Rent a car in Thailand

"Rene R.F. Wildeman" introduced a voice of sanity...

Do not understand what the discussion is about. I have driven
thousands of kilometers through Thailand with available maps. Maybe
not very detailed but sufficient to find your way. Never got lost.
Most roads in Thailand are excellent and when you take a dirt track
through the mountains it is slightly different but there are not many
roads in those areas anyhow.


Thanks Rene - it seems there ar some posters who are more intent on proving
a point than providing useful information.

As you say, once off the major routes there are not too many choices to
make.
And if you are setting out on a journey, in whatever country, it is always
sensible to check things first, make a note of routes, junctions, and main
towns likely to be signposted.

I've travelled through several counties without maps by using this method -
although Greece was confusing because I hadn't bothered to learn the
alphabet (but then, I only had 2 days warning that I was going, and I had to
prepare the presentation to go with my paper in that time . . . .). The
most lost I have become was here in England.
I'll warn anyone planning to drive northwards (towards Manchester / Leeds
area) off the motorway - Once you hit Burton-On-Trent, they forget to
signpost any exit routes from the town ! ! ! ! (mind you - it is the "home
of English beer", so perhaps that is a good reason). Some bloody nice roads
though!

_______
Geoff B

The Roads Association of Thailand also publish quite a good map book
called the Thailand Highway Map, scale is 1:1000,000
1 centimeter to 10 km's The pages are big and easy to read.
7 different categories of highways and roads are shown. Many city and
town maps in it as well, and other information

Sandy

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:21:32 +0000 (UTC), "Geoff B"
wrote:


"Rene R.F. Wildeman" introduced a voice of sanity...

Do not understand what the discussion is about. I have driven
thousands of kilometers through Thailand with available maps. Maybe
not very detailed but sufficient to find your way. Never got lost.
Most roads in Thailand are excellent and when you take a dirt track
through the mountains it is slightly different but there are not many
roads in those areas anyhow.


Thanks Rene - it seems there ar some posters who are more intent on proving
a point than providing useful information.

As you say, once off the major routes there are not too many choices to
make.
And if you are setting out on a journey, in whatever country, it is always
sensible to check things first, make a note of routes, junctions, and main
towns likely to be signposted.

I've travelled through several counties without maps by using this method -
although Greece was confusing because I hadn't bothered to learn the
alphabet (but then, I only had 2 days warning that I was going, and I had to
prepare the presentation to go with my paper in that time . . . .). The
most lost I have become was here in England.
I'll warn anyone planning to drive northwards (towards Manchester / Leeds
area) off the motorway - Once you hit Burton-On-Trent, they forget to
signpost any exit routes from the town ! ! ! ! (mind you - it is the "home
of English beer", so perhaps that is a good reason). Some bloody nice roads
though!

After a map, the next most useful thing to have in a car is a simple
magnetic compass. If you find yourself lost in the middle of nowhere
at least you can navigate in the general direction you need to be
going. It was the first accessory I bought when I got my last car, and
its got me out of difficulty many times. I often wonder why such
things never seem to be installed as standard in cars.

Chris

Get over it Markku

No they have not. They are NOT of large scale. Every village seem to
have it's own idiot. I refuse to talk about anything else but large
scale maps. I used lots of spit to explain that this Michelin set in
scale 1:1,000,000 naturally is not even remotely of LARGE scale. These
texts illuminates your imbecility more than anything else. By all means
ask the Michelin cartography group whether their map on Thailand is of
large scale and they will give you a negative answer. Roughly, most of
the roads are not drawn on the map. In large scale maps all the roads
are described (excluding outdated, erraneous or particularly dense
network of roads).

One problem of car driving in Thailand is that you don't have those
fancy large scale maps in use. For instance a set printed on scale
1:200,000 or so would be handy and I am sure it would sell very good. I
used that Michelin map today when I drove from Aranya Prathet to Phanom
Rung and further to Surin. The leg from Aranya to the highway 24 was
easy because I used major road of 348 (even Michelin prints the road).
However, I got lost for some time south from R24 and east from Phanom
Rung because the map lists only some of the roads in the neighbourhood.

If more than every second of the roads are missing, that DOES
demonstrate a problem in general if not for an individual. You see road
maps in Europe which are in scale 1:200,000 or 1:150:000. What do you
think they have drawn these maps on these scales for. Some reason there
must be. I don't believe that should be too difficult to figure out.

Those maps you use while driving in Thailand do not take you there but
in selected routes. If you are saying anything else, you are whether a
guru or a bad liar. For instance yesterday I approached Aranya Prathet
from the Sukhumvit road on R317 and then on R3405 and R3299
respectively. Since then I drove on two roads not drawn on the map to
reach the destination. I did not find my way to Aranya from R3299
because of the map but because of the road signs pointing my way.
Still, I find it problematic that people have to rely on these maps of
1:1,000,000 or so. I suppose you wouldn't "understand" the outcry of
the mobilists in Europe when they wake up one morning discovering that
in all maps one square centimeter covers an area of one hundred square
kilometers.

I must disagree about not being "many" roads off the main ones. MOST of
the roads in Thailand are off the main roads (are minor ones). Maps
showing them all is naturally much better a choice for many of us than
those which are very general in representation. One can drive in
Finland by studying a copy of AT map of 1:800:000 naturally but do you
truly think Wolfgang in his one month leave in Finland would steer his
Mercedes by this map. I don't think so. He uses whether the GT series
or his factory installed GPS system in which he can zoom in to 1:20,000
or so (perhaps 1:5,000 in cities) on a ten inch screen (or perhaps
Magda has a portable PC on her laps).

I would say that of most national road networks about 1% are "major".

By the way, how do you do planning in terms of checking routes,
junctions and so on if only some of them are visible on the map. People
use these small scale maps on Thailand simply because they don't have
an alternative. I asked a couple of years ago whether we can expect
Garmin to introduce a digital map on Thailand in large scale. I was
replied that license fees are so high that only millionares could
afford such a map. So, there are some bulb heads somewhere hiding in
Thailand.

Naturally one can cruise even without a map by asking people strolling
the street. However, I find it more time efficient to do so by a decent
set of maps....

"Markku Gronroos" just got really upset about everything...

OK, there are NO maps available on the scale you require. Even the Michelin
book I mentioned (500,000:1 in most pages) is inadequate.
The UN do not release maps of sufficient detail.

The CIA have maps showing every pebble in the road, but we cannot buy them.


So study the maps you CAN find before you set out. Ask people for
directions. Be willing to take a few wrong turns, and discover things you
would otherwise have missed . . . .


But mainly, calm down and try not to suffer a major stroke before you even
reach the roads of the Kingdom ! ! ! !

Cool heart, my friend . . . . life is too short to be so angry over such a
silly thing.

_______
Geoff B

(no Thai expressions here - I wouldn't want to be thought of as trying to
confuse things . . . .)

Geoff B wrote:
"Markku Gronroos" just got really upset about everything...

OK, there are NO maps available on the scale you require. Even the Michelin
book I mentioned (500,000:1 in most pages) is inadequate.
The UN do not release maps of sufficient detail.

The Atlas truly is in scale one to one million.

You can go to the public pages of a digital map on Finland. The
English speaking address is below. You can center any area of the
country and see the difference in representation between several scales
which are set from the buttons on the right from the map.

http://kansalaisen.karttapaikka.fi/k...rra&lang=en-GB

Yes ...but that's Finland Markku ...This is Thailand