Suvarnabhumi Airport to Sukhumvit (Asok / Nana)

Sukhumvit is where most first-timers to Bangkok end up sleeping, and for good reason: the long spine of the road around Asok and Nana stacks hotels, rooftop bars, malls and street stalls on top of the BTS and MRT, so the whole city is a swipe of a card away. The trick is getting there from Suvarnabhumi without surrendering your first evening to a traffic jam on the expressway, and the answer depends entirely on the time of day you land.

Beat the traffic underground

If you arrive into the teeth of Bangkok's rush hour, and the city's traffic is a force of nature — the Airport Rail Link is your friend. Ride it to Makkasan for around 35 baht, transfer to the MRT, and you are at Sukhumvit or Asok in about thirty-five minutes for roughly €2 all in, sailing under the gridlock while taxis idle above you. It is cheap, it is punctual, and it is entirely immune to the chaos on the roads. The only real downside is the last stretch: you finish on foot or with a short hop, so it suits travellers who are not weighed down by a season's worth of luggage.

The cheap taxi that Bangkok does so well

Here is the thing worth saying loudly to anyone used to European or American fares: a metered taxi in Bangkok is astonishingly cheap. The run to Sukhumvit lands somewhere around €8 to €13 all in, and that already includes the 50-baht airport surcharge and the expressway tolls. For that money you get door-to-door service with no platform changes to manage while you're jet-lagged, which is a genuine bargain. Two rules keep it painless: head for the public taxi rank on Level 1 rather than the touts who approach you inside the hall, and make sure the driver switches the meter on ("meter, please") rather than quoting a flat price.

Skipping the queue with a fixed fare

If you would rather not think at all, a pre-booked transfer or a Grab runs around €9 to €15 — a little more than the metered taxi, but with the price agreed up front and a car waiting, which is a soothing way to arrive with children or a mound of bags. Grab in particular takes the negotiation out of the equation entirely; you order from the app, walk to the marked pickup point, and the fare is what the screen said.

A few pointers to keep the Sukhumvit run smooth:

• In heavy traffic the train actually beats the taxi for time — when in doubt during the evening crush, go underground.
• Use only the official Level 1 taxi rank and insist on the meter; ignore drivers touting fixed prices inside the terminal.
• The Rail Link stops running around midnight, so late arrivals will be choosing between a taxi and a Grab.
• Have your hotel's name in Thai script on your phone — Sukhumvit's numbered side-streets (the sois) trip up drivers otherwise.

Matching the mode to your bags and your hour

The short way to choose on this route is to weigh two things: how much you are carrying and when you land. Travelling light in the middle of a weekday afternoon, the Rail Link and MRT are a joy — cheap, quick, and gliding over the worst of the traffic. Arrive with a family, a fortnight's luggage and a toddler asleep on your shoulder, and the calculus flips: the metered taxi's €8-to-€13, door to door, is money extremely well spent, and a booked Grab even more so. The other hinge is the clock. The Rail Link winds down around midnight, so a red-eye arrival quietly removes the cheapest option and leaves you choosing between the meter and the app. None of these is a bad choice — that's the luxury of Bangkok, but knowing which suits your particular arrival saves a muddled, sweaty first hour in the city.

Get it right and you are on Sukhumvit within the hour, bags down, a bowl of noodles from a street cart in hand and the Skytrain humming overhead — Bangkok, immediately and completely.