The Red Truck Outside 7-Eleven Is Not a Taxi and Is Not a Bus
Half the transport in Thailand is a converted pickup with a roof rack, and the entire system runs on one question: is this one going where you are going?
It is 7pm, it is raining, and you are on a soi with no idea where you are. A red pickup with a metal roof rack and two benches in the back pulls up, the driver leans out and says something you do not understand, and if you get this next step wrong you will be sitting in a moving vehicle heading in precisely the wrong direction.
The next step is one sentence.
Last verified 5 September 2026.
The vehicle
A songthaew is a pickup truck with a canopy, bench seats in the bed, and a rack on the roof for luggage. Literally it means two rows, which is the configuration. Red is Chiang Mai, blue is Phuket and the south, green is the north and northeast, and the colour is a regional convention rather than a rule, so do not treat it as absolute.
They come in two kinds and the difference is the whole system. A shared songthaew follows a fixed route and will go where you are going only if that is where it is going anyway. A charter songthaew is hired for you alone, goes where you ask, and costs a great deal more.
People say songthaew to mean the shared one. That is the cheap and useful version and it is the one on most routes.
The one sentence
Ask where it is going before you get in, and use a place name you can pronounce. Not a hotel. Not a landmark. A district, a market, a soi. Show the driver the name on a map and say it, and nod.
"Chai Mai?" for Chiang Mai. "Ratchadamnoen?" for the main Bangkok road. "Nong Mon" for the ferry terminal in Krabi. Practise the sound, drop the final consonant, and you will be understood everywhere.
If the driver points at you and then points down the road and does not nod, that means no. They will leave with you on the pavement. This is not rude, it is efficiency: a shared songthaew that detours is slow for everybody.
If they say yes, get in and pay the driver, not the conductor. Most routes do not have a conductor, and the ones that do will find you.
What it costs and what to hold
Shared songthaew is normally 20 to 40 baht in Chiang Mai and comparable cities, 100 to 150 in Bangkok, higher on the islands. Insist on the meter or the set fare in Bangkok; a songthaew is not supposed to quote a number at all.
Have small notes and coins. This is the single most common friction point in the whole transport system and it costs you ten minutes at a 7-Eleven counter with a queue of people doing exactly the same thing.
Chartering costs roughly 1,200 to 2,000 baht for a day in Chiang Mai and more in Bangkok, which makes it a group activity rather than a solo one.
The rest of the system
Motorbike taxis, calledGrab, the app that took over. GrabBike has largely replaced the street tout. It is safer, it prices in advance, and it is the reason most people under 40 no longer wave down a bike in a helmet. Agree the fare and confirm the destination through the phone before you set off.
Baht buses. The cheapest intercity option, with a conductor and a punch card. No air conditioning on many routes. Know the stop: these drop you on the highway and you walk, sometimes a long way, and sometimes in the dark.
Rot daeng, the round Bangkok Airport Rail Link, is the one service in the capital where you buy a ticket and hand it back at the end. Everything else is cash or an app.
Songthaews stop when they are full and when it is dark. This is the thing nobody tells you. The service that runs all day on a familiar route thins out after about 7pm, and the ones that disappear first are the ones that go somewhere inconvenient. If you are going to be out late, take the number of the route you need while it is light, or use a Grab.
What to do when it is raining and dark
Open Grab and stop trying to be resourceful. The system works perfectly well in daylight and the failure mode at night is a songthaew that does not run, a bike driver in a downpour, or a bar closing that you had assumed was closed. The cost of a motorbike ride home at ten at night is small enough that it is never worth taking the risk that saves it.
