Bangkok Reports

[Mooris7]

I like your attitude, Morris.

I do feel, however, that some travel related warnings and price info can be handy, at times.

Welcome to the land of smiles.

The dangling participle in your last sentence,"I plan to do me fare share after I arrive" made me wonder, tho. I'm guessing you plan to do your fair share of making useful, entertaining posts, as opposed to bickering, right?

Happy chasing.

Kaaoboy

That's the idea. However small delay of two weeks just to make sure of safety. I have lined up a list of potential freebies on Date in Asia and as soon as the flood waters recede then I will be playing that famous song LEAVING ON A JET PLANE.

[Giotto]

Sukhumvit Soi 50:

http://twitter.com/#!/thethaireport/...89953/photo /1

Flood risk map for Bangkok districts:

http://www.thaitravelblogs.com/2011/...as-in-bangkok/


Giotto

[Giotto]

Travelfish update:

http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/bang...angkok-floods/

Travel warnings for Bangkok now issued from many countries. I recommend to wait until Monday before making a final decision, we should know after this weekend how bad it will be here in the center of Bangkok.

A very good map showing the flooded areas of Thailand / Bangkok:

http://flood.longdo.com/?lang=en

The water is coming closer.


Giotto

[AmericanThief]

The worse thing about the floods. Is the massive scale of the flooding is man made.

At the start of the rainy season many of Thailands reservoirs were quite full already. But for some reason they were not drained when the rainy season started. Rumour has it a very powerful yellow shirt supporting woman ordered the Royal Thai Irrigation dept not to empty the reservoirs this season. As she and her yellow / Democrat buddies wanted to cause Yingluck and the PTP government problems.

This can be checked. Its open information that for "some strange reason the reservoirs were not emptied at the start of the rainy season"

When the water started arriving in Bangkok again the sluice gates were ordered opened to drain the water. However. As is very openly in the media. The Democrat governer of Bangkok and his BMA refused to drain the water initially. Allowing it to build up and build up.

However, this lady, her yellow friends and Democrats have had this all backfire. Now the floods are out of control and much damage is being done beyond what they thought was acceptable to embaress Yingluck.

Not only is the damage far worse than they wanted, its also known they were trying to play games and make problems for Yingluck.

You will notice the loud mouthed Democrats who were initially blaming Yingluck have now all gone into media hiding. Very quiet. This one will backfire on them big time. And might lose the Democrats Bangkok in the next election, giving PTP even more power.

Such is the way that Thai politics are.

So 1 yellow shirt woman is responsible for the flooding of a mega city, Bangkok.

[The Pro]

Sorry, That the Thai people are going through this and maybe I can help out some what when I arrive. Yes, I do think of the human effect but all I heard was it was in the north or in areas near Don Muang. My Thai friends here call home and they keep saying their area of Bangkok is OK. Confusing?

So I don't know if I can help but always an open mind. But I can't change plans as I am going to other places besides Bangkok and can't get refunds on many of the places. So hopefully the Suk area won't have a large problem. I was hoping to see more of Bangkok than I have in the past but I have 4 weeks before I arrive. I would hope most of the water would have passed through and into the ocean. Hopefully alot of the clean up will be under way and progressing along very well.

A Thai friend left yesterday for Bangkok. I just hope her and her family are OK. Will hear about it from her early next week

Look, certain people are trying to portray this flooding as "all Bangkok". Its not.

Sukhumvit area's are fine.

Do not beleive half the nonsense being spouted in the media. This is normal spin by news media to make things sound much worse than they are.

And also, the flooded area is only a small amount of Thailand. The rest of the country is fine and dry and all is well and people are actually having a giggle at Bangkok and saying "Sunumna to Bangkok people" as they always think they are better than the rest of the Thai's, and now they are in trouble they want all the other Thai's to help Bangkok people as they are so special and should not be flooded.

I have met many people who have said "Sunumna Bangkok. Now you have a political flood"

LOL

[The Pro]

Yingluck had it in her hands ALL THE TIME to change this. She could declare State of Emergency or invoke the Disaster Law from 2007 to completely take over control about the flood relief operations (Article 31 of the 2550 Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Act) (she finally did that on Oct. 21st). This fingerpointing to the Governor of Bangkok is just the way of the government to divert the attention of the press from their own issues. Yingluck made mistakes, Sukhumband (Governor of Bangkok) made mistakes, as we all would make mistakes if we had to handle such a flood situation.

This was the plan. The plan of the Yellow Fpunding Supporters was to make Yingluck invoke the the State of Emergency and hand all control over the Army. That is what a Thai State Of Emergency is. Total control of the country to the army.

Its why all Democrats screamed at Yingluck to invoke the SOE. However. The SOE itself only puts the army in charge, which would make zero difference to the floods. Apart from the Democrat Bangkok Governer would not longer have held the water back and would open the gates to drain it.

She got around this by invoking the disaster situation rules.

This whole Bangkok flood is caused by the scum who are who playing political games. Just their games have got out of hand now. They played with fire and now they will get burnt.

The Democrats and their Yellow High Level Elite have really screwed everything up.

Find out who ordered the Royal Thai Irrigation department not to empty the reservoirs at the start of the rainy season and you will find who put in motion this problem.

We all know the Bangkok Governer (Democrat). Refused to do what the government told him to do when the waters first started building up. It is him alone who refused to drain it off earlier.

There is the cause of the problems. Political games. And by the way Giotto, the majority of country is not affected by flooding. Thailand is more than just Bangkok.

[Giotto]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingn...-one-more-week

http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/w6413e/w6413e00.htm

http://sciblogs.co.nz/hot-topic/tag/thailand/

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011...k-floods-1942/


Giotto

[Giotto]

The worse thing about the floods. Is the massive scale of the flooding is man made.

At the start of the rainy season many of Thailands reservoirs were quite full already. But for some reason they were not drained when the rainy season started. Rumour has it a very powerful yellow shirt supporting woman ordered the Royal Thai Irrigation dept not to empty the reservoirs this season. As she and her yellow / Democrat buddies wanted to cause Yingluck and the PTP government problems.

This can be checked. Its open information that for "some strange reason the reservoirs were not emptied at the start of the rainy season"

When the water started arriving in Bangkok again the sluice gates were ordered opened to drain the water. However. As is very openly in the media. The Democrat governer of Bangkok and his BMA refused to drain the water initially. Allowing it to build up and build up.

However, this lady, her yellow friends and Democrats have had this all backfire. Now the floods are out of control and much damage is being done beyond what they thought was acceptable to embaress Yingluck.

Not only is the damage far worse than they wanted, its also known they were trying to play games and make problems for Yingluck.

You will notice the loud mouthed Democrats who were initially blaming Yingluck have now all gone into media hiding. Very quiet. This one will backfire on them big time. And might lose the Democrats Bangkok in the next election, giving PTP even more power.

Such is the way that Thai politics are.

I love this s_h_i_t. I hear it all the time. It's DISGUSTING! And - the Thais really need us Farang to get involved into their political issues. Of course we know it much better than them.

The raining season started already before the elections. There was no reason to start a political "water" game, it could really backfire, as long as the elections were not lost (for the yellow side).

If "This can be checked": then please prove it! A very powerful woman, and a blue whale movie. You are talking about the Q*** of Thailand! You people really lost it! You really believe this nonsense? Goebbels again providing political propaganda???

It furthermore had been a 50/50 game. Some people (new PMs) can also rise in such a situation and present themselves as leaders. So the risk to play such a game was way too high. Not even the Democrats are that stupid.

The loud mouthed red shirts (Jatuporn, Chalerm) have also disappeared. Don't hear much from Thaksin either. I don't see any difference between reds and yellows in the behavior of leading members to talk a lot, throw a lot of s_h_i_t, and disappear when the real work has to be done. That's quite a Thai behavior anyway.

More interesting are those stories about help packages delivered to Don Muang, being repacked into packages labeled with "presented to you be the xxxx Minister of Thailand" and then distributed with trucks labeled with "Gifts from Thaksin". I saw the video yesterday, shot at Don Muang, official packing area of the FROC. Will try to find it again and post it here.

I can confirm this with another story I was told from a CEO from an Oil company (personal friend) :

He and his employees packed goods in packages, support for the people living in the flood misery, and delivered it to Don Muang. There they saw the repacking process in the name of the Industry Minister. They then took their packages back and delivered it to the army depot.

This is worth to be mentioned because it seams to be FROC organized - and then it is definitely serious (official government agency). There are other stories about red shirts distributing goods to those who need them, asking "Are you a Red Shirt?" If not - no help, no package. That's disgusting, too, but there are of course extremists / idiots amongst the red shirts as well as amongst the yellow shirts. Stories like this are used for political propaganda.

What is worth to be mentioned is the role the army plays right now: They do a exceptional good job, working their arses off, they are everywhere, building sand bags, dropping help packages from helicopters, protecting flood walls, transporting people with trucks and boats, getting people out of the flood water etc. etc. ... After what happened last year (red shirts demonstration. 92 people killed) I have serious concerns in regards of the Thai army, but what they deliver right now is FANTASTIC!

And then this B_U_L_L_S_H_I_T:

When the water started arriving in Bangkok again the sluice gates were ordered opened to drain the water. However. As is very openly in the media. The Democrat governer of Bangkok and his BMA refused to drain the water initially. Allowing it to build up and build up.

The governor "REFUSED TO DRAIN THE WATER". Unbelievable. He and his BMA had obviously a different strategy than the FROC. They also knew, that some of the canals simply did not work (were blocked) , and other canals (still not used today) had a lower water level than their exits into the rivers that the river water would flow back into the canal. So - opening the flood gates would cause more damage than keeping them closed. On the other hand the BMA had a strategy to re-route water to the East and the West of Bangkok. Worked perfectly, the water broke through in the North! That's what I call "Thai Know-How" !

Yingluck had it in her hands ALL THE TIME to change this. She could declare State of Emergency or invoke the Disaster Law from 2007 to completely take over control about the flood relief operations (Article 31 of the 2550 Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Act) (she finally did that on Oct. 21st). This fingerpointing to the Governor of Bangkok is just the way of the government to divert the attention of the press from their own issues. Yingluck made mistakes, Sukhumband (Governor of Bangkok) made mistakes, as we all would make mistakes if we had to handle such a flood situation.

Nevertheless - in such a situation the people don't need CHAOS in the administration, TEARS in front of cameras, and a LACK OF LEADERSHIP. That's what we got from Yingluck! Nobody really needs to make problems for Yingluck, or embarrass her. She can really do that by herself! She has proved that already! She better runs a coffee shop around the corner, and leaves the job of a Prime Minister of Thailand to somebody who can lead! Her brother (Thaksin) would really be the right man in this situation.

BTW, the initial and official decision to fill the water reservoirs quite early this year was made because there was an El Niño (ENSO) event expected for 2011. That usually moves the monsoon rains further south, and causes less rain fall in Thailand. For that it was decided to store water early in the year to avoid a water shortage next year. Now - this is the official version of the authorities in Thailand. Whether to believe that is up to you. It sounds not too bad. But I don't really believe much any more in this country. I think nobody really had a clue, and a chain of random events combined with a lack of a masterplan how to deal with a flood like this finally resulted in the actual situation.


Giotto
http://www.livingstones.co.th

[Mackin]

Sorry, That the Thai people are going through this and maybe I can help out some what when I arrive. Yes, I do think of the human effect but all I heard was it was in the north or in areas near Don Muang. My Thai friends here call home and they keep saying their area of Bangkok is OK. Confusing?

So I don't know if I can help but always an open mind. But I can't change plans as I am going to other places besides Bangkok and can't get refunds on many of the places. So hopefully the Suk area won't have a large problem. I was hoping to see more of Bangkok than I have in the past but I have 4 weeks before I arrive. I would hope most of the water would have passed through and into the ocean. Hopefully alot of the clean up will be under way and progressing along very well.

A Thai friend left yesterday for Bangkok. I just hope her and her family are OK. Will hear about it from her early next week

[Giotto]

Just coming back from the airport.

Soi 33. Petchaburi Road. Rama 9. Airport: . NO WATER AT ALL. Not a drop.

Again. This might change during the weekend, but it does not look too bad right now.

Giotto

[The Pro]

The worse thing about the floods. Is the massive scale of the flooding is man made.

At the start of the rainy season many of Thailands reservoirs were quite full already. But for some reason they were not drained when the rainy season started. Rumour has it a very powerful yellow shirt supporting woman ordered the Royal Thai Irrigation dept not to empty the reservoirs this season. As she and her yellow / Democrat buddies wanted to cause Yingluck and the PTP government problems.

This can be checked. Its open information that for "some strange reason the reservoirs were not emptied at the start of the rainy season"

When the water started arriving in Bangkok again the sluice gates were ordered opened to drain the water. However. As is very openly in the media. The Democrat governer of Bangkok and his BMA refused to drain the water initially. Allowing it to build up and build up.

However, this lady, her yellow friends and Democrats have had this all backfire. Now the floods are out of control and much damage is being done beyond what they thought was acceptable to embaress Yingluck.

Not only is the damage far worse than they wanted, its also known they were trying to play games and make problems for Yingluck.

You will notice the loud mouthed Democrats who were initially blaming Yingluck have now all gone into media hiding. Very quiet. This one will backfire on them big time. And might lose the Democrats Bangkok in the next election, giving PTP even more power.

Such is the way that Thai politics are.

[The Pro]

My problem is that I will be there in 7 weeks time, Early December. (Crystal Ball needed)

4 Billion M2 of water means Giotto is dead right. Serious flooding ahead.

By then I expect it will have been drained, mostly cleaned up and bottled water stocks up. But in any post flood situation, it will stink, and mosquitoes will be active, assuming dengue / malaria or worse does not break out. I guess the good is prices should be down. With a but. I bet they ramp up prices to make do for a good chunk of lost 'peak season'.

The next question, can you bus it from Phuket to Pattaya right now? If so I have no worries. Secondly businesses will have suffered, to is the unimaginable possible: that they won't bump up prices for lost business?

Do not get blown away by this mass panic.

Sukhumvit area will at most be flooded on a few streets, and not overland water just water coming out and out of the drainage system.

It will not last long.

Bangkok is a massive city and the area we all go to is miniscule in the big plan of how Bangkok is.

The only worry people (like us) will have going forward is that with factories shut down and many people out of work for weeks / months. It means CRIME will rise signficantly as these people need money and will have to resort to mugging / burglery to get money. So expect lots of gold chain and bag snatching and also break ins. So if you like to go to dark and deserted areas. Do not.

If you walk home at night and go into quiet places with not many people around. Do not.

Enjoy!

[Rjsss212]

A lot of thai prostitutes are such sweet girls! Don't know how they do it but they do.

I wouldn't be surprised if their demeanor took a turn for the worst as many of their families live have been devasted by the flooding.

Agreed, agreed and lets hope not!

My point, though clumsily made as usual, was simply that in the midst of a NATIONAL natural disaster, praying for the prostitutes seemed a bit narrow and self-serving but then hey, who am I to question another's invocations...

Praying for prostitutes. Priceless!

[Sky Ryder]

Have already! They are called James Bond Boats.

Took this picture yesterday near Pinklao Bridge. The guy in the smaller boat supplies refreshments.

Bond. James Bond! I had forgotten about that movie. I guess it made an impression on the local boatmen. Great photos, just wish it was under better circumstances!

Be Safe!

[Keeniu]

OK.

<snip Guy's. Just stay safe, stay away from Bangkok.

(That was my personal opinion.)

Giotto.

PS: The water level expected for Chao Phraya river this weekend is 2. 6 m above normal. The flood walls height is 2. 5 m.

My problem is that I will be there in 7 weeks time, Early December. (Crystal Ball needed)

4 Billion M2 of water means Giotto is dead right. Serious flooding ahead.

By then I expect it will have been drained, mostly cleaned up and bottled water stocks up. But in any post flood situation, it will stink, and mosquitoes will be active, assuming dengue / malaria or worse does not break out. I guess the good is prices should be down. With a but. I bet they ramp up prices to make do for a good chunk of lost 'peak season'.

The next question, can you bus it from Phuket to Pattaya right now? If so I have no worries. Secondly businesses will have suffered, to is the unimaginable possible: that they won't bump up prices for lost business?