AFAICT, AOT doesn't [yet] provide car services at DMK, at least not that I was able to find. These guys seem to dominate the Google searches I did for you. Link. I have no personal experience with them.

Thanks...the rates are very reasonable. It would be good if someone had personal experience!

tb

AoT Car Service is only available at SBIA/BKK. It is not available at DMK.

Pre-arranging a car from DMK into the City is advisable as the taxi queues can be quite lengthy.

I wouldn't expect to get a van (the largest metered taxi vehicles here are Fortuners, and Innovas) at the official taxi stand.

You could try Grab on arrival, but even then you might get a pick-up, or a Yaaris.

I found some reasonable rates for transfer on "klook" I have not used it so no nothing except what I've read online. It seems to be a discount site for various (tourist) services.

I've booked with "transfer BKK" (found on tripadvisor search) -- I don't think we need a van, a big SUV would suffice, and it seems (at least from the website) to be a family business. Will report back.

tb

ETA: Transfer BKK did the job very smoothly: we were delayed about 30 minutes, and upon exiting arrivals, someone was waiting for us with a sign, and took us down to a lovely older gentleman driver, who gave a very smooth ride.

As a PS: this thread has been full of how bad Bangkok traffic is: we left DMK around 18:30 and the drive to the IC was essentially traffic free. I appreciate it was past peak rush hour, but in Beijing, you would need to wait until 21:00 or even after to have such little traffic going to the centre of town. I guess a proper day tomorrow will allow me to compare traffic during a working day...

Fair point. We took a taxi back from Wat Pho this afternoon (again, not peak rush hour) and although there was traffic, it was pretty reasonable for any large world city -- not talking mid-West here (my wife's family is from MN, and they get shocked at traffic anywhere else...).

As an aside: taxi from Wat Pho to the IC was ~ 100 THB. No idea if that was doctored meter (it took about 4-5 attempts to flag a taxi that was willing to use the meter). To compare, for the 4 of us (including one infant) _to_ Wat Pho via BTS/ river ferry cost over 200 THB (and that wasn't the tourist boat, but the express "gold flag boat", 20 THB each)....We enjoyed taking the river boat, but otherwise, for a family, no reason to not take a taxi around town imo....

tb

Traffic in-bound (from either airport) in the evenings is generally light. Obviously on weekends even lighter or non-existent.

Extensive traffic jams - delays of 60+ minutes - here occur more frequently during the rainy season, during the evening rush. You can check the traffic layer on Google Maps to get a feel for traffic and delays.

I think tomorrow, Tuesday 5 Feb is a semi-holiday, so in the midst of a four-day weekend. That said, there are a lot of tourists here this week.

The next national holiday is Tuesday, 19 February, which as a religious holiday (Makha Bucha) means no alcohol sales, so another four-ish day weekend.

Good to know...

Not saying Bangkok has no traffic issues, but I guess living in Beijing, where _I believe_ traffic is even worse, I have found that taking a cab is usually still faster than public transport -- in Beijing this is particularly true if one needs to change subway line, whereas here the more limited network has more friendly interchanges.

And fair point about not using the meter: I'm against such practices in principle, but yes, time/ convenience can often be more valuable than $1-2....

tb

Yup, that makes sense. Same with the ARL. Traveling alone, the ARL saves money. By the time you're up to three or four people, you might as well take a taxi. Taxis charge by the trip, ARL by the person.

And it gets worse - public transport usually means ARL+BTS(etc) ......

And it gets worse - public transport usually means ARL+BTS(etc) ......

+MRT

And potentially lengthy queues to purchase single-use tickets, for those not already holding stored-value cards.

I've seen massive queues at both Asoke/BTS and Sukhumvit/MRT this week, gotta be at least twenty minutes and the lines make the BTS station very difficult to traverse even with a Rabbit card.

So I thought that with an early afternoon arrival and a stinking hot day that a taxi might be in order.

Got a ticket and went to the allocated spot. No taxi. People who collected tickets after me had a taxi in their spot.

Saw lots of taxis arrive and go to various spots but not mine. Asked a local official and he said to wait until one went to my spot.

After a couple of minutes the train was looking very good and went down and got one very quickly. Travelled all the way to Phaya Thai and transferred to the BTS which goes onto the Sukhumvit line.

I actually got one of the very few trains that went to the Silom line. With the recent extensions I then had to work out which trains went to Sukhumvit.

So what is the issue with the taxis? Just a stuff up somewhere or a scam of some sort?