Maps: Recommended, Urbanrail.net, Official

Bangkok is a city of over 9 million people (17M in metro area) and it is the most visited city by foreign tourists in the world so you would expect a seamless transit system. Instead, Bangkok offers a patchwork of Skytrains, subways, monorails, airport links, canal boats and buses. This seemingly chaotic network makes it a frustrating but very interesting and fun system to explore if you can avoid the rush-hour.

The BTS Skytrain (1999) and MRT Blue line (2004) started Bangkok’s metro era, quite early for this region. Both systems have expanded gradually in the decades following but it took until 2016 for a new line to open, the Purple Line. This did ring in a new construction boom with the Gold Line (2020) and the Yellow and Pink Lines (2023) opening not long after. Currently under construction is the new Orange Line (2027) and an extension to the Purple Line (2028) with a few lines in planning.

Besides the metro, the Airport Rail Link, operated by the State Railways of Thailand, opened in 2010 and connects Suvarnabhumi airport to the city. Originally incepted as a high-speed connection between the two airports of Bangkok it is now a regular, suburban line. This brings the total operators of the network up to three (BTS, MRT and SRT) which complicates ticketing and wayfinding unnecessarily.

Since before the age of metro’s, Bangkok has had an extensive bus and boat network which has expanded to include a BRT line and some of the fastest commuter boats whizzing along the canals anywhere.

Due to the three different operators of the metro/suburban railway network, ticketing and wayfinding leaves much to be desired.  It feels like all three operators don’t want you to use the other operator’s systems even though the systems are not alternatives for each other and you need all lines to create a coherent network. 

Wayfinding is terrible when you want to find the other line at an interchange if you are changing between operators. Take for example the stations of Mo Chit and Chatuchak Park where the Sukhumvit Line (BTS) and Blue Line (MRT) meet. Firstly, why are both stations named differently? Secondly, if you arrive on the Sukhumvit line and try to find your way to the blue line you will not find a single sign, maybe if you look very hard you can find a small A4 paper with an arrow. The staff is happy to help but it’s not how it should be. You are then required to walk down from the elevated Skytrain to the sidewalk which is crowded with smart street vendors who know commuters must use the sidewalk to change lines, and then you will find the entrance to the Blue Line where you can take the escalator down.  This case repeats itself at multiple interchanges such as Ha Yaek Lat Phrao – Phahon Yothin, Sukhumvit – Asok and Silom – Sala Daeng. Connections between SRT and MRT lines are better with walkways and decent signage (example: Phetchaburi – Makkasan).

Ticketing is also a nightmare, and it changes frequently. There is not one single payment system for all modes or lines, and it is not yet possible to pay your fare with credit cards on all lines. Here is how you can pay for each system and line

BTS: Cash fare machines at stations or the Rabbit Card (more on this later)

MRT: Cash fare machines, tap your contactless bank card at the turnstile or Rabbit Card (only on Yellow and Pink lines)

SRT: Cash fare machines

	Cash fare machines	Staffed ticket booths	Contactless bank card	Rabbit card	Other stored-value card
BTS	x	x		x
MRT	x	x	x	x (pink and yellow lines)	x
SRT	x	x	x (red lines only)		x

All stations have staffed ticket booths, but not all accept cards. Over the years there have been proposals to unify ticketing, but none have been successful. The government did implement a 20-baht flat fare in August 2025 but only for Thai citizens.

When arriving by airplane at Suvarnabhumi your only option is to buy a token at one of the cash fare machines. To get cash you need to use an ATM which, like all ATMs in Thailand, charges a withdrawal fee of 250 Baht, around €7.  You’re going to need cash anyways in Thailand so I suggest to just withdraw a large amount as the withdrawal fee is the same regardless.

The easiest way to get around is to buy a Rabbit card at one of the BTS stations (requires a passport) and use your contactless bank card for all other metro transportation (except the Airport Rail Link).

The boats (Khlong) take only cash payment. The buses all take cash and some of them take rabbit cards and contactless cards but just pay with cash to be sure. Exact change is preferred and large bills are refused.

Start at Phaya Thai station and get on the BTS Sukhumvit line going North. Enjoy the views from the elevated rails until you get out at Mo Chit station. Try your best to figure out how to change to the MRT Blue line here and if you can’t ask staff. Take this two stations to Lat Phrao and find your way to the Yellow line. This is quite a long walk but decently well signposted. There is a good food court in here. Take the MRT Yellow line to Yaek Lam Sali once again enjoying the views from the elevated rail. At Yaek Lam Sali you can see the doors where the future entrance to the Orange line will be. From here, walk around 10-15 minutes to the Wat Sriboonreung Khlong boat station along the canal. Wait for the boat to turn up and pay your fare on board. Get off at Ramnueng pier. From here you can take the Airport train back to Phaya Thai or, if you’re lucky, board a local train going West to the same station. These don’t run as often but they’re cheaper and more fun.

Do you have some time to kill and want to ride some of the stranger section of the network? The magenta route will take you on the Gold line people mover, a bumpy local train, the BRT and a short monorail spur.

Start somewhere on the BRT line and take it towards Chong Nonsi (you can also start here). Ride the Silom line south over the Chao Praya river to Krung Thon Buri and change to the Gold Line. Enjoy your ride on the airport people mover: Downtown Bangkok edition until you see the massive Iconsiam mall. Walk through the mall towards the riverfront and take the ferry across the river to Si Phraya, ask the ticket vendors which pier, it should cost only a few Baht.

Walk along the canal or through Chinatown to Hua Lamphong train station, the former main train station of Bangkok. Take a good look around because this is quite a beautiful station and buy a train ticket in the main hall to Bang Sue (should cost no more than around 2 Baht). If there is no train leaving North soon you can take the Blue Line westward to Tha Phra and change onto another Blue Line going north. If you do catch the local train make sure to enjoy its open windows, bumpy ride and the massive level crossings.

At Bang Sue you must find you way to the modern Bangkok Krung Thep Aphiwat main station, a transfer that will soon be history. Here, find your way down to the Blue Line and take it one stop West to Tao Poon. Walk up to the Purple Line and ride it five stops North to Nonthanburi. You are now deep into the outskirts of Bangkok where you will find the terminus of the Pink Line Monorail. If you want, you can exit the monorail at Muang Thong Thani and take the short two-stop spur line. After rejoining the Pink Line, take it to Lak Si and change to the Red Line. The last section is taking the Red Line back to Krung Thep Aphiwat main station.

The Sukhumvit line is operated by BTS and is one of the two Skytrain lines which opened in 1999 as the first rapid transit in Bangkok and Thailand. It is fully elevated and runs North-South above main roads. It doesn’t pass through the old city but does have some stations in the vibrant Sukhumvit neighbourhood which it is named after. Here it interchanges with the Silom line, the other BTS line at the Siam station which has a great cross-platform transfer. The southbound and northbound tracks stack on top of each other so that the southbound Silom and Sukhumvit lines are on the same platform and vice versa for the northbound.

The Sukhumvit line has three interchanges with the MRT Blue line, one in Sukhumvit and two near Chatuchak Market. The Mo Chit-Chatuchak park is designed very poorly as you have to exit onto the busy sidewalk and make your way through countless street vendors. The interchanges at Asok-Sukhumvit and Ha Yaek Lat Phrao-Phahon Yothin are a little better but also require you to exit and enter the ticket line.

To the North the line continues straight above Phahonyothin Road where it crosses over the Pink line monorail. This interchange, having been built much later, is better and you can stay inside the station area although you do need to change between the gated areas.

Going South you follow Sukhumvit road until the terminus, a mighty hour away from the central Siam station. On the way you can change onto the Yellow line at Samrong station.

Some buildings have direct walkway connections to the Sukhumvit line such as the Sofitel hotel and some buildings south of Nana station. The Sofitel connection is in between two stations and strangely enough it is connected to the one that is slightly further away at 270 meters.

The little brother of the Sukhumvit line, although it has become quite an important line itself over the years. It starts in the Sukhumvit area and makes a turn to the West to pass by some more residential areas and the riverfront. It has some value for tourists but mainly serves residents. The look and feel is very similar to the Sukhumvit line

At Siam the Silom connects to the Sukhumvit line but it goes one stop further to the west and terminates at National Stadium station from where you can walk to the Jim Thompson house.

At Sala Daeng you can change onto the MRT Blue line with a good connection between the two stations, no sidewalk required. One stop further you reach Chong Nonsi station which is elevated above the BRT and has a great connection to it with a walkway for fast transfers.

Saint Louis is the only infill station on the line and opened in 2021. If you step outside here you can really appreciate the height of these elevated train stations. They all have a mezzanine below platform level with the fare gates and ticket counters/machines. This station also has an impressive amount of entrances with 8 total and some of them even having escalators, a rarity on the BTS lines.

After Saphan Taksin station you cross the Chao Praya river and reach Krung Thon Buri station where you can transfer to the Gold Line. It’s worth getting out here as the Gold Line is a perfect gadgetbahn to ride and the stations after this aren’t too interesting anymore. Transferring is easy and the Gold Line is quite well signposted. You need to pay a flat fare and the trains only run every 10-15 minutes so check if you need to be fast.

Once you get to Ratchaphruek station you once again meet the BRT which makes a semi-circle from Sala Daeng to here. The next station, Wutthakat, is shown as having an interchange with the national railway station of the same name. However, be prepared for a 10 minute, poorly signed walk. This is the only connection to this station for now until the Purple line extension opens.

Bang Wa is the last station and is an interchange station with the MRT Blue line.

In 2004 Bangkok got its first underground metro service with the MRT Blue Line opening. Over time the Blue Line expanded into a loop line around Bangkok’s inner city and crossing through both Sukhumvit, Chinatown and the Old Town, making it a much more useful line for tourists although it is also heavily used by daily commuters.

Both the old and the new main train stations of Bangkok are connected to the MRT Blue line so you’ll almost certainly ride it if you’re catching a train out of Bangkok. For business travellers, it also serves the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre next to Benchakitti Park, a park well worth a visit especially to have a look at the massive model of the city located in the old tobacco factory.

The Blue Line has a split personality, underground in the East, soaring above the streets in the West. This creates a problem in the East as all other lines here are elevated and thus require large vertical transfers which aren’t great considering the BTS and MRT don’t cooperate very well. Read more about this in the “Using the system” chapter.

The line can become very busy and at times in the morning and afternoon peak you might have to wait a long time and let several packed trains pass. They run some empty cars in between the full ones to empty out the stations but be prepared for huge crowds, although they are very well behaved and queue up perfectly.

Hua Lamphong station is worth visiting for the long transfer tunnel to the old train station with metro history on the walls. It’s also where you should go if you are visiting Chinatown. A few stations further is Sanam Chai station which serves the nearby palace and temple complexes. This stations has been decorated to look like a temple which makes it a very unique station to visit.

The Blue Line isn’t a true loop and operates similarly to the London Undeground Circle Line with Tha Phra station being the point where the line hits itself again, think Edgware Road in London.

In the West the only station of note is Bang Khun Non where you can change to the National railway trains from Thon Buri to cities West. A few other important interchange stations are Tao Poon (Purple Line), Bang Sue (Red Lines and National Railways), Chatuchak Park and Phahon Yothin (both Sukhumvit Line), Lat Phrao (Yellow Line), Phetchaburi (ART, Khlong and National Railways), Sukhumvit (Sukhumvit Line) and Si Lom (Silom Line).

One of the reason that this line is so busy is because quite a few metro lines terminate at the Blue Line and everyone has to transfer onto it to reach their final destination. Extensions to the Red and Purple Lines will hopefully alleviate this somewhat.

The chances of you using the Purple Line in its current state as a regular tourist are slim. It runs out to the Northwestern suburbs and serves residential areas, government buildings and has an interchange with the Pink Line. It is fully elevated and opened in 2016 but plans from 1999 already show it extending south into the old town. This extension is now being built and should be ready to open in 2028 through new tunnels underneath the old town which would make it a much more useful line for tourists.

The Yellow Line is a monorail that runs through the Eastern suburbs of Bangkok connecting at either end to the existing metro lines and the ART in the middle. It is based on Alstom’s Innovia Monorail system and is fully automated with guards on board. It has platform screen doors and runs on 5 minute peak and 10 minute off-peak headways.

At Yaek Lam Sali it interchanges with the Khlong and in the future the Orange Line metro.

The Pink Line is a monorail that is very similar to the Yellow Line although it runs further out in the suburbs and doesn’t go as far south. It also has a small branch in the West. It is operated on the same Alstom Innovia platform and is thus also fully automated.

It actually has quite a few interchanges with other lines for a line this far out. At Wat Phra Sri Mahathat you can change to the Sukhumvit line at the impressive double-stacked station with a roadway in the middle, worth going this far out to visit if you have the time. At Lak Si you can change to the National Railway local trains and Red Lines running North out of Bang Sue/Krung Thep Aphiwat station.

At Mueang Thong Thani the line split into two although the branch going North is really just operated as a three-station shuttle. This shuttle connects to the large Impact convention/exhibition centre. It’s quite unique though with it being a full-size monorail shuttle branch, not common around the world (although Sao Paolo is getting one soon).

At the Western end the Pink Line intersects with the Purple Line at Nonthaburi station.

The Gold Line is the strange gadgetbahn of Bangkok and was built almost exclusively as part of the Iconsiam mall and to support private real estate and commercial projects along the Chao Praya riverfront. It’s a people mover on rubber tyres as is common at airports and it uses the little brother technology of the Yellow and Pink line, the Alstom Innovia APM 300 also in use at LAX, HKG, DEN and more.

Currently it has only three stations, runs every 10-15 minutes and mainly operates as an automated shuttle between the Silom Line Krung Thon Buri station and the massive new Iconsiam mall. It does go one station further to Khlong San and a 1km extension is being constructed to take it to the MRT Purple Line which should open in 2027.

I recommend taking the Silom Line out to the Gold Line to ride it as its still a fun gadgetbahn to ride and there aren’t too many urban people movers around the world. A flat fare of 16 Baht is charged and you can only purchase a ticket at one of the stations on the line.

The history of the Airport Rail Link is frustrating. The idea of this line started back in 1990 when the Bangkok Elevated Road and Train System (BERTS) was starting construction, this projects was never finished and thus until around 2005 the pillars stood but no road or rail deck was ever built. In 2005 the project was restarted but all original pillars were removed and new infrastructure was built.

Since the beginning the project was envisioned to connect the old Don Mueang airport to the new Suvarnabhumi airport along the old railway alignment in downtown Bangkok. Both branches have now been built as the ARL and the Red Lines but the connection is not yet ready. A new project has now started to connect these two airports and they have added a third airport in the south near Pattaya. This new line is supposed to be high-speed rail which will be interesting considering the current stations and infrastructure look like they are built for regular metro and suburban rail service. Some stations do have passing tracks but only time will tell if this idea will work.

Out of all stations to visit, Makkasan is the most interesting as it had a secondary function from the beginning besides just being a station for people to board the train. It used to have check-in counters and baggage drop of areas where passengers bound for a Thai Airways flight out of Suvarnabhumi could pre-emptively check their luggage. this would then be placed in a special luggage compartment in the train and be loaded onto the airplane at Suvarnabhumi. This also meant that the ARL had two services, the City Line and the Express Line. The Express Line ran direct from Makkasan to Suvarnabhumi airport with the City Line stopping at all stations. This check-in service ran from 2011 until 2014 when it was deemed to expensive and closed down. Only 10 people used the service per day when 1000 were expected.

Nowadays the ARL runs only one service, the all-stop City Line which takes 37 minutes to get to the airport from Phaya Thai station. The fare is cash only which is really annoying when you arrive at the airport with no Thai currency as you have to use one of the ridiculously expensive ATMs. I recommend withdrawing as much money as you can as the fee is a flat fare of 250 Baht.

The ARL intersects the Sukhumvit, Blue and Yellow Lines and in the future the Orange Line will also have an interchange at Ratchaprarop station.

The Khlong is a high-speed water bus which is used heavily by commuters and can be likened to a railway on water. During peak hours they come every 5 minutes and every 10-15 minutes off peak. Be prepared for a wild and very loud ride through the 15 meter wide canals, I highly recommend riding the Khlong.

There are three Khlong routes although they all go along the same canal and are just extensions of each other. The Golden Mount Line starts at the Wat Saket temple and goes 5 stops to the Pratunam interchange pier. Here the NIDA line takes over and runs the length of the canal until the Wat Sriboonreun temple pier. This section has the most intermediate stops at 22. Along this stretch the boats really pick up speed and don’t slow down when passing each other which causes quite some movement as they pass over each others wake.

You get about five seconds to board and disembark the boat before it rushes off again so be quick and don’t miss your stop. All boats have a driver, ticket inspectors and someone who ties the boat to the pier at the stops. To pay you have to have cash and check your fare beforehand. Each stop has a table showing the price between stations, tell this price to the ticket inspector and they will give you your change and a nice paper ticket in return.

At Wat Sriboonreung the NIDA Line terminates but you can still go further on the new electric line. This line doesn’t go nearly as fast and uses smaller but more modern boats to extend the line Minburi terminus. This is more of a touristy line as the ride takes quite long and the frequency is around every 30 minutes. Fares are still cheap.

The Khlong interchanges with most metro lines. Both monorail lines can be reached at either ends of the electric line. Halfway on the NIDA line you can change to the Airport rail and national rail, the same goes for Asok pier although here you can also change onto the MRT Blue line. Finally at Sapan Hua Chang pier you can reach the BTS Sukhumvit line.

Bangkok has many local and long-distance bus routes and a single BRT route.

Bangkok is the main hub for long distance railway travel in Thailand. You can take night trains to Chiang Mai, Hat Yai, Vientiane and other destinations. Multiple local trains also leave from the various terminals in the city.

Bangkok has four terminals. The historic Hua Lamphong is the station where all long-distance trains terminated until 2021, it now only operates local trains. All long-distance trains have moved to the modern Krung Thep Aphiwat station, an incredibly large and very boring station in the North of Bangkok. In the west you can find Thon Buri station, a small local train station serving only local trains to the West. Lastly in the south there is a station, Wongwian Yai, which serves only one line to the nearby town of Samut Sakhon where you can take a short ferry to the famous Mae Klong rail line.

Orange line

Purple line extension