Bangkok, in plain English

Getting around Bangkok by train: BTS, MRT and the airport line

Every rail line, single fares, which fare card works where, and how to get in from both airports — the whole network in plain English.

The nearest BTS or MRT station to Bangkok's top attractions

The closest station to the Grand Palace, Chatuchak, IconSiam, Khao San and both airports — and the honest answer for the spots with no train at the door.

Bangkok fare cards explained: Rabbit, MRT and tapping a bank card

Which card you actually need, what each one covers and costs, and the 2026 switch to contactless tap-to-pay — without the maze.

Riding Bangkok's city buses: BMTA routes, fares and how to pay

Who runs the buses, what a ride costs, how to pay the conductor, which apps find your bus, and the unwritten rules of flagging one down.

Getting around the old town without a BTS station

No Skytrain reaches the Grand Palace, Wat Pho or Khao San — here is the honest choice between the MRT Blue Line, the river boat and a Grab, with 2026 fares.

From the airport into Bangkok: train, Grab or taxi

Suvarnabhumi or Don Muang into the city — the honest choice between the Airport Rail Link, Grab and a metered taxi, and what to do when you land after the trains stop.

Grab or a metered taxi in Bangkok: which is cheaper, and when

An honest meter usually wins off-peak; Grab’s fixed price wins in the rain, the rush hour and when a driver won’t run the meter — the 2026 comparison.

Bangkok’s river boats explained: which flag to take

What the orange, yellow, green and blue flags mean, the real 2026 fares, where to board from the BTS, and when the boat beats the train.

Bangkok rush hour: when to travel, and which interchanges to avoid

The exact peak windows, why the train beats the road and Grab when it’s busy, and the interchanges that crush at 6pm.

Staying connected · English

eSIM, local SIM or pocket wifi in Bangkok: which to pick

When a travel eSIM is the easy answer, when you need a physical Thai SIM for a local number, and why pocket wifi is mostly obsolete.

Where to stay in Bangkok, judged by how you’ll get around

Sukhumvit, Silom, the Old Town, Ari and the Riverside compared by rail access and airport links — not another hotel list.

Getting around Bangkok in the rainy season

When a storm floods the street the boat stops before the metro does. Which modes keep running, and what to check before you leave.

Changing airports: Suvarnabhumi to Don Mueang, and how much time to leave

The free connecting-passenger shuttle, the cheap train chain, taxi and Grab costs, and the safe buffer between BKK and DMK.

Bangkok motorbike taxis: when the orange vests beat walking or a car

How the win system works, what a ride costs, the three times a motorbike genuinely wins, GrabBike compared, and a straight word on safety.

Bangkok tuk-tuks: when they’re worth it, and when they’re a tourist trap

Why they cost more than a taxi, the gem-shop and closed-temple scams to skip, the few times a tuk-tuk genuinely wins, and where the MuvMi app fits in.

Getting home in Bangkok after the trains stop

When the BTS and MRT stop around midnight: how taxis, Grab, motorbike taxis and tuk-tuks compare late at night, and what changes out in the suburbs.

Getting around Bangkok with luggage or a stroller

Where the BTS and MRT lifts help and where they don’t, when the Airport Rail Link still wins, and when a taxi or Grab is worth the cost — plus where to leave your bags.

Walking in Bangkok: when it actually beats a train or a Grab

One skywalk corridor genuinely works end to end. The rest is heat, kerbs and missing crossings — here is how to judge which trips to walk.

Leaving Bangkok: train, bus or a cheap flight?

Long-distance trains moved station and most guides never noticed. Which mode actually wins for Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, Pattaya and the south.

How to read a Bangkok address — and why the driver still calls

123/45 is a land plot, not a street number. Odd and even sois sit on opposite sides and never line up. The whole system, decoded.

Driving in Bangkok: rent a car, ride a motorbike, or don’t?

The car is the wrong tool inside the city and sometimes the only one outside it. The licence category that voids your insurance, and what compulsory cover really pays for.

Bangkok’s hot season: the heat index decides your day

The season is declared, not scheduled — and it starts in February. The official four-band index, why the worst reading of 2026 came in the rainy season, and the rule against drinking on the train.

A Thai driving licence: your visa decides which one you may hold

There is no ninety-day deadline anywhere in the Act — but three immigration classes are shut out of the five-year licence by name, and a foreign licence excuses two tests, not three.

Step-free Bangkok: what a court ordered, and what got built

A court gave the city a year to put lifts in 23 stations. Eleven years on, the station that serves the river boats still has none — and the operator’s own data is where you read that.

Traffic tickets in Bangkok: the fine stopped being a crime

Since October 2023 an ordinary traffic fine is not a criminal penalty at all. Then a court threw out the ticket form and the table that priced it. What a ticket is now, and who it accuses.

Living in Bangkok

The 90-day report and visa extensions at Bangkok immigration

What the 90-day report is, how and where to file it, and the basics of extending your stay at Chaeng Wattana — with official sources.

Getting your rental deposit back in Thailand

What the law entitles you to when a landlord won't return your deposit — the 2025 lease rules, the wear-and-tear line, and the steps to recover your money.

Before you sign a Bangkok condo lease

Thailand’s strengthened 2025 lease rules bind landlords who rent three or more units — which is probably not yours. What to check and negotiate instead.

Your condo electricity bill, and the rate your landlord invented

The official Bangkok tariff is near 4 baht a unit. Many buildings bill 6 to 9. How to read the bill, and when the markup is actually unlawful.

Money in Bangkok · English

Cash, card or PromptPay: how to pay for things in Bangkok

Where cash is still essential, where cards work, the ATM fee to watch, the DCC trap, and why most visitors can’t use PromptPay.

Drinking water in Bangkok: tap, bottled, refill or a filter?

What the authority says about the tap versus the practical advice, and how bottled, the 1-baht refill machines, delivery and a home filter compare on cost.

Money · English

Where to change money in Bangkok: SuperRich, banks or an ATM?

Why the city money changers beat the banks, the airport and your hotel, the truth about the two SuperRich shops, and when an ATM is the smarter move — with the one fee trap to avoid.

Bangkok’s smog season: when the air turns bad, and what helps

Which months are typically worst, how to read Air4Thai and the AQI apps without scaring yourself, and what a mask, a HEPA purifier and staying indoors actually do.

Money · English

Tipping in Bangkok: when it’s expected, when it’s not, and how much

Why Thailand is a light, optional tipping culture, the 10% restaurant service charge to check for, when to just round up a taxi, and the few places a tip is genuinely customary.

Food delivery in Bangkok: which app still exists

Half the apps recommended for Bangkok left the country years ago. Which four survived, which one works in English, and when walking out beats ordering in.

Alcohol in Bangkok: the hours changed, the dry days didn’t

The 2pm-to-5pm ban is gone and shops now sell 11:00 to midnight. The traps that remain: the morning gap, the dry days, and where a legal drink is illegal to open.

Where to buy groceries in Bangkok

Wet market, hypermarket, supermarket, 7-Eleven or an app — what each is genuinely for, and which chain names quietly stopped existing.

Online shopping and parcels in Bangkok

No Thai bank account? There is a working ladder of payment options. And since 1 January 2026, the tax-free small parcel from abroad is gone.

Home internet in a Bangkok condo

Your lease runs 12 months and the fibre contract wants 24. Building wi-fi, your own line or a data SIM — and the clauses to read first.

Thai public holidays: which counter is actually closed

Thailand has four holiday calendars, not one, and in 2026 they disagree on two nameable days. What shuts, what stays open, and why the dates can move after they are published.

Laundry in Bangkok: washing is easy, drying is the problem

At 79% humidity a hung load stops rather than finishes — and the sour smell that follows has a name. The machine, the laundromat, the per-kilo shop and the dry cleaner, compared.

Moving in and out of a Bangkok condo

The juristic office decides your moving day, not your mover — lawfully, and entirely because the lift is common property. Where that authority stops, and the certificate a renter never needs.

Sending things home from Bangkok: density decides the bill, not weight

Which services charge you for the size of the box and which only for what is in it — the line runs through Thailand Post, not around it — plus the Fine Arts rule everyone quotes wrong.

Gym memberships in Bangkok: the one-year cap nobody mentions

No Thai gym contract may run past twelve months and none may renew itself — and you do not have to argue the point, because the statute deems the offending clause absent.

Air conditioning in a rented condo: the law names the machine

Cleaning is yours and failure is not — and for a landlord letting three units or more, that split is not something the lease is allowed to move.

Keeping a pet in Bangkok: the rules changed, and your landlord got a veto

Since January a tenant needs the landlord’s written consent to register a dog or cat at all — and how many you may keep is set by the floor area of your flat.

Opening a Thai bank account: the word that decides it is not “visa”

The rules name a passport and nothing else. Everything a branch adds on top is it buying down a risk score you can read for yourself — and the same word decides whether your savings are insured.

Rubbish in Bangkok: 20 baht is a discount you have to keep earning

The household fee has been 60 baht since October 2025. The old rate survived as a reduction — conditional on photographs, on verification, and on doing it again every six months.

Seeing a doctor in Bangkok: the hospital has to treat you

Thai law forces the nearest hospital to treat a critical emergency and forbids it from making payment a condition. It does not say who pays — and the instrument that does names a closed list of funds.

Smoking and vaping in Bangkok: nobody banned “public places”, they published a list

Four different zone geometries, a three-metre radius around every bus stop, and a 5,000-baht fine that stopped being a criminal fine in 2023. The vape rules are stranger still.

Tax in Bangkok: the day count that decides it resets every 1 January

Thailand taxes foreign money when you bring it in — but only if you were here long enough in the year it was earned. Those are two different years, and the counter between them starts again every New Year.

Scams and frozen accounts in Bangkok: one law does both ends

The instrument that can freeze a fraudster’s account within the hour is the one that can freeze yours. Every deadline in it lets you go — except the one that has no deadline at all.

Noise complaints in Bangkok: the test is not how loud it is

There are no legal quiet hours. There is a health law, a measurement that subtracts your own street from the noise, and one office that can actually order it stopped.

Pharmacies in Bangkok, and bringing your own medication

Four ministerial lists decide who may hand you a box; a separate set of schedules decides whether it may cross the border at all. The thirty-day rule is only one of three tracks.

TM30 in Bangkok: the report the law does not ask you to file

Section 38 puts the twenty-four-hour duty on whoever took you in, not on you. Your own four clocks are elsewhere in the Act, with a different fine attached.

Overstaying in Bangkok: the fine is capped, the ban is not

The money stops growing on day 40. The bar is a separate ministerial order with two ladders, and which one you are on is settled at the door.

Filing a police report in Bangkok: two numbers, and only one starts a case

A report number says you came in. A criminal case number says there is a case. The paper looks much the same, and only one of them makes anything happen.

Severance and final pay in Thailand: three things decided on the day

The reason for the dismissal, the money in lieu of notice and the clock on everything else are all fixed on one day — and none of the three can be improved afterwards.

Getting married in Thailand: the wedding is not the marriage

Only the entry in the register creates a marriage. Two things can be done only in those ten minutes at the counter, and one of them is permanent.

Divorce in Thailand: two doors, and they count your money on different days

A consent divorce is valued on the day it is registered; a court divorce reaches back to the day it was filed. There is also a route where the two of you never have to meet — and it lasts sixty days.

Thai work permits: the law stopped measuring effort in 2018

“Work” used to mean using physical strength or knowledge, paid or unpaid. Now it means engaging in an occupation. And the famous list of thirty-nine banned professions no longer exists.

Thai social security: the Act asks who employs you, not what passport you hold

Section 33 has no nationality test — your employer decides whether you are in, not your passport. And the 15,000 baht wage ceiling everybody quotes was repealed on 12 December 2025.

Wills in Thailand: your will decides who takes, three other statutes decide who may keep it

Thailand has had an inheritance tax since 2016. A condominium left to the wrong foreigner must be sold within a year. And a friend named in your will has no route to land at all.