The Airport train link: Why Makkasan is on the wrong side of the tracks while Phyathai is the perfect stop

Unless someone has a fantastic 'grand design' for Makkasan that they're keeping top secret, this dull area of Bangkok seems a strange choice for the location of the station for the City Express Link to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Besides being in a particularly uninteresting and under-developed district with very little to commend it, Makkasan is one of the most difficult places in the city to reach, at least in terms of traffic congestion. Perhaps it's only redeeming feature is the siting of a MRT underground station nearby, but to get from one facility to the other requires crossing a rather nasty junction and a 150m walk mostly in the open air.

At least Makkasan station has the benefit of ample parking space for taxis, because that's the way most people will travel there.

It's likely that most newly arrived visitors to Thailand will be directed at Suvarnabhumi to the Express Line, rather than the slower all-stopper City Line. And although they will get into downtown in about 15 minutes courtesy of this non-stop train service, they will be deposited in no-man's land at Makkasan. Even Petchburi Road's low-end hotels are still a taxi journey away.

Read more in the printed version of The Big Chilli