Excellent service from 12go.asia!! Easy to manage website, friendly staff at the pick up office opposite the station. Easy to read monitors at station help you get on the right train. Have a few baht handy to give to the station toilet attendant before you board or wait until you get on & use their very clean toilet facilities.
The train trip was well organised & the service team on board were excellent. No surprise that the beds were not great but I certainly got many hours sleep before waking up to the hills of Chiang Mai.
An all together great experience.
The Orient Express in all its ancient glory was being stocked for the voyage to Singapore with twenty carriages, half of them sleepers the other half restaurants. The journey to the Malaysian border takes 18 hours, trains are new and fast over there, but this historical train will be crawling on some old route. The whole station with payphones, Information for foreigners-signs and locals sitting on the floor while waiting for their departure is a nostalgic reminder of the past.
This is a large station set in what appears to be an old aircraft hanger. Whilst you are waiting for your train, there’s plenty of food/coffee shops inside and if there’s no seats left in the middle area, you can find your way upstairs to Black Canyon Coffee where the price of a coffee, or bottle of water, might be able to get you a seat away from the hustle and bustle.
The railway police office is in the main station and there appears to be security around, however, any place where there’s a large gathering of people (mainly tourists) who are able to afford the 2,000 baht for a train, I would be aware of the opportunist thief lurking around.
Bright information boards detail the times of your train and what platform to get on. Be sure to sit somewhere where you can see this board to make sure you don’t miss your train.
I strongly recommend most overseas travellers to take a ride from this century-old architectural gem before the move of the Bangkok terminus to Bang Sue Station in 2021. It would be ideal to take sometimes to admire at the terminal building before your train journey starts.
I started my slow journey south to KL from here. My first leg, Bangkok - Hua Hin, only costed 44 baht and 4.5 hrs to get there! DO EXPECT SOME DELAYS. This is not Shinkansen.
If you had the chance, do come here at 0800 and 1800. They will play the national anthem and everything comes to a standstill. A rare sight in Asia these days.
They have a cafe and a "historical" ❨aka dirty❩ foodcourt in the station. Toilets cost 3B as usual.
Do remember to take photos at the Bangkok Station sign, very IG-able.
It’s active! A smattering of tourists among the locals. Going places, arriving.
Not beautiful. Not Grand.
Just the real thing. Probably very safe. Easy to manage. Lots of services.
