Bangkok, Thailand

[murfj]

Here are a couple of pictures of Bangkok, Thailand that I took in the summer of 2001- as seen from the top of the Baiyoke Sky hotel, which at that time was said to be the world's tallest hotel. It is 88 stories, I need to look up the specific height stats)

[ZachariahDaMan]

I love that first picture.

[Hope]

Lotsa traffic!

[john_denver]

Isn't there a floating market in Bangkok?

[Southernyank]

About how many people live in Bangkok

[Hankster]

Lotsa traffic!

Yeah, the traffic there is horrendous. Some people say it's the worst in the world. I worked there back around 1990. I loved everything about this city of nearly 9 million people except the traffic. The problem is they don't have many roads. When the city first developed, the main means of transportation was canals. There were almost no roads at all. Then in order to have some roads, the city filled in most of the canals. Problem is there weren't nearly as many canals as the number of roads you would normally expect. Most of the roads are quite wide, but the blocks are incredibly long. You can see traffic backed way up for a long distance in the second photo. That happens all the time. Traffic signals stay red about 3 minutes, and traffic backs up incredibly far because of that. It's possible to have such long signals because of the long blocks. Rush hour starts at about 5 AM and last until about 3 AM the next night. There's only about two hours each day when the traffic flows well.

Back in 1990 they did not have subways or elevated trains. Subways are impossible because of the cities low elevation and high water table. However, they have elevated trains now. I hope that has helped alleviate the traffic there.

[mahanakorn]

Subways are impossible because of the cities low elevation and high water table. However, they have elevated trains now. I hope that has helped alleviate the traffic there.

Hi Hankster,

First line of BKK subway opened in 2004. Whatever technical obstacles the high water table presented have been overcome. You might enjoy the following links:

MRT Metro - http://www.bangkokmetro.co.th/en/home.asp

BTS Skytrain - http://www.bts.co.th/en/index.asp

Traffic is still a mess, but if you're traveling in the central areas covered by MRT and BTS, at least you can go over or under it.

[Route]

Bangkok has 15million people. It's a wonderful city. I moved there for a few months when SARS hit Hong Kong just to get out for a while. It's just fantastic, great food, beautiful people, fantastic hotels.

[tony speller]

fantastic hotels.

bwahaha. yeah, i've heard a lot about the hotels in bangkok

[egrguy]

I just finished reading Bangkok 8, a great book and when reading this thread addressing the horrible traffic problems it made me chuckle as the main character address the traffic problems as well in the book.

Those pictures are great, I would love to see some street level pics.

[dgreco]

nice pictures, thanks for the post.

[comandanteAMASO]

wow...i have to go there one day!