Words For Bus Station

[cali4995]

on my maps it always shows สถานีขนส่ง (satanee-kon-song)

but i had a thai person explain this to me as bor-kor-sor and

then abbreviate it on a piece of paper as บ ข ส (well, at least i

think that's what he wrote) what exactly is that an abbreviation

for? and while were at it, on the side of most buses they will

also have an abbreviation ป.1 or บ.1 what does that stand for?

i apologize beforehand, for some of us linguistically challenged

people, even these simple questions keep us up at night.

[DavidHouston]

บขส stands for บริษัทขนส่ง จำกัด or "The Transport Company Ltd." This is one of Thailand's bus companies. Sometimes Thais refer to "บขส" to refer to the bus station instead of the generic "สถานีรถขนส่ง" or "สถานีรถประจำทาง"

Here is the website http://www.transport.co.th/. Looking at the picture, you would think that taking a bus trip is like taking an airliner.

The following is the company's motto found on the website:

เป็นผู้นำในการให้บริการขนส่งผู้โดยสารทางถนนแบบ

"To be [the / a] leader in providing road passenger transportation services"

ครบวงจรโดยมีมาตรฐานระดับสากล และใช้ระบบเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศ

"To provide complete [services] up to international standards and to use information technology . . . "

และทรัพยากรบุคคลเป็นปัจจัยหลักในการสร้างความสามารถในการแข่งขัน

". . . and human resources as key factors in developing our competitive capabilities ."

[meadish_sweetball]

they will also have an abbreviation ป.1 or บ.1 what does that stand for?

ป in ป.1 stands for ปรับอากาศ bpràp aakàad which means air conditioning, and 1 is for 1st class.

ปรับอากาศ bpràp aakàad is most common in formal language and rarely used in spoken Thai - the borrowing แอร์ ae: (from 'air') is the most commonly used spoken term.

[stateman]

on my maps it always shows สถานีขนส่ง (satanee-kon-song)

but i had a thai person explain this to me as bor-kor-sor and

then abbreviate it on a piece of paper as บ ข ส

Your map shows the official name for the long distance bus station.

As David pointed out in the well -researched comment, บ ข ส comes from the Bus line name, just like Greyhound in the US.

Often people call the station "สถานี บ ข ส" (Sa-ta-nee Bau-Kor-sau), which is equivalent to saying the "Greyhound station". Either สถานีขนส่ง or "สถานี บ ข ส" is a good choice, especially when you are outside of Bkk - where there is only 1 such station.

If you are in Bkk which has more than 1 such stations, then people expect to hear the specific of:

1. สถานีขนส่ง สายเหนือ satanee-kon-song Sai Nuea (The Northeren Bus Station) or

สถานีขนส่งหมอชิต satanee-kon-song Mor Chit (The Bus Station at Mor Chit where it is located). or

สถานี บ ข ส สายเหนือ Sa-ta-nee Bau-Kor-sau Sai Nuea

or

สถานี บ ข ส หมอชิต Sa-ta-nee Bau-Kor-sau Morchit

Buses there take you to the North and NE.

or

2. สถานีขนส่งสายใต้ satanee-kon-song Sai Tai (The Southeren Bus Station) or

สถานี บ ข ส สายใต้ Sa-ta-nee Bau-Kor-sau Sai Tai.

This is located across the river in Thonburi.

Buses there take you to the south of the country.

-----

Please note that "ขนส่ง" is abbreviated from บริษัทขนส่ง or "The Transport Company, which is a long distance bus company.

If you are in-town, the bus tends to be called รถประจำทาง (Rot-pra-jum-taang). Literally, it means scheduled bus. This term is less common for long distance bus (altough you could, and nothing wrong with it).

So if you distinguish between the terms ขนส่ง kon-song and รถประจำทาง Rot-pra-jum-taang, you will travel like a local!

Enjoy!

[meadish_sweetball]

Truly excellent posts there, David and stateman.

One thing I've noticed is that it is quite common for people in smaller places to talk of just ขนส่ง khon[R] song[L] as well, referring to the long distance bus station.

And of course, รถเมล์ rot[H] meh[ML] is an all purpose word for bus that can be used about both long distance and city buses.

[mikethevigoman]

on my maps it always shows สถานีขนส่ง (satanee-kon-song)

but i had a thai person explain this to me as bor-kor-sor and

then abbreviate it on a piece of paper as บ ข ส (well, at least i

think that's what he wrote) what exactly is that an abbreviation

for? and while were at it, on the side of most buses they will

also have an abbreviation ป.1 or บ.1 what does that stand for?

i apologize beforehand, for some of us linguistically challenged

people, even these simple questions keep us up at night.

More shit !

[bannork]

The confusion is quite understandable as many towns have 2 or 3 bus stations nowadays, the old downtown ones and then one or two on the outskirts for long distance buses, especially ones that are just passing through and hence no need to enter the town, wasting time. In Udon I always say บขส to the samlor drivers and they always take me to the downtown one where buses terminate and begin, in Korat I noticed there's บขสเก่า ( downtown) and บขสไหม่ the station on the outskirts for those passing through.

[mikethevigoman]

บขส stands for บริษัทขนส่ง จำกัด or "The Transport Company Ltd." This is one of Thailand's bus companies. Sometimes Thais refer to "บขส" to refer to the bus station instead of the generic "สถานีรถขนส่ง" or "สถานีรถประจำทาง"

Here is the website http://www.transport.co.th/. Looking at the picture, you would think that taking a bus trip is like taking an airliner.

The following is the company's motto found on the website:

เป็นผู้นำในการให้บริการขนส่งผู้โดยสารทางถนนแบบ

"To be [the / a] leader in providing road passenger transportation services"

ครบวงจรโดยมีมาตรฐานระดับสากล และใช้ระบบเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศ

"To provide complete [services] up to international standards and to use information technology . . . "

และทรัพยากรบุคคลเป็นปัจจัยหลักในการสร้างความสามารถในการแข่งขัน

". . . and human resources as key factors in developing our competitive capabilities ."

oh to this ? no sorry i dont, i just added one of the stations in bkk ,,. Edited December 21, 2007 by mikethevigoman

[waveydavey]

Truly excellent posts there, David and stateman.

One thing I've noticed is that it is quite common for people in smaller places to talk of just ขนส่ง khon[R] song[L] as well, referring to the long distance bus station.

And of course, รถเมล์ rot[H] meh[ML] is an all purpose word for bus that can be used about both long distance and city buses.

Last time I was in BKK and wanted to go to Mo Chit I said 'satahnee rot meh' to the taxi driver and he didn't understand me but when I tried 'satahnee kon song' it was ok. When I got there I noticed it says 'kon song' on the big sign on the roof of the building. Could have been a problem with my pronunciation though as I know its pretty rubbish.

[withnail]

Just to add that whilst in Bangkok หมอชิดใหม่ or หมอชิด ๒ seems to do the trick and is what is written on Bangkok buses which go the station.

[mangkorn]

A minor bit of trivia: รถเมล์ derived from the English "mail truck" - which, back in the olden days, was about the only transport running through many towns.

(These days, it seems to refer mainly to urban buses. Long-distance buses have a couple of designations - รถทัวร์ - and maybe others, if I'm not mistaken.)

Also, if anyone out there actually rides city buses (I do), the word for bus stop is: ป้ายรถเมล์ - or just ป้าย. That can be a very useful thing to know. When I first learned that, I asked my teacher exactly where that term came from? She seemed slightly exasperated by the dumb farang's question, and sighed heavily: "It's because there's a ป้าย there, and it has a little drawing of a รถเมล์ on it!"

Too funny.

But that is also probably the best explanation for it.

Edited December 21, 2007 by mangkorn

[cali4995]

Wow! you guys are actually amazingly quite good. Sometimes no amount of pronunciation

practice seems to help. There is something about Thai words coming out of a white face

that frequently causes confusion. Writing this stuff down on a piece of paper seems to be

the easiest way. I was just intrigued by bor-kor-sor because it was understood but no idea

what that stood for. Well, yet another dark mystery of the universe unravelled. Thanks.

[stateman]

Last time I was in BKK and wanted to go to Mo Chit I said 'satahnee rot meh' to the taxi driver and he didn't understand me but when I tried 'satahnee kon song' it was ok. When I got there I noticed it says 'kon song' on the big sign on the roof of the building. Could have been a problem with my pronunciation though as I know its pretty rubbish.

'satahnee rot meh' is indeed confusing.

satahnee is a 'station'. 'rot meh' is generally referred to 'bus' as city bus (less often for long distance bus).

As in Bkk, you will notice that the bus stops along the city roads. At each such stop, there is but a small "placard" type sign fixed on top of a post. At most there may be a passenger shelter. There is no "station" per se.

In reality though, there are "bus station" for city bus, as bus terminals. But they are generally out of way and not readily known by us or a taxi driver.

So the taxi driver was puzzled because he didn't know which "bus station" (for city bus) you might be referring to.

If you want to say Moh-Chit, the two below should not give them any confusion.

สถานีขนส่งหมอชิต satanee-kon-song Mor Chit (The Bus Station at Mor Chit where it is located). or

สถานี บ ข ส หมอชิต Sa-ta-nee Bau-Kor-sau Morchit

[waveydavey]

Last time I was in BKK and wanted to go to Mo Chit I said 'satahnee rot meh' to the taxi driver and he didn't understand me but when I tried 'satahnee kon song' it was ok. When I got there I noticed it says 'kon song' on the big sign on the roof of the building. Could have been a problem with my pronunciation though as I know its pretty rubbish.

'satahnee rot meh' is indeed confusing.

satahnee is a 'station'. 'rot meh' is generally referred to 'bus' as city bus (less often for long distance bus).

As in Bkk, you will notice that the bus stops along the city roads. At each such stop, there is but a small "placard" type sign fixed on top of a post. At most there may be a passenger shelter. There is no "station" per se.

In reality though, there are "bus station" for city bus, as bus terminals. But they are generally out of way and not readily known by us or a taxi driver.

So the taxi driver was puzzled because he didn't know which "bus station" (for city bus) you might be referring to.

If you want to say Moh-Chit, the two below should not give them any confusion.

สถานีขนส่งหมอชิต satanee-kon-song Mor Chit (The Bus Station at Mor Chit where it is located). or

สถานี บ ข ส หมอชิต Sa-ta-nee Bau-Kor-sau Morchit

Cheers, I appreciate the difference now.

[bannork]

Thais using the word 'tour' to describe an air-con bus can also cause confusion. I remember standing at Morchit years ago, waiting to go to Nakhon Phanom and a friendly Thai asking me if I was going on 'tour'. 'No, no,' I insisted, 'I only wanted to go to Nakhon Phanom', I had no plans for taking in the rest of Issan at the time. But he persisted, ' Yes you're going to Nakhon Phanom but are you going on tour?'

We both ended up walking away, exasperated, shaking our heads! Later I realised 'tour' referred to aircon buses, presumably because the first aircon buses were long distance, taking in many towns, hence tour.

[stateman]

Thais using the word 'tour' to describe an air-con bus can also cause confusion.

Thanks for bringing this issue up, bannork.

I thought about this earlier, but decided against bringing it up.

There are indeed the "regular" บ ข ส Bau-Kor-sau, which is a quasi-government company, (used to be anyway).

And there are private buses which generally provide better service at a higher price.

A Thai friend of mine explained the details to me once, but I don't remember all the details now. Maybe someone who has taken the 'tour bus' can share your experience here.

[meadish_sweetball]

There are indeed the "regular" บ ข ส Bau-Kor-sau, which is a quasi-government company, (used to be anyway).

And there are private buses which generally provide better service at a higher price.

Maybe things have changed since the late nineties and early 2000s, but my experiences from using private tour bus companies (stranded by the side of the road twice, drivers taking detours to drop off passengers in the middle of nowhere for extra cash, reckless driving) in the end led me to pick บ ข ส over the others whenever possible.

[stateman]

There are indeed the "regular" บ ข ส Bau-Kor-sau, which is a quasi-government company, (used to be anyway).

And there are private buses which generally provide better service at a higher price.

Maybe things have changed since the late nineties and early 2000s, but my experiences from using private tour bus companies (stranded by the side of the road twice, drivers taking detours to drop off passengers in the middle of nowhere for extra cash, reckless driving) in the end led me to pick บ ข ส over the others whenever possible.

Being privately owned, the tour bus quality ranges from very high quality with luxurious amenities to those poorly maintained with reports similar to what meadish_sweetball mentioned.

[g00dgirl]

useful post,

I usually call bus station "tii rod dtua" I made that up myself as my best guess, as in .. tii = place bus = rod dtua .., unfortunately none of the Thai people I am around correct me so I never learned the correct word

[PeaceBlondie]

Does that mean, at least for those of us who come and go from Morchit, that no Western language is useful? On my last arrival there, the dispatcher had to explain such totally foreign terms as ?Patpong! and *Suriwong%, which must be west of Alpha Promixa. Then when I took the BTS to Mo©hit BTS Station, the taxi driver had no idea where Mochit Bus Terminal was...apparently BKK taxi drivers have never heard one word of English. Ah well, it must be my fault for being tone deaf and unable to speak one of the world's minority languages.

Then on the way to Patpong, the driver was totally lost until I accidentally, finally said it exactly like his great aunt used to say it, and he knew where I meant!

[mangkorn]

Wow. One of the "super moderators" on the Thai Language forum is complaining that Thai taxi drivers don't learn English, but instead insist on speaking their "minority language" in their own country.

Amazing.