Bangkok Buses for Travel ?

One of the most common modes of transportation in Bangkok is riding on a bus. It is quite accessible for the Thai people and travelers who are new in town who are looking for great adventure rides. Yet for most short term travelers we do not recommend it lightly.

Riding a bus in Bangkok is not easy as it looks you may prefer metered taxi in most cases. If you plan to go from city to city in Thailand you may decide on a bus to save money, yet hiring a driver may be more suitable.

Once you live here in Bangkok and become more native you may find the Bus is the cheapest way to travel expecially between cities, yet until the last thing you want to do is find yourself in the middle of nowhere after hours on the bus.

At any rate if you must please see the web site url at the bottom of the page. The Bangkok bus is not for the weak at heart.

Here are some important points you need to consider:

· One good reason for taking a Bangkok buses is it is really affordable from 2.5 baht to 25 baht is the maximum fare.

· During rush hour most buses are always fully loaded cramped and crowded

· Stranded by the traffic makes you feel stress

· due to loaded passengers buses move too slow than any other rides

· waiting for buses on streets provides you too much heat exposure

· aside from heat exposure it allows you to inhale air pollution

· For travelers who do not speak or read Thai, it’s difficult for you to read the signs on the streets so it is much better to provide yourself a MAP with language translations.

How to take a Bangkok Bus?

In Thailand Language has always been the barrier when you go to different kind of places. Most of the signage you can see in Bangkok buses are in Thai, so for your convenience you will need a bus map with initials of BMTA (government own bus) routes. Inside the map, you carefully take note with the BTMA bus number must coincide with the type of bus color. Each color has its different distinction of routes, Here is an example: the bus type 7 color blue does not always take same route with bus type 7 color red or yellow or green. Each color is coded with different distinction routes.

A Bangkok bus doesn’t always stop automatically to every bus stop. If you decide to get off the bus, you must wave your hands in the air to catch their attention.

We have here a list of different types of buses that you will probably encounter:

Cream “orange” colored buses are the newest trend of air-conditioned bus released that is more spacious and very convenient for the passengers to ride on. The fare starts from 10 baht and up to its maximum of 20 baht.

Blue air-conditioned buses starts their rate from 8 baht for the first eight kilometers and it increases as it goes by.

Purple Micro buses are also air- conditioned that has a fixed rate of 25 baht regardless of the distance and it only stops if there are still vacant seats available. When paying, you need to prepare an exact amount because there is no change will be given back.

For the most up todate information just go to the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA). This can be found here in english :

www.bmta.co.th/en/bus_info.php