'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

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Bristolian
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok on Jan 13

Post by Bristolian »

Best to park away from this area and take sky train to Asok. The police have determined this area (Nana - Soi 19) as an area where the protestors should not gather but I doubt that they will move away.
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok on Jan 13

Post by oakdale160 »

Of course the taxi drivers are veryadept at working around all these blocked roads. I took one from Nana going to the airport and we used back sois that I had never seen in 4 years in BKK.
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok on Jan 13

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Big Boy wrote:OK, I'll ask my question more directly - does anybody know if the Thai Passport Office at Pinklao has been affected? I need to go there next week if everything is OK.
A very successful trip to the Passport Office yesterday. I don't know the geography of Bangkok at all, so don't have a clue where I was (thanks to SatNav), but it certainly did not feel like a city under siege. IMHO Bangkok was as obnoxious as I always remember it. No worse, no better.

Despite the good advice from you guys, I accidentally ended up at Pinklao anyway. I compared mileages to Bang Na and Pinklao on my SatNav, and accidentally left it set to Pinklao :oops: . I'd been there several hours before I realised I was at the wrong office (I even checked in on Facebook, and my phone told me I was at the Bang Na Passport Office :? ). Anyway, we were there before opening time, and my son was 1014th in the queue :shock: . The queue to get a queue number took well over an hour.

Talking to the girl at the coffee booth, it's that busy every day. Where are all of these Thais travelling to?

Anyway, the purpose of this post - the Pinklao Passport Office was open and definitely unaffected by the protests yesterday.
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok on Jan 13

Post by Terry »

Interesting to note that the BIB have all seemingly retired! :?

Not one to be seen at any of these sites. The tea money must be gone - so I guess they will be back with a vengeance at some time in the future. :roll:
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok on Jan 13

Post by Bristolian »

I happened to walk past the main Bangkok Bank building, in Silom, last evening. The bank has quite a large frontage for vehicles access and parking. It was funny to see that the army had set up an emergency response area on one side of the building and the Police had also set up a similar unit but on the other side of the car park. Both teams sat separately with absolutely no direct communication between the two separate teams
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok on Jan 13

Post by Nereus »

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews ... n-saturday

Passport office service open Saturday

...............The department’s head office and branh offices nationwide have been closed since Jan 13 by anti-government protesters. About 4,000 people normally apply for passport services each working day.

In Bangkok, the department has branches in Bang Na, which can handle up to 1,750 applications, and Pin Klao which can handle up to 1,300 applications a day. The two branches have remained open but the workload has increased significantly, resulting in long queues.

............................>
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by boonsies »

Here I go again, I hope its in the correct topic now :? : Can someone inform me if the highway from Bangkok to Hua Hin is blocked by the protesters at the moment? I heard the rice farmers are setting up roadblocks to the South!
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by Bristolian »

boonsies wrote:Here I go again, I hope its in the correct topic now :? : Can someone inform me if the highway from Bangkok to Hua Hin is blocked by the protesters at the moment? I heard the rice farmers are setting up roadblocks to the South!
I drove back to Bangkok this morning and the main junction Ratchaburi-Petchaburi-Bangkok was blocked with diversions in place. Even at 05:00the traffic northbound was heavy, mostly with trucks trying to navigate their way through the diversion.
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by ste860 »

Bristolian wrote:
boonsies wrote:Here I go again, I hope its in the correct topic now :? : Can someone inform me if the highway from Bangkok to Hua Hin is blocked by the protesters at the moment? I heard the rice farmers are setting up roadblocks to the South!
I drove back to Bangkok this morning and the main junction Ratchaburi-Petchaburi-Bangkok was blocked with diversions in place. Even at 05:00the traffic northbound was heavy, mostly with trucks trying to navigate their way through the diversion.

this junction is blocked both ways north and south by the rice farmers again ,it will lead to big tail backs ,so if your off to the airport i would allow for this
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Major road south blockaded Impact on Hua Hin airport bus?

Post by joyvee »

newpaper article in Thai Visa stated
Major roads from/to Hua Hin, Samui, Phuket and the whole of Southern Thailand affected

RATCHBURI, Feb 3 – The road linking Bangkok and Thailand’s South was completely blockaded in Wang Manao sub-district today in a strengthened protest by disgruntled farmers who demanded the government’s payment for the rice they have sold.

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I am hoping to catch airport bus to and fro Hua Hin on Sunday and following Friday. IS there any alternative way that may be taken to travel to HH?
How much longer should I allow for the journey to take?
Has anyone experienced this longer journey or the joys of this blockade?
Guess it is a bit like asking , "How long is a piece of string?"

I have a plane to catch on Saturday so am hoping that Friday of the long week end journey will not be so long that I will miss my Saturday flight.

Any experience of this new journey would be helpful. could determine which bus to catch back to BKK
Thanks for your insight JoyV
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by Big Boy »

A friend of mine did the journey last night by mini-bus - took about 5 hours.

Alternatives are Nok Air or train.
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by ste860 »

i went to bkk and back to hua hin yesterday it took me 7 hours in total only spent 5 mins in bkk ,the divesion coming back was ok put 10 minutes on the journey ,going was a bit longer the signs are in thai so i had to guess most of the way
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by jumusman »

Just arrived back from Pattaya in a taxi, took 5.5 hours because of this bullshit. They had tires across the highway about 45 minutes south of Bangkok so nobody except motorbikes could use the highway. I asked the taxi driver about it and if the police would come and take the tires away, obviously its a hazard, I couldn't imagine if someone was having a baby or even worse someone was dying and needed to get to a hospital quickly, guess that's not really important...

Took a whole lot of backroads with allot of check points full of "Farmer Mobs" as my Taxi driver called them, diverting people to different streets, noticed the Police were actually a part of the diversions standing next to the Farmers helping them out!! So much for my idea of having them take away the tires...

Sometimes it slips my mind what country I am in.. not my political struggle to deal with. Hope their "stoppages" do some good cause all I saw today was allot of pissed of motorists delayed for a very long time, other than that, what did it really accomplish ?
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by Paul3456 »

I just arrived in Hua Hin on the 1:30 p.m. airport bus from Suvarnabhumi Monday February 3. It arrived at the bus station at 7:15 p.m. It normally arrives at about 5 p.m.

We went on a countryside detour just before the Route 35 and Route 4 junction. What a mess.
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Re: 'Closure' of Bangkok and roads from Jan 13

Post by centermid7 »

^ Aye. I'll 2nd that.

I just got off the 4:30 bus which did not leave till 4:40 or so as it was late getting to Swampy. Our return took almost 5 hours.
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