- How to ride the mass public transit in Bangkok, Thailand.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
How-to travel guides that are
fun, informative, and entertaining.
And in this video,
I'm gonna be telling you how
to ride the BTS, the Skytrain, and the MRT,
also known as the Subway in Bangkok.
This is part of my series on Bangkok.
If you want to see more travel guides about Bangkok,
you'll find the links in the description below,
or at the end of this video.
So first we'll start with some general information,
then I'll talk about riding,
buying tickets, getting off
and getting you to your destination.
So some general information about these two systems.
The BTS, the Skytrain, it was the first
mass transportation system constructed in Bangkok.
It is an elevated train,
as you can see where I'm standing.
It's the station for Ploenchit, BTS.
It's elevated above the roads everywhere.
This opened in 1999.
Today it's got two lines,
and the two lines comprise a total of 35 stations.
And I think the BTS is the best if you're a tourist,
because you get to see stuff as you're going around.
The MRT, known as the Subway,
is all underground,
and the MRT is run by a
completely different company than the BTS.
And so because of that,
the tickets are not interoperable between the two systems.
That's kind of a weird thing in a metropolitan city,
to have two mass transit systems
that have completely separate tickets.
But yeah, just get your head around it.
That is how it works in Bangkok.
So the MRT, it's also got two lines,
and it's also got 35 stations.
Though they're building up the MRT
to have two more lines,
so it'll have a total of four lines coming up pretty soon.
The hours of the MRT,
the Subway runs from 6:00 a.m. to midnight.
The BTS opens one hour earlier.
It opens at 5:00 a.m.
Something a little bit interesting
is that in front of all the BTS stations,
there's always a ton of food and drink vendors.
But don't buy that food and drink and try
to take it on the BTS,
because both the BTS and the MRT do not allow food
or drinks inside the system.
So drink that when you're outside.
Maybe that's why the vendors are here,
because people get thirsty after the ride.
Also, after you go through the gates,
they typically have security checks at the BTS.
They might call you out of line
and look through your bag.
On the MRT, they have you go through metal detectors,
typically before you go into the Subway.
Tickets for the MRT,
they're a little bit better than for the BTS.
You can push English,
and then you can say what station you're going to
here on the touchscreen.
And then it'll tell you what your journey price is.
And then you can insert some money,
and then you'll get a token.
But of course, this money thing
can be kind of stubborn.
And that's it.
We get a token,
and that's our ride.
But if you wanna buy two,
well, we gotta put more money in again.
Being able to use bills in the vending machine at MRT,
way better than BTS.
'Cause otherwise we'd have to stand
in that long line over there.
These ticket windows always seem to have long lines.
So once you have your token,
you think you'd insert it,
but you don't.
You take your token
and you tap it here on the screen,
and then it opens the gate
and then you go through.
Keep your token.
You'll need it on the other side.
If you are going to be riding the MRT a lot,
you should buy a Stored Value card,
because the lines here for the ticket office
and the machines can be quite long.
Around the stations you'll find pretty good signage.
Pretty much everything is signed in Thai and English,
so you won't have a hard time finding anything.
It's easy to find the trains,
and easy to find the platforms.
Why?
Because there aren't many trains
and there aren't many lines.
When you get down to the actual train platform,
people wait in a fairly orderly fashion.
People line up, and then when it's time to get on the train,
people kind of work their way onto the train.
When you're actually onboard and riding,
they've got digital signage
to tell you what line you're on.
What stop you are approaching.
But as you can see,
it can be fairly busy.
So do be prepared to be pretty close
to your fellow Thai neighbors onboard,
both the Subway and the Skytrain.
The MRT, just like the BTS,
can have long lines at the exits.
There's seriously a lack of exit gates.
So you might want to be the first one up to the top
to avoid waiting a long line to get out.
To get out,
since it's a token,
you insert it into the slot when you leave.
So now that you know everything there
is about riding the Subway,
let's talk about riding the BTS.
Also known as the Skytrain.
The BTS and Skytrain,
it is elevated,
so you're always gonna
be going up escalators to find it.
It's really easy to find,
because it's always on top of some roads.
Here, we're going up to the Siam station.
So when you get into the station,
you're gonna need to buy tickets.
And tickets for the BTS,
they are not as easy to buy as they are
for the Metro Subway.
Tickets for the BTS,
the ticket machine's,
they look like this.
They only accept coins.
But you can use these machines if you have enough coins.
You can look at the map in the middle.
You can pick how much your ticket costs.
You put in the coins,
and then you push the button associated
to that journey price.
If you don't have coins,
well then you're gonna have
to stand in line for the ticket booths.
The ticket booths always have super long lines.
And so I point out,
we ended up buying a Rabbit Card.
The Rabbit Cards,
they're basically a re-loadable value card.
And you can buy those at the ticket booths,
but that way you don't have to stand
in line all the time to always buy tickets.
I do want to point out that these
are not compatible with the Subway.
So if you bought the Subway Stored Value card before,
it's not gonna work on the Skytrain.
Your other option is to buy a One-Day Pass.
You can also buy this at the ticket window.
It's a 140 Baht.
It's good for as many rides as you want in one day.
If you're curious,
140 Baht is about five U.S. dollars.
Much like the lines you saw on the Subway,
you'll find lots of lines at the BTS as well.
So when you want to get on the BTS,
look for the gates that have the green arrows on them.
Here's a time when it wasn't that busy.
The BTS Skytrain uses all these cards.
Tap in, tap out, if you have a Stored Value card.
Insert it if you have one of the single ride cards.
Once you've made it through the ticket gates,
head up to the correct platform,
'cause the platforms are typically
on opposite sides of the tracks.
Some of the platforms have these
little security gates, others don't.
In that case,
make sure to stand behind the yellow line.
They're pretty militant about making sure
you stay behind that.
I'm assuming they've had some problems in the past.
I've found the BTS Skytrain
to be really crowded most of the time.
This is at the end of one of the lines,
so everybody was getting off.
Also pay attention to the special seats
that are reserved for monks.
If you're watching this video,
it's probably not you.
The BTS and the MRT intersect at a few points.
You can transfer between the two of them.
But what that means,
is just that you can change.
They're separate tickets, separate systems,
and so there's no free transfer
or even a transfer discount.
You'll be buying a new ticket
to get on your new form of transportation.
Well there you have it.
Riding the public transportation in Bangkok.
It is one of the easiest
public transportation systems I've ridden,
once I've gotten my head around the fact
that the lines can be pretty long for tickets.
So if you're coming to Bangkok,
make sure to make regular use
of the BTS and the MRT,
so you are not sitting
in soul-crushing traffic all the time.
Well if you enjoyed this video,
you'll enjoy watching some of the other videos
from our Bangkok series.
You'll find the links in the description below,
or you can click here or here to watch them.
I won't say goodbye,
because I'll see you in one of these videos.