The Lesser Modes of Transportation

Bangkok is a large and congested city. They drive on the left side of the road, and traffic is always a problem at all hours of the day. There's a lot of different ways to get around Bangkok. There's several forms of mass transit like the elevated rail known as the BTS. Then there is the subway system, and also a bus system.




For our sightseeing excursion we had the hotel set us up with a car and driver. Thailand is cheap and the car only cost about $40 for the entire day. Prices like that make it hard to want to sit around waiting on the next train to show up to get somewhere.

Of course like every city, there is the always ubiquitous taxi cab. These were ridiculously cheap as well, but you had to make sure you negotiated a fare before you got in. A half hour cab ride somewhere costs about 5 bucks. The drivers never matched their license photos in the window though. This became a pretty fun game for us to ask them who was in the photo: cousin, brother, old photo, dad, sick uncle, we heard all sorts of funny things.

This kid definitely didn't match.

Since traffic is so bad a lot of people opt to ride around on mopeds because it allows them weave through the stopped traffic and get to the front of the queue at a light. Some of these guys even function as a taxi service and wear orange vests so you know. We weren't near brave enough to hop on one of these after the number of broken arms we saw walking around.

Somewhere near the bottom rung of transit ladder has to be the Tuk Tuk. These are probably the most famous form of tourist transit in Thailand. These are the carts that used to have a little man that would run and carry you around. The running man has now been replaced with 1.5hp scooter motor with a wheelbarrow tire.