Local Transport

Trains, scooters, ferries, slow boats — and the taxi you should wave off.

Asia is not one transport system. It is a continent of overlapping ones, each shaped by its geography and by which decade it modernised in. Japan built its national rail in the postwar boom and never stopped maintaining it. Vietnam runs a single-track French colonial line up the coast and a thousand new motorbikes per kilometre on top of it. Bangkok bolted a sky train onto a city of canals; Bali skipped trains entirely and went straight to scooters and an app. The instinct that serves you best in all of them is the same: use what the locals use, in the way they use it.

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Japan’s Rail Network & IC Cards

The Japan Rail Pass used to be the obvious answer for any first-time visitor; the 2023 price increase made it less obvious, and for trips under two weeks or itineraries that don’t cross the country, point-to-point shinkansen tickets are now usually cheaper. Run the numbers on Hyperdia or Navitime before you buy. Whatever you decide on the long-distance front, get an IC card — Suica, Pasmo, Icoca, they all work nationally now — and load it on your phone if you have an iPhone or recent Android. It pays for local trains, subways, buses, vending machines, and most convenience stores, and it removes the daily friction of buying paper tickets in a language you don’t read.

The shinkansen itself is the easiest long-distance train in the world to use. Reserved seats are worth the small surcharge during sakura and Golden Week and unnecessary the rest of the year. Stand on the platform marker for your car number; the train will stop with the door precisely there. Eat the ekiben — the regional bento box sold on the platform — rather than the trolley food.

Vietnam’s Overnight Trains & Grab

The Reunification Express runs the spine of Vietnam from Hanoi to Saigon, taking around thirty hours end to end. Almost no one rides the whole length. The civilised segments are Hanoi to Hue or Da Nang (overnight, sleeper berth, around twelve hours) and Da Nang to Nha Trang. Book a soft sleeper, lower berth, in a four-person cabin; bring your own snacks; tip the carriage attendant a small note for hot water. The view between Hue and Da Nang along the Hai Van Pass is one of the great train rides in Asia.

In the cities, Grab has effectively replaced metered taxis. The bike option (GrabBike) is faster than the car in Hanoi and Saigon traffic and costs about a dollar across the Old Quarter. They will hand you a helmet; wear it. For longer intercity runs, the open-tour bus companies (Sinh Tourist, Hanh Cafe) are reliable and cheap, but a sleeper bus is a sleeper bus — you will not sleep well.

Bangkok BTS, MRT, and Tuk-Tuks

Bangkok’s traffic is a famous and unsolved problem; the BTS Skytrain and the MRT subway are how locals route around it. Stay near a station — Asok, Phrom Phong, Silom — and you can reach most of the city in under thirty minutes for a couple of dollars. A Rabbit card pays for the BTS, a separate stored-value card or QR code pays for the MRT, and the two are gradually being unified.

Tuk-tuks are a tourist experience, not a transport choice. They cost more than a Grab car, they have no meters, and the drivers who park outside hotels are often working a gem-store or tailor-shop kickback. Take one for the ride, once, after you have agreed on the fare in advance, and use Bolt or Grab for everything else.

Bali Scooters and Gojek

A 125cc automatic scooter rents for around five dollars a day in Ubud or Canggu, and it is the only sensible way to move around inland Bali. Three caveats. First, your travel insurance almost certainly does not cover you without a valid international motorcycle endorsement — check before you ride, not after. Second, the police set up checkpoints aimed specifically at tourists, and the unofficial fine is around two hundred thousand rupiah; carry small notes. Third, the roads are not Singapore. Ride in the morning when traffic is lighter, never at night without a real reason, and do not be the traveller in a hospital in Denpasar with road rash and no insurance.

For everything else — airport transfers, dinner runs, a ride home after a long day at the beach — Gojek and Grab both work across the south of the island. The driver associations have negotiated “no pickup” zones in some tourist areas; the app will tell you to walk a block, and you should.

Ferries in Island Southeast Asia

Indonesia and the Philippines are archipelagos — seventeen thousand and seven thousand islands respectively — and the inter-island ferry is a basic fact of life. The fast boats from Bali to the Gilis or to Nusa Penida are well-run and reasonably safe in good weather; the same boats in heavy seas are not, and the operators do not always cancel when they should. Check the marine forecast, not just the booking site. Larger Pelni ferries in eastern Indonesia run on multi-day schedules and feel like a different century; they are worth doing once if you have the time.

When to Take the Slow Boat

The two-day slow boat down the Mekong from Huay Xai on the Lao border to Luang Prabang is the most famous slow option in the region, and the case for it is exactly that it is slow. You watch the river for two days. You stop overnight in Pakbeng. You arrive in Luang Prabang having earned it rather than having flown in. The same logic applies to the night train rather than the budget flight, the ferry rather than the hydrofoil. The slow option is almost always worth it once per trip and almost never worth it twice.

Spotting a Metered vs. Fixed-Price Taxi Scam

The pattern is the same everywhere. You arrive at an airport or major station; a man approaches you inside the terminal and offers a taxi. He is not a taxi driver. He is a tout who walks you to a driver who pays him a commission and charges you three to five times the meter rate. The fix is also the same everywhere: walk past him, walk to the official taxi rank outside, and take whatever the rank gives you. In Bangkok, insist the driver use the meter (“meter, please”) and get out if he refuses. In Hanoi and Saigon, use Grab and skip the question entirely. In Bali, the official airport taxi counter inside the terminal is fine; the men outside it are not.

Related: Staying Connected covers the SIM cards that make Grab and Gojek possible in the first place.

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