Day Trip Bangkok Transportation

- Forget public buses and trains in Bangkok city, except the elevated trains such as the BTS Bangkok and the Airport Link, its simply a problem by any means.

In general to move around take a hotel near the ring road to easily

escape the traffic chaos, the hotel also should be somewhere close to the BTS Skytrain and subway which brings the hotel selection automatically down to the Sukhumvit, Ratchadamri, Silom and Surawong area. There are dozens maybe hundreds of Bangkok hotels around there in almost every price range.

Some like Bangkok city, others don’t, but it wont matter how its twisted and turned its one of the most fascinating places on earth. Bangkok city has great shopping malls with very affordable items for shopping as long as they are made in Thailand, everything imported gets expensive, there are great night markets, floating markets and actually there is a market at every second corner, boardwalk, encroached on the street, under the flyover of the highway, under the escalator to the BTS Bangkok , that’s the elevated train and elsewhere where nobody would ever dare to put a shop, in Bangkok city they do.

Some of the world's best hotels are around, such as Oriental Hotel on the riverside, thousands of restaurants catering to any taste, street food with crickets, bugs and fried cockroaches, fried rats and tom yam, the famous Thai soup with seafood and other stuff included. Bangkok nightlife is not only the greatest in the Orient; it’s the best on planet earth and the city is one of the best shopping destination in Asia.

There are pagodas cum monastery called Wat in Thai language, myriads of shrines for the ghosts at every building, monks walking in the early morning to get their rice bowl filled and people praying to Buddha to find the lucky numbers for the lottery.

Bangkok city is fun and a great way to enjoy vacation. Over the Chao Phraya into Thonburi you can tour the famous klongs. To the north is the old capital of Ayutthaya with a stunning historical park showing how it was in the old days. Ayutthaya was the second capital of the Kingdom of Siam for over 400 years. Travelers in the past told about glittering palaces and temples. The Myanmar burned the city in 1767 and took thousands of Thais with them back to Burma or today who functioned as teachers for dancing, architecture and various other means. One constant figure among others is Thai food as at this Sukhumvit food court.

- Bangkok to Phuket

Many tourists travel from Bangkok to Phuket. This tour wont need any travel agent, just go to the Phuket bus terminal at the city center, buy a ticket, either for Baht 640,- (32 seated bus) or Baht 940,- (24 seated bus). 

There are also ticket offices allover the island. There is no train service from Bangkok to Phuket. The buses leave Phuket Town overland bus terminal from 4 pm until 6.30 pm every hour. Leaving Bangkok to Phuket the bus will take the road over the Sarasin Bridge into Phang Nga Province. A good 4 lane highway with dangerous curves and bends leads to Phang Nga City. On your trip the bus will pass Surat Thani, Chumphon and stop just before Chumphon at a huge bus stop with dozens of open air restaurants and shops. After some hours behind 

Chumphon the coastal town of Hua Hin is passed after after about 3 hours and  the southern bus terminal is reached. There are taxis and minibuses for your trip to down town, the cheapest is a minibus for Baht 40,- per head. The most expensive but by far the fasted is a ride with the motorbike taxi for about Baht 300,- to down town. Actually the best to do in terms of traffic at the end of your Bangkok to Phuket trip is, take a taxi to Wongwian Yai BTS Bangkok station and use the BTS train