While sandbags continue to shield central Bangkok from Thailand's worst flooding in 60 years, other parts of the South Asian nation have been submerged in water.

Evacuation shelters in the suburbs of the Thai capital slowly started to fill up this weekend, CTV's South Asian Bureau Chief Ben O'Hara-Byrne reported from Bangkok on Saturday.

Residents fled as water levels in some communities rose more than a metre in just a few hours. The creeping tide turned some roads in suburban Bangkok into canals, trapping people in their homes until boats could come to the rescue.

But some residents have opted to stand their ground, even in the face of the nation's worst flooding in more than half a century.

"Most people here are choosing to stay put and wait the water out despite warnings," said O'Hara-Byrne from an evacuation shelter.

Across Thailand, almost 400 people have been killed by the floods which have washed over entire towns and forced hundreds of factories to close over the last two months.

The catastrophe has put hundreds of thousands of people out of work and cost billions of dollars in damage.

The floodwater has been a double-edged sword for the normally bustling tourist hub of Bangkok, where 50 districts are submerged while eight others have seen less serious flooding.

For the most part, sandbags have protected its historic inner city district from the deluge.

Tourist draws such as the Grand Palace and the Wat Pho temple complex remained relatively dry. But flood anxieties and travel warnings issued by foreign governments have led to a drop in attendance at the sites.

While the city core remains largely unaffected, neighbourhoods only a few kilometres away have been inundated by floodwater.

Residents of the outlying communities have paddled washtubs down trash-strewn waterways using wicker brooms, reported the Associated Press.

Lines for flood protection materials have grown rapidly in the last few days, reported O'Hara-Byrne.

While many have left the Bangkok area, resident David Kumar said he plans to defend his home.

"We have to fight for this because we are Thai," he told CTV News. "We have to fight."

Monsoon rains have battered the South Asian nation since July. Nationwide, 381 people have died in the flooding over the last three months, and 110,000 more have been displaced -- 10,000 of them in Bangkok, according to government figures.

With files from CTV's South Asian Bureau Chief Ben O'Hara-Byrne and The Associated Press