Bangkok transportation
How are we going to get around in Bangkok?
Our first trial was walking. Wider and better sidewalks made this attractive, and we did well with walking in Manila. But, housing within walking distance of the places we needed to get to was too expensive.
Ok. The sky train is clean, fast, convenient, fun... but where we found a place to live is a good 1/2 hour walk from the closest station. Our apartment complex has a free shuttle to that station. Once a day. At 6:45 am. Which leaves us with a 3/4 of an hour journey to get the girls to school via shuttle and walking. Not so nice when it is so early. And the return journey is walk-express bus-walk, taking about an hour, which really eats up time and energy. Sky train for church? Can do, but again, walk-bus-train takes more time than we'd like to spend in travel, and the cost is actually more than taxi for the four of us.
Taxis. Fairly cheap, easily found everywhere, a good option for most places for more than one person. Unless, of course, you happen to want to go somewhere between 7-9 am or 3-8pm. Then the traffic is barely moving, and a 10 min journey can take over an hour. If you can get a taxi to agree to take you at that time. So we use taxis for shopping trips and the like. It is a convenient mode of transport especially when you don't know where you are going... handing a paper with an address on it to a driver, or repeating a memorized address is a bit adventrous, but we do usually end up in the right place.
Motorbike taxis. Numerous, cheap, able to weave through the backed up car traffic, this is an attractive solution to city transportation - if you have nerves of steel. Even being fairly used to this mode of transport from our time in Phnom Penh, we are not keen to use it here where cars outnumber the motos, especially with our girls.
Local buses. There is a large network of routes and stops, fare types, and bus types that make this a decent choice - perhaps. But since all the information about it is in Thai, the system remains mostly a mystery to us for now. Also, travel time because of traffic is still an issue of course.
Tuktuks and songtaos. These two forms of transport are not readily available in our part of town. We can use tuktuks (a small moto driven wagon with one or two benches) for shopping trips when we can't fit things into a taxi, but there is only one songtao (a truck with a covered back with benches down the sides) that I've seen in action in our area and it's route is not useful to us.
So, after a month's experimenting and learning, we have settled on bikes as the fastest (!), most convenient mode of transportation for us as a family. It took us a while to find bike seats for Grace and Jasmin that we feel comfortable with, but now we are all set. Jasmin's seat is between the handlebars and seat of Mommy's bike on the crossbar,
and Grace's sits behind Daddy's. 
We did a trial run to church on Sunday in the lighter traffic, and then took them to school and back by bike today. They are so happy to get up an hour later (so are Mommy and Daddy!) and chatter and sing all the way there and back. This actually cuts our travel time in half in the mornings and even more in the afternoons!
Each trip begins with "Keep us safe, O God, we come to you for safety" and then off we go. As the two main roads we will be using actually have bike lanes, it is not as bad as we first thought. Though we do have one major intersection to get across that is a little tense at times.
For now, biking feels like freedom to be able to get where we need to in more predictable time frames whenever we need to go. Perhaps we will think differently come April when the hot season is in full swing! Daddy will be using the Sky train to get to the office when he begins going in the Fall. For now he is working from home and learning Thai - as we all are. That's another story though.
Our first trial was walking. Wider and better sidewalks made this attractive, and we did well with walking in Manila. But, housing within walking distance of the places we needed to get to was too expensive.
Ok. The sky train is clean, fast, convenient, fun... but where we found a place to live is a good 1/2 hour walk from the closest station. Our apartment complex has a free shuttle to that station. Once a day. At 6:45 am. Which leaves us with a 3/4 of an hour journey to get the girls to school via shuttle and walking. Not so nice when it is so early. And the return journey is walk-express bus-walk, taking about an hour, which really eats up time and energy. Sky train for church? Can do, but again, walk-bus-train takes more time than we'd like to spend in travel, and the cost is actually more than taxi for the four of us.
Taxis. Fairly cheap, easily found everywhere, a good option for most places for more than one person. Unless, of course, you happen to want to go somewhere between 7-9 am or 3-8pm. Then the traffic is barely moving, and a 10 min journey can take over an hour. If you can get a taxi to agree to take you at that time. So we use taxis for shopping trips and the like. It is a convenient mode of transport especially when you don't know where you are going... handing a paper with an address on it to a driver, or repeating a memorized address is a bit adventrous, but we do usually end up in the right place.
Motorbike taxis. Numerous, cheap, able to weave through the backed up car traffic, this is an attractive solution to city transportation - if you have nerves of steel. Even being fairly used to this mode of transport from our time in Phnom Penh, we are not keen to use it here where cars outnumber the motos, especially with our girls.
Local buses. There is a large network of routes and stops, fare types, and bus types that make this a decent choice - perhaps. But since all the information about it is in Thai, the system remains mostly a mystery to us for now. Also, travel time because of traffic is still an issue of course.
Tuktuks and songtaos. These two forms of transport are not readily available in our part of town. We can use tuktuks (a small moto driven wagon with one or two benches) for shopping trips when we can't fit things into a taxi, but there is only one songtao (a truck with a covered back with benches down the sides) that I've seen in action in our area and it's route is not useful to us.
So, after a month's experimenting and learning, we have settled on bikes as the fastest (!), most convenient mode of transportation for us as a family. It took us a while to find bike seats for Grace and Jasmin that we feel comfortable with, but now we are all set. Jasmin's seat is between the handlebars and seat of Mommy's bike on the crossbar,
and Grace's sits behind Daddy's. 
We did a trial run to church on Sunday in the lighter traffic, and then took them to school and back by bike today. They are so happy to get up an hour later (so are Mommy and Daddy!) and chatter and sing all the way there and back. This actually cuts our travel time in half in the mornings and even more in the afternoons!Each trip begins with "Keep us safe, O God, we come to you for safety" and then off we go. As the two main roads we will be using actually have bike lanes, it is not as bad as we first thought. Though we do have one major intersection to get across that is a little tense at times.
For now, biking feels like freedom to be able to get where we need to in more predictable time frames whenever we need to go. Perhaps we will think differently come April when the hot season is in full swing! Daddy will be using the Sky train to get to the office when he begins going in the Fall. For now he is working from home and learning Thai - as we all are. That's another story though.
