Travelogues

Was arriving in Bangkok after an eight-hour van ride from Siem Reap, Cambodia. My destination was Khaosan road in Old Bangkok which is bound by the Chao Phraya river.

I was in Bangkok before, on transit only. This time it is my chance to use Bangkok transportation to reach places around the city. First thing to do is to gather all the information I could get about Bangkok. There are so many brochures, travelling booklets, magazines in Khaosan area. There is a tourist office near the Phra Arthit pier where you can get lot of information for free.

So I plan to try the river bus by which you can go from one pier to another along the Chao Phraya. Bangkok authorities make a good cause of doing transportation along the river which is hardly implemented in another country such as Indonesia where I came from.

When arriving at one pier, it is possible to reconnect to a BTS station nearby. I was then reaching pier 1 from pier 13 in Khaosan and reconnect with a BTS near the Thaksin bridge. Bangkok Mass Transit System, popularly known as BTS, is where you can use the BTS line to reach places in Bangkok. Indeed people use these BTS stations around Bangkok as meeting places. Bangkok is well connected, BTS lines are connected to other Skytrain or MRT lines as well.

For example, from BTS station at Thaksin bridge you can go to Silom intersection that allows you to choose the next station. A magnetic card is used for ticket that you can vend from a machine. You can exchange the necessary amount of coins indicated by a table at the machine front. There is also a daily ticket that allows you to use for the whole day until midnight. In this case you won't need to buy each time you want to go from one station to another in a day.

I did stop at Hua Lamphong BTS station on my way back to Khaosan road. From here I took a bus no 53 to reach my place. A friendly usable transportation method in Bangkok.

The next day I decided to move on and stay around the Phaya Thai station for it's easier for me to reach the airport by means of Airport Rail link. This special MRT will link from Phaya Thai directly to the Suvarnabhumi airport and it took about 25 minutes. There is also an unstoppable express line if you are on the rush to reach the airport.

Well, the good thing about Bangkok is the transportation where people can easily commute from one place to another and in a cheaper mode than using a taxi or tuk-tuk, which is another story to tell.