We’re Now Closer To Bangkok!
Stephane, the founder and moderator of the onlychaam.com website, has made a startling discovery. Cha-Am, at the main traffic light intersection in town, used to be at the 206 kilometre post from Bangkok but is now at the 191 kilometre post. Onlychaam.com often uses the kilometre distances on road-side posts as a reference for site visitors to find a number of different locations. A member of their forum wanted to find the Land Department Office to get his driving licence.
The information suggested that he should head in the direction of Bangkok and make a U-turn after 199 km. However this person reported that 199 km was actually near Thai Watsadu, and some puzzling discussion then took place. Finally Stephane decided to check it out and discovered the kilometre posts had indeed been changed. In a manner of speaking, we are now closer to Bangkok! This 15 km shift is apparently due to a change in the location of the starting or zero point. It used to be at ‘Wong Wian Yai’, or the King Taksin monument, where Phetkasem Road (highway #4) starts.
However, it was decided to move it to where Rama II Road (road #35) starts, as it is the most direct way from Bangkok to the south of Thailand. For most people this won’t really make any difference to their driving habits, although there may be others who use these markers as their reference points. For Stephane, onlychaam.com and those using the same strategy, it means going through all their information and updating the distances. Please note that Google Street View is still showing the old system (and old km markers) as the images are from 2011.
Hopefully this won’t last for long, as I was recently sitting at a bus stop in Cha-Am when the Google Street View car went by. That suggests an update of the imagery database should be expected soon. I guess I’ll be featuring at the bus stop! Our thanks to Stephane for this information; check out the website by visiting www.onlychaam.com