A Small Tip: Staying At Hotels Near Don Mueang Airport Is No Good If You Want To Have Just A Fun Trip

I'll write down what I wrote in my last post about my trip to Bangkok at the end of the year.

When traveling to Bangkok, I don't recommend staying in a hotel near Don Mueang Airport.

    

Don Mueang Airport

It's a city of a size that could be called a hotel district, with many small hotels, but the environment is not the best.

To get to the hotel district, you leave the north end of the airport, pass the tourist bus gathering area, and cross a super long overpass.

By super long, I mean the length of about four 2-3 lane roads and two train tracks.

It doesn't look sturdy, and there are people setting up shops and lying down on it.

  

Super-long land bridge from the airport

When you get off the overpass on the other side, first find a gap in the traffic and cross the road.

There you will find a town with many small shops.

It's a large town where the economy is run by local residents as well as hotel guests.

The Don Muang Hotel where I stayed is a 10-minute walk from the airport.

(Even if I call a car with Grab at the airport, it will probably take longer than that. I tried it once, but I couldn't find a car because it was close, so I canceled.)

All the shops are in proper buildings, but the sidewalk smells like sewer.

It's pretty tough to walk for 10 minutes while smelling the sewer.

(The sewer smell in the local shopping district is the same in central Bangkok, but there is no place to escape to such as a mall in the airport city.)

To make matters worse, the station of the elevated Red Line to the city center is a few hundred meters walk from the southern end of the airport. The airport is a long and narrow structure with international terminals on the north side and domestic terminals on the south side.

  

Red Line train station at Don Mueaung

Just going from the hotel to the station and back through the airport from north to south easily exceeds my daily step goal.

In fact, I walked around the mall, so I walked three days' worth of steps in one day and my legs were sore.

I spent about three days like that.

Using the train is cheap, but quite tiring. There are few seats on the MRT subway or the elevated BTS, so you usually have to use a pole or a strap, or stand by leaning against the wall.

On the way back, I was relieved that I could almost always sit on the Red Line to the airport.

I was reminded that staying in a hotel in central Bangkok is the best way to avoid putting too much strain on your body when traveling for sightseeing.