Alright so here’s how I actually got to Ubon Ratchathani Airport fast last week. Needed to catch a flight back to Bangkok and realized I cut it kinda close. Woke up sweating bullets thinking “Crap, airport’s way outside the city. Gotta hustle.”
Staring at Messed-Up Options Early Morning
First plan? Take the damn airport shuttle bus from downtown. Heard it was cheap. Fine, whatever. Dragged my suitcase down to the pickup spot near the bus terminal around 5:30 AM. Turns out I either missed it or the schedule I found online was pure fiction. Nothing showed up for like 25 minutes. Watched stray dogs sniffing garbage bags. Not cool.
Started weighing options fast:
- Wait longer: Nope. Flight leaves at 7:45 AM.
- Grab/Bolt: Opened apps. Surge pricing kicked in hard. Driver accepting was slow.
- Flag a Meter Taxi: Few driving around that early.
Switching Gears to Meter Taxi & Road Stuff
Saw an old-school taxi with the roof light on down the street. Waved like crazy. Jumped in, suitcase nearly taking out my knees. Told him “Ubon Airport, fastest way possible.” Driver nodded, no talk, just pointed at the meter. Hit the gas.
Route was straightforward:
- Got onto Mittraphap Road heading south out of the city.
- Stayed on that alllll the way past Warin Chamrap. Just followed the road signs pointing towards Phibun Mangsahan.
- Spotted a big blue “Ubon Ratchathani Airport” sign with an arrow pointing left maybe 20-25 minutes after leaving central Ubon.
- Turned off onto a smaller access road, maybe 2 minutes later, boom, airport entrance.
Timing & Cost Reality Check
Total time? About 35 minutes from hopping in the taxi downtown to walking into Departures. This was early morning though, like 6 AM. Zero traffic. Probably take longer if you hit actual traffic hours. Driver wasn’t speeding, just driving steady.
Cost me 250 Baht on the meter. Totally fair. Would have happily paid double just to make the flight after that bus screw-up. No tolls to pay on this route, thank god.
Got inside, breezed through check-in cause it’s tiny, and made my gate with time to buy water. Honestly? Worth every baht. Screw waiting for unreliable buses if you value your sanity and schedule.
Funny thing is, it reminded me of getting kicked out of that coding bootcamp back in Chiang Mai because the instructor insisted PHP frameworks were ‘the future’ while I was writing everything in Go. Just pure stubbornness ignoring the obvious tools.
