Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Driving and riding in Hua Hin and Thailand, all topics on cars, pickups, bikes, boats, licenses, roads, and motoring in general.
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Big Boy
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Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by Big Boy »

OK, weekends in Hua Hua have been at saturation point for years, but when Bangkokians go home Sunday night, things return to normal.

We are in the depths of low season, not long after a bomb attack, etc. Yet this (Monday) morning has been awful trying to get about the town centre - all car parks at over 100% capacity (TIT - when parking spaces are full, Thais invent a few others). Traffic has been bumper.

First stop was the Tessebahn. OK, nothing unusual for the Tessebahn car park to be over capacity. No problem - park at the water board. Water board parking was at full capacity. Tried the East Walk Car Park, which is probably the only official marked car park in town, but a sign saying hotel guests only. Hua Hin Temple - don't seem to be welcome there any more unless you're dead or attending a funeral. Eventually, I was lucky enough to find a space on Petchkasem Road. I could have walked it faster, but Mrs BB can't walk that far. The one place I could have got parked, which is where I was heading to was the mud car park opposite AA Insurance.

Business done at the Tessebahn, Mrs BB wanted to go to Chatchai Market - I'd have happily walked, but Mrs BB would have struggled. So off I went, a drive to Chatchai - off course it is rare to find a parking space outside the market, and today was no exception. I dropped Mrs BB outside the market, and told her to phone me when she was finished to find out where I was parked.

Well, it took me over 10 minutes to get on to Petchkasem due to volume of traffic. Turned left up Soi 70 headed for the mud car park outside Tira Tira. There wasn't a chance of a space there. Buses, lorries, cars, but absolutely no space. I'm thinking OK drive until I get the phone call. Luckily enough, I did happen across a roadside space.

Whilst parked there, I found myself staring at what Thais call being an entrepreneur. This guy had taken over half the width of the road with his restaurant under a huge tarpaulin. Not only was he using car parking spaces (which we pay our road taxes to use), people were stopping in to pick up take-aways, blocking the rest of the road. It got me thinking, what are the authorities doing letting people just block Hua Hin's already narrow streets this way?

If Hua Hin is at saturation point during a weekday in low season, what hope is there for December to March?
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by StevePIraq »

It's Ting Tong Land, don't worry, take a chill pill, leave the car where and go for a walk, come back an hour later and the cars behind won't even care
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by duan »

It's the school holidays for the next 2 weeks throughout Thailand hence the traffic problems in HH. Conversely my trip from HH to Suvarnabhumi yesterday morning took only two and a half hours due to Bangkok being deserted.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

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duan wrote:It's the school holidays for the next 2 weeks throughout Thailand hence the traffic problems in HH. Conversely my trip from HH to Suvarnabhumi yesterday morning took only two and a half hours due to Bangkok being deserted.
Hopefully, the answer is as simple as that, but with the imminent arrival of the snowbirds, topped up by seasonal visitors, I think the roads are going to get steadily worse.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by Davy B »

The town planners who designed the road systems around Hua Hin especially Petchkasem Road from Soi 55 to Soi 112 need to be checked medically for insanity. At the bottom of Soi 112 they put a roundabout, which the Thais are completely bamboozled with as they have never seen one before and is not included in the driving test - that is if they have ever sat the test in the first place. This is closely followed by a slip road lane onto the Petchkasem Road. Never seen one of these either. Bloody nightmare. Now I get onto a straight road coming into town which becomes a slalom course where the inside lane which moves the the kerb becomes a parking area - again Thais don't have a clue - and the outside lane becomes a u-turn. Again, folk just do not have a scooby-do. A three lane road - actually it is two lanes and a u-turn slip road - then hits Bluport. WTF!! I am then subjected to a stream of people cutting me up because they are in the wrong lane. I would go on but I am checking in to Bangkok Hospital to see if I am insane!!!
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by StevePIraq »

Not insane just Farang who has some common sense and a practical approach to things. This along with the threads about "Road Carnage" & "Mini Bus and Van Accidents" typify the Thai approach to life. They just do not care and it does not matter to them. Nothing except what is to eat matters to Thais.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by hhfarang »

:D :D :D Happy to be in a place with sensible, mostly safe drivers and available parking anywhere you care to stop! That (parking) combined with the oppressive climate, which made me a non walker, was my biggest beef with Hua Hin. :P

This is one of the reasons I still read this forum. I get a daily reminder and validation of what a good decision I made to move back to a civilized country (except for our politics/politicians :oops: ).
My brain is like an Internet browser; 12 tabs are open and 5 of them are not responding, there's a GIF playing in an endless loop,... and where is that annoying music coming from?
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by Big Boy »

Interesting comment HHF. When I moved here, I was in 2 minds about buying a car. My wife has a couple of health problems which necessitated a car. Otherwise I'd have gladly walked everywhere.

Would the traffic/parking make me want to leave? A big fat NO - horses for courses and all that. I often drop my wife, find somewhere to park, and then walk back again.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by oakdale160 »

This thread contains 3 premises that we all know to be false.
1 That there is or has been some 'Planning"
2 That any traffic or parking regulations are or will be enforced
3 Common sense and logic will prevail (In Thai)
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by Gregjam »

I would query item 2 as some time ago my son in law was clamped for parking illegally. Enforcement of any law here is usually subject to the enforcers financial situation.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by STEVE G »

hhfarang wrote::D :D :D Happy to be in a place with sensible, mostly safe drivers and available parking anywhere you care to stop! That (parking) combined with the oppressive climate, which made me a non walker, was my biggest beef with Hua Hin. :P .
How's the climate in North Carolina? I've just seen it on the news and people were going down the road in boats!
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by VincentD »

When I first came to Bangkok to stay as a permanent resident twenty-six years ago traffic was at saturation point. It took almost eight hours on a jam-packed bus (remember that back in the day most buses did not have airconditioning and cost two baht for the entire trip). There was no Skytrain back then, and was same route the Skytrain now takes from Siam to Onut.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by T.I.G.R. »

I remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote a reply mentioning watching traffic from the old Byouk Tower in BKK while we ate dinner 28 years ago. The traffic never moved the whole time we were eating. We are now in Cha Am and partake of the drive into Hua Hin only when absolutely necessary, and we take taxis in and out of BKK. Cha Am is not far from being just as bad.....

Migrant just moved down south to Bang Saphan.....still pretty rural. If anyone puts a golf course in near there I'm outa here. He'll be wanting some company by then.
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by hhfarang »

How's the climate in North Carolina? I've just seen it on the news and people were going down the road in boats!
That's only on the coast as a hurricane just past. I live inland, no effect here and the climate is perfect, sunny all week with high temperatures between 22c and 27c. :sun: :dance:
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Re: Has Hua Hin Traffic Reached Saturation Point?

Post by oakdale160 »

Cant resist telling this one--
In the south, its not so much the temperature, its the stupidity.
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