congratulations you've just landed in Thailand you've cleared customs and immigration and that means that you're probably standing right here in suwannaboom airport but what do you do now how do you get cash a SIM card what are your transportation options to the city well I'm going to answer those questions and a ton more to make sure that your first hour in Bangkok goes off without a hitch I'm going to cover a lot of things quickly but don't worry I've created chapter markers so that you can go back and reference this stuff anytime if you follow the advice in this video your trip to Thailand is going to be way better guaranteed now let's get started thank you okay so Bangkok has two airports suwana boom which is 32 kilometers east of the city center and Don moong which is 24 kilometers North both handle domestic and international flights but the older Don moong is mostly for domestic and so let's face it you've probably arrived at suwannaboom that's right it's pronounced suwana boom having opened in 2006 it now serves over 65 million passengers each year often handling more than 800 flights every single day and although it can seem overwhelming it's really quite a simple layout there's only one main terminal building here and its services all arrivals both International and domestic before going inside this place to to show you how to navigate through it it's good to give you a general layout it's all contained in just one building spread out over just four floors level one you got Transportation options to and from the city level two is all arrivals level three is a general purpose floor with restaurants and uh places that you can meet people and then level four is all of the departures simple right okay let's head inside and I'll show you how to navigate it like a pro [Music] foreign let's start right here on the second floor arrivals because this is most likely where you are gonna pop out so first things first you're gonna need cash you're gonna need cash for street food you're gonna need cash for shopping and taxis and yes you're going to need cash for beer with ice cubes as soon as you get out of arrivals you're going to come across a bunch of money exchange shops now if you go downstairs one level you're gonna find rates that are slightly better but if you're lazy like me you'd either transfer it there get some Thai bot right in your pocket or do what I do and you can just use an ATM card worldwide ATM cards work at most Bank machines all over Thailand but let's break down the costs of all this so this exchange counter is paying 31. 54 Thai baht per US dollar today so let's say you transfer a thousand US Dollars that'll get you 31 540 Baht and just by checking online you can see what the market rate is today which appears to be 34. 17 so for a thousand US Dollars you'd get 34 178 Baht so that's a pretty hefty percentage that they're taking from you so what about ATMs well you'll most likely get dinged with two fees the first is a transaction fee which is charged by your home bank and not the ATM this is usually five dollars per transaction but you're going to want to confirm with your own bank then there's the exchange rate which banks usually charge 2.
5 percent above the market rate so when changing that same thousand dollars you're looking at the five dollar transaction fee plus the 25 dollar exchange rate fee for a total cost of thirty dollars or three percent so this is way better than the money exchange but keep in mind that the five dollar transaction fee is a flat fee so don't be taking out small amounts from the ATM or else it would really add up for example if you only took fifty dollars out that five dollars would be ten percent of your transaction eating up in Bank fees so if you're taking out a small amount I'd go to the money exchange but for larger amounts consider using the ATMs okay Pro tip number one make sure that you tell your bank that you're traveling internationally if you don't then you might get locked out by fraud protection when you get to an ATM and pro tip number two if you travel a lot check out a company called transferwise they save all kinds of money on currency exchange I use them all the time Link in description below all right you got your cash next up enter map so you'll notice when you get to arrivals that Thailand has three main internet provider options you got dtac which is the blue one true which is the red one and my personal favorite for no reason at all AIS which is the green one let's see how much it's going to cost you to get SIM carded up just walk up to the counter and let them know that you want a SIM card for travel and they'll show you the packages you can get packages for eight days 15 days or a maximum of 30 days don't worry though if you're gonna be here longer than 30 days you can just top up and extend by dialing in just before your plan expires easy peasy they offer both 4G and 5G options the price for a 30-day plan on 4G is currently 999 Thai baht and it goes up to 16. 99 for 5G the cheapest plan is eight days of 4G for 299 Baht so just decide what plan is right for you now that we're all Juiced up with high-speed internet let me tell you about the apps you're going to need here there's lots of apps that are super helpful when you're in Thailand but these are the ones that you can't live without first up Google Maps here in Bangkok it's going to be your best friend and Google also has a cool app called Google translate if you've never tried that before definitely check it out look at you can point it at a sign and have it translate the Thai letters into English it's absolutely crazy next if you're looking for things to eat things to do things to see there's no Yelp here if you're a yelper but there is an amazing Thailand map called teeny and there's also no Uber here in place of that you use grab bolt or one that's really cool it'll call you electric two-tukes it's called move me but that one won't pick you up at your location you actually have to go to a specific meeting point but that's a fun way to get around and if you're looking to make Thai friends you're going to want to download an app called line you might use WhatsApp but here in Thailand everybody uses an app called line and then finally for some reason I have on my list Tinder hmm next up is transportation and here on the arrivals level you're going to see all these rental car companies but do what everyone else is doing and Skip them you're in Bangkok for crying out loud the last thing you need is a car what you're going to want to do is follow me all the way down to level number one [Music] so we've come one floor below arrivals we're now on level one and you're going to want to probably get a taxi I'll tell you a cheaper way in a minute [Music] as soon as you get outside here you're going to notice a whole row of taxis all lined up with Lane numbers but you can't just go and jump in the cabs you're going to want to come to these machines and line up in one of three lines you have the large taxi the regular taxi and the short distance once you get in line you're going to end up going over to the machines that you see behind me you got to just poke get a ticket a ticket will spit out it'll tell you your Lane number and then all the taxis have these Lane numbers above them so look at the Lane number on your ticket and then go find your taxi tell them where you want to go and voila and a couple of things about Bangkok taxis should they use a meter yes will they use a meter from the airport most likely they will when you get in the city that's a different ball game but they'll probably use a meter here so so don't worry too much about getting scammed by a taxi when you arrive in Bangkok when you get on the road they might ask you highway highway this means do you want to take the highway in the answer is yes but then they're going to ask you for money at the toll booths either 20 Baht or 50 Baht again not a scam just be prepared with some small bills and give the taxi driver the money to pay for the tolls that's how it works for the taxis now let me show you the cheap way to get into town one other thing you might want to know about if you're not sticking around in Bangkok you can get buses direct to Pattaya and huahen here you can get transport to Koh Chang or kokud but let's be honest you're probably heading downtown Bangkok for a a night of crazy fun and the cheapest way to get there is on a little secret floor called The Bee floor that's where we're going to introduce you to the airport Rail Link yeah so once you've made it down here to the basement and this is where I'd recommend you buy your ticket there's a there's a ticket booth right there if you want to talk to an attendant if you are having trouble with the machines but these things are really quite easy to use first of all press the English button you can see that there's only seven stops to choose from so you're going to want to reference the map of your hotel the map of where you're staying the map of the closest Subway or BTS station that you want to get to we're going to makkasan so I'm going to buy one ticket you can see that it's only 35 Baht so about a dollar in these machines it only takes 20s 50s and 100 baht and then of course the coins I put in my 50.
