine. Whether you’re an amateur or a professional chef, the instructors here are passionate about their work and serious about providing high-quality lessons, so you can certainly learn something. The Blue Elephant Cooking School is part of the Blue Elephant Restaurant Bangkok. Housed in a renovated colonial-style building, the stunning architecture and sunlit rooms give this cooking school an air of sophistication.

Christ Church Bangkok is a lovely white Anglican Church on Convent Road, built in a simple gothic-meets-colonial style. Today, it serves a congregation of around 500, lending spiritual shelter from Sathorn Road's intense traffic. The interior is painted white and contains stained glass windows, one of which depicts Christ's crucifixion. It also contains Thailand's only pipe organ. Services and sermons are given in both Thai and English.

Lumpini Park is an inner-city haven of tranquillity, fresh air and shade, offering city dwellers the chance to reconnect with nature. Named after the birthplace of the Lord Buddha in Nepal, the park is about 57.6 ha in size, making it one of Bangkok's biggest green spaces. It's home to a variety of flora and fauna. Take a stroll, learn how to tango, join an aerobics class, or simply find a tranquil spot to practise your meditation skills.

Thailand's prime minister from 1974 to 1975, M.R. Kukrit Pramoj and his beautiful home on Soi Suan Phlu were often the focus of national politics during times of turbulence, with journalists flocking outside. Today, thanks to the Kukrit 80 Foundation, it's the public who now flock to see the elegant home of this intellectual leader.

More than a museum, it's a testament to his talents not only as a politician, but also a poet, writer and artist. Its 5 traditional teak houses on stilts were painstakingly assembled under his personal supervision – a process that took over 20 years. Each is interconnected and crammed full of fine-art treasures – not museum pieces but the things he saved and savoured, like ceramics, precious furniture and Buddha images. There's also an interesting library, the stacks of books ranging from fiction to philosophy – proof of his diverse interests. The serene gardens are full of exotic plants, trees and flowers, but most notable for their bonsai-style trees, called mai dat in Thai.

First opened in 1986, Bangkok's Robot Building is located on South Sathorn Road. According to the architect, the original inspiration for the 20-storey building came from his son's toy robot. Complete with 'eyes' and 'antennae', the building's quirky characteristics mask the fact that the elements of the exterior design serve real purposes. For instance, the oversized 'bolts' and 'caterpillar wheels' act as sunshades and canopies.

Sathorn Unique is a 50-storey incomplete building. Abandoned since the 1997 economic crisis, this concrete monolith was supposed to become one of the most luxurious residences in Bangkok. You can't help but notice a strong resemblance with the nearby skyscraper State Tower, home of the very famous Sky Bar, with its typical round balconies and Roman columns. The building is now part of everyday Bangkok life as it's used as a support for a gigantic advertising banner.

The Roof @38th Bar at Mode Sathorn Hotel is, you guessed it, a rooftop bar in Bangkok's Sathorn area. On the 38th floor (unsurprisingly) of this fashionable hotel (easily identifiable by its mauve colour), you're way above the traffic jams and the little annoyances of big city life. The rooftop is entirely open-air, so it's not ideal to visit it on rainy days, but the feeling of being high up in the air is real and impressive.

Vertigo and Moon Bar at Banyan Tree Bangkok is a luxurious rooftop bar and restaurant with expansive views of the cityscape. Located on the 61st floor of the 5-star hotel, it has a narrow and elongated shape that gives you an impression of being aboard a spaceship. It’s also one of the few rooftop bars with absolutely nothing above you – which is why it’s best to visit on a clear day (or night).