re: Two weeks away from my Thailand trip and I have questions

The BTS skytrain is your friend and really easy to use. I'll explain how you can use it 2 ways.

If you only want to use it like once or twice you can get coins at the manned kiosk. Then go to the big map with numbered button thingy. The numbers (7) (39) etc correspond to a station on the map. Find your station and press the corresponding number. Feed the coins and retrieve your ticket. Use the ticket like the NYC Metro (put paper in slot, gate opens and paper comes out other side)

Even better option:
frick that noise because using the machine thingy with the coins is a huge pain in the arse because the line gets super long. For whatever reason, people either like long lines or don't have as much money as us, so go to thay same manner kiosk and ask for a rabbit card. This is a card that you can just put a bunch of baht on and use until it runs out. From purchasing it head straight to your train, instead of feeding it through the slot like the paper ticket, hold it over the pad on top to open the gate. Way easier and skips rush hour BS


ETA: buy a tourist sim on arrival at the airport. All 3 major carriers are there. This will allow you to use UBER which is great for getting to hotels or non tourist sites the non English speakers can't understand as you can just punch it into the map feature uber has.

Absolutely no way would we have gotten to the dog petting cafe without uber for example not to mention one cabby didn't understand what I meant by Grande Sheraton Sukhumvit which is a pretty major hotel there. Thankfully I had some talk so we could call the hotel, but uber would have been easier.