Getting around by river boat in Bangkok

The public transit in Bangkok is well designed, affordable, and easy to use. There are multiple modes: river boat, canal boat, skytrain, subway, bus. There are also tuktuks, motorbikes, and taxis. So, even though transit is really great, it can be overwhelming for tourists. The only way to reach the riverside areas, unless you plan to walk miles each time, is to hop on a riverboat ferry. The riverboat ferry connect to the Skytrain at Saphan Taksin Pier, which is very helpful. 

When someone who looks like a confused tourist strolls into some of these stations, they are often bombarded with offers by local longboat drivers or people trying to sell them the tourist boat pass. It's 150 baht (under $3) for unlimited rides that day, which sounds like an okay idea, but we decided not to ride the tourist boat and were really happy we didn't. The orange line express boat is only 15 baht per ride and goes to many more stops. We even took it as far as we could and ended up in a great part of Bangkok called Nonthaburi, where durian grow, that had an amazing city hall and free museum.

Map of some of the many modes of transport in Bangkok. We mostly stuck with the BTS (skytrain), river boat and canal boats. The airport rail link was also super easy to use and prevented a costly airport taxi ride.

The boats get really crowded during rush hour times and people cram on like sardines. This makes it look a bit more civilized than it generally is.

We found that if we took the cheap boat rides (cruises for us because we didn't want to shell out 2,000 baht on the official tourist cruises), we could see interesting spots to check out later.

Some of the less travelled boats make for great sunset viewing. The Asiatique boat, which went out to  what was supposed to be a great market, but ended up being a high end strip mall, was a great boat because it's free and they don't pack people in. 

 Normally, these seats would all be taken and then there would be two rows of people crammed in the middle. Just when you think you can't even budge, a lady comes pushing through shaking a metal money container and collects the 15 baht from each passenger. It's actually really amazing because they remember who has been on and can tell who gets on at each stop. There are some stations where you can pay in advance and then the ticket taker will just tear your tickets after, but there's really no need when riding the non-tourist boats.

Several of the piers have fish food vendors. The seemingly calm waters are actually filled with catfish that rush to the surface when someone tosses in food. 

Many of the piers also have small restaurants that also serve cold beer and drinks. The food at them seems mediocre because almost everyone in them is just having a beer or other cold drink, but they are a fab place to sit and cool off while enjoying the view. My new favorite drink is a coconut water smoothie! Every place you go has a stack of coconuts they are prepared to cut open. It's really refreshing after a hot day.