Bangkok is a city with a ton of things to see, eat and do. But one thing you can’t really do is hike because Bangkok is flat and has no hills. The closest activity to a hike is to climb up the Golden Mount at Wat Saket. This is a small, man-made hill that was built to house a gold chedi (a Buddhist mound with relics inside) on top in the mid-19th century. The Golden Mount is more a towering hill-shaped Buddhist compound rather than a hill, which is one of those only-in-Bangkok sights.

Visiting the Golden Mount allows you to enjoy sweeping views of Bangkok ranging from the low-lying shophouses in the older areas around the Golden Mount to modern skyscrapers further south along Sukhumvit and Silom.

The climb to the top takes place on a winding, attractive 300-step staircase inside the compound of Wat Saket, a Buddhist temple. You will come across rows of prayer bells that can be rung for good luck.

The temple has a grisly history because it served as a crematorium during severe cholera outbreaks, which saw thousands of deaths, in the 19th century. As a result, at the base of the hill is a macabre display of vultures feasting on a body, which commemorates what happened  in real life during those outbreaks when bodies were laid out on the temple grounds.

How to get there: There are no subway stations nearby so take a canal boat on the Khlong Sean Saep and get off at Phanfa pier. Wat Saket is a few minutes south of the pier across the bridge.

Chedi at the top of the Golden Mount

At the top, you can enter this shrine

Stairway on the Golden Mount
Looking up at the Golden Mount from the compound’s entrance

Display of vultures eating a dead person’s corpse, a scene from the 19th century when cholera outbreaks ravaged Bangkok and tens of thousands of bodies were dumped on the temple grounds 

In the canal boat to get to Khlong Sean Saep
Khlong Sean Saep canal with the Golden Mount (golden dome on top of white building) in the background