Bangkok Layover at Don Mueang Airport (DMK)

Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok has been flying since 1914, keeps a golf course between its two runways, and has the Royal Thai Air Force Museum and its rare aircraft immediately outside the domestic terminal.

A golf course between Don Mueang’s two runways

Players get held back by a red light every time an aircraft comes in to land, because the air force’s course occupies the whole strip of ground between the two parallel runways, which is a fair summary of how this airport came to exist: it opened as a military airfield on 27 March 1914 and only took its first commercial flight ten years later. That makes it one of the oldest airports anywhere still in service. It shut altogether in September 2006 when the new airport east of the city took over, then reopened six months later once that one filled up, and it now runs two terminals almost entirely for low-cost carriers. Several of the lounges in both terminals sell entry by the visit rather than by ticket class, and passes are sold ahead through a tours and activities platform if the plan is to wait rather than go out.

The last surviving Vought Corsair, at the Air Force Museum

Nowhere else has one. The Royal Thai Air Force Museum’s Vought O2U Corsair is the only example left in the world, and it sits in a collection that also holds one of two surviving Tachikawa Ki-36 trainers, one of three Curtiss Goshawks, a Spitfire and a Grumman Bearcat, spread across indoor halls and an outdoor apron on Phahonyothin Road immediately south of the domestic terminal. Entry costs nothing. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 09:00 to 17:00 and closes on Mondays, which is the fact to check before building a connection around it. It is close enough to the terminals to reach on foot at a push, and the elevated line has a station carrying the museum’s own name if the heat makes that a bad idea.

The storage counters here sit inside the terminals themselves rather than out by a train platform, but they keep different hours: the one on the ground floor of Terminal 2 runs around the clock at about 100 baht a suitcase a day, while the Terminal 1 desk shuts at midnight.

Wat Phra Si Mahathat, the temple built for the men who ended absolute monarchy

Construction started on 20 March 1941, under the government of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, to mark the government’s defeat of the Boworadet rebellion eight years earlier. The result is a temple designed as a monument to a political idea rather than a royal foundation, which is not how any of the temples in the historic centre came about. Its white stupa stands 38 metres and encloses a smaller pagoda holding Buddha relics; around it, the same structure holds the ashes of nearly every member of the People’s Party, the group that ended absolute monarchy in Thailand in 1932. It sits a few stops south of the airport on the elevated line, at a station carrying the temple’s own name, and costs nothing to walk into.

The commuter line south stops at midnight

Trains from Don Mueang run to Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal, where the metro picks up the rest of the city, between 05:30 and midnight: every twelve minutes in the morning and evening peaks, every twenty the rest of the time, 12 to 42 baht depending on how far you go. Reaching the temples on the river from here means that ride plus a metro change, an hour each way at best, so a gap under about five hours is better spent north of the centre than trying for the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. Transferring to the airport east of the city is a longer proposition again, an hour to an hour and a half by rail or bus, and shuttle coaches run between the two terminals for passengers connecting on the same booking.