Erawan Museum

The Erawan Museum in Samut Prakan, Thailand, is a private museum famous for its monumental three-headed elephant sculpture. Inside, visitors can explore a vast collection of art and religious artifacts, including Chinese vases from the Ming and Qing dynasties, European pottery, and Buddhist relics from various eras. The museum’s design reflects Hindu cosmology, with three levels representing the underworld, human earth, and heaven. It’s accessible via the Chang Erawan BTS station on the Sukhumvit Line.

Planning your visit

The Erawan Museum announces itself from a distance: a 43-metre bronze three-headed elephant, weighing some 250 tonnes, standing on a pink pedestal building in Samut Prakan south of Bangkok. It was built by Lek Viriyaphant, the businessman behind the Ancient City nearby, to house his collection of religious and decorative art, and the structure is organised around Hindu cosmology. Three levels represent the underworld, the human earth, and heaven — the last reached by climbing a spiral staircase inside one of the elephant's legs into the belly of the creature, where a stained-glass dome and Buddhist relics await. The lower floors hold Ming and Qing porcelain, European pottery and Thai religious sculpture.

It is genuinely unusual rather than merely large, and photographs undersell the effect of the interior stained glass. Practically, it sits outside central Bangkok but is easy to reach on the BTS Sukhumvit line to Chang Erawan station, followed by a short ride. Allow around ninety minutes for the museum itself, longer if you combine it with anything nearby. Modest dress is expected given the religious content.

Most bookable options pair it with the Ancient City, Muang Boran — an enormous open-air park under the same founder's legacy, laid out in the shape of Thailand and filled with full-size and scaled replicas of the country's monuments. The two together make a full day well outside the usual Bangkok circuit. Formats include combined tickets, private tours covering both sites with transport, and itineraries adding Bang Pu seaside or finishing with a Chao Phraya river dinner cruise back in the city. Discounted admission tickets are available for independent visitors arriving by BTS. Current options are shown below.