Ban Thachalom Tourism Information Center

Baan Thachalom Tourism Information Center occupies a two-storey wooden house built in 1963 on the Tha Chin riverbank in Tha Chalom, opposite Mahachai in Samut Sakhon. The building sits in the community that became Thailand’s first sukhaphiban (sanitary district) in 1905, after King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) singled it out as a model for local self-government. Entry is free, though the centre only opens on weekends: 09:00–17:30, Saturday and Sunday.

Inside, staff hand out maps of the neighbourhood’s street-art trail and talk through Tha Chalom’s history as a Chinese-Thai fishing and salt-trading port dating to the Ayutthaya period. The murals painted across the old shophouse walls draw on that same identity — mackerel catches, salt flats, river scenes — and cover several blocks of lanes behind the centre. Staff also run a small souvenir shop and arrange bicycle and bicycle-rickshaw (samlor) hire for visitors who want to cover the mural circuit without walking the whole loop on foot.

Beyond the centre itself, Tha Chalom’s lanes hold century-old Chinese-Thai shrines, a fresh market that’s liveliest before 9am, and Thawai Road, opened by royal ceremony in 1905 alongside the sukhaphiban reform. Those shrines trace back to the Chinese immigrant traders who settled the riverbank alongside Thai fishing families, and that mixed heritage is still visible in the shophouse-and-shrine streetscape behind the ferry pier. Across the river, Mahachai Market — one of the larger fresh-seafood ports on the Gulf of Thailand — makes an easy add-on, and Wat Mahachai is a short walk from the pier on the Mahachai side.

Insider Tip: Cross on the passenger ferry from Mahachai pier rather than driving around — it costs a few baht, takes under five minutes, and drops you straight into the old town instead of the newer development along the main road.

Watch out: The information centre and most guided mural tours run Saturday and Sunday only. Turn up on a weekday and the lanes are still walkable, but there’s no one at the desk to hand out a map or flag which murals are worth the detour.

Getting here from Bangkok means the Wong Wian Yai–Mahachai rail line to Mahachai station, then a short walk to the pier for the ferry crossing. Mornings are the most comfortable time to explore, before the heat builds and while the market stalls are still working.