Jun wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:46 pm
Even some of the smaller sois could take a medium sized bus.
We can debate this back and forth from now until St. Swithin's Day, but even if we end up agreeing with each other, you know as well as I do that none of it is going to happen - at least not in the foreseeable future.
Even without your ideas there is plenty Pattaya could have done a long time ago - easy things such as enforcing the exhaust pollution laws - but none of it has ever been done and if we agree on nothing else I think we can agree that the chances of Pattaya doing anything substantial about it range from about zero to nil . . .
Gaybutton wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 6:32 pmI think we can agree that the chances of Pattaya doing anything substantial about it range from about zero to nil . . .
Yes, we certainly agree on that.
Ultimately, if they started running Thailand as well as Singapore, it would eventually start getting expensive like Singapore. They might even crack down on a few of the pleasures to be found in the country.
So I remain happy to take Thailand as it is. And no, I'm not spending my next holiday in Singapore or Switzerland.
Ch Mai once had a citybus-3 lines, fare 2 THB (yes, it as in that time-when the BMTA in BKK also had 2 bt fares for its non-AC). They must have given up around 2000. IN most other smaller cities that once had similar course citybuseslines these have disappeared and replaced-if at all- by songhthaews (Baht buses). Think of Phitsanuloke, Ubon, Khorat.
The BMTA is in fact a govmt organisation and makes giant hopeless losses. That is why there is always strife between the BMA=city and the BMTA. It is a very course system that is not well fine tuned. You may also be utterly surprised to learn that greater BKK also has even more songhthaews (red, with nrs in the range from 1001-15xx) as big buses-but they run in suburbia to serve those long lanes branching off the main roads.
BMTA also even has weekly and monthly passes (less as 100 for a week in the red buses) but these are now tied to some obscure chipcard and the ID-cards so out of range for foreigners. Most people offering chipcards are poor Thai who enjoy an amount of free travel every month on it.
You need a thorough knowledge of how BKK sits in a map and also of many special Thai names for areas/points, as these are used to describe how buses run. A great many aim at the various state-deprtmts etc and hospitals. But it is as such possible-with loads of patience and stamina, to cover some +100 KMs all across big BKK for just 2 or 3 busfares. In the days when those seasons were easy to get I often had one for the time I was in BKK and have travelled to the far outer ends of the system.
The era of the free buses for everyone has ended a few yrs ago when they introduced the chipcards for poor Thai with travel amount on them.
Compared to yes, even Yangon now, and also HCMC or Jakarta and very much KUL BKK pales in its offer and is years behind.
Currently now sit in the Dubai airport waiting for the next flite to BKK-heard quite some Thai and could understand it still and saw the odd monk. Now beside a couple of Russky who seem already half drunk.
