Serbia and Thailand

csd · Post by **csd** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:42

Folks,

I'll be heading off on a small driving trip starting Sunday week, and I was wondering if anyone could share their experiences of driving in Serbia and/or Thailand.

Are the signs in Serbia all in Cyrillic?
Is Thailand really as bad as its reputation?
Any other hints and tips?

I will of course be taking lots of pics, so expect plenty of updates to the International section once I get back (and recover!)

Thanks,

/csd

M1 · Post by M1 » Fri Apr 21, 2006 13:34

I've been to Bangkok some time ago, as well as some of the Thai country-side, so my memories are a bit vague

Bangkok is generaly horrible. The motorway from the airport is a normal GSJ'd dual carriageway, but due to the terrible congestion on it, a new tolled elevated motorway was constructed above it, though it did not solve anything as the Thai people hold on to their dear money, and the normal motorway is still terribly congested. This results, though, in the fact that the elevated tolled motorway is practically empty, and people using it can drive in amazing speeds and get a good view of the city. The normal streets in the city are also congested with people, bicycles and cars everywhere. Overall, not good. The SkyTrain, which is the rather new elevated rail, is quickly exapnding though, and is generaly excellent.

jamesd · Post by **jamesd** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 14:34

Only the southern part of Serbia uses Cyrillic, and even there they are Roman transliterations. If you're stopping at Belgrade you will see very little. You will unfortunately also be missing out on a very empty bit of road that runs between Belgrade and Nis.

Budapest - Belgrade; knowing the history of G3000, and having done that trip, that route is just going to be absolutely insane. Despite what you might think on some maps, from the Serbian border down to Belgrade Sad is mostly single carriageway (as a half built motorway) - I uploaded some pics in the international section if you want to have a look. It's starts off OK, but gets busy as you get further south - and here they eventually re-mark the road from a hard shoulder & two narrow lanes into two wide lanes; this is informally used as 4 lanes, with a 5 suicide lane. It's not uncommon to see a car overtaking another car, which is overtaking a truck, and exactly the same happening coming in the opposite direction. Somehow everyone seems to pull back in and all fit through.
It was however the most fun driving I've ever had the experience of doing.
Watch out as you get near to Belgrade. The signing is a bit dodgy, and it's easy to miss the exit - you can do a bit of google recon here: http://maps.google.com/?t=k&om=1&ll=44. ... 6,0.010064. You'll be coming from the north; looking through the G3000 forums there's a stop in Central Belgrade, so keep a sharp eye out for a sign to Nis and it should get you in the right direction - I don't remember Belgrade itself being signed here, only Nis.

Would be nice to know if they've finished upgrading the M5 in Hungary from Budapest to the border yet, when I went it stopped about halfway - hell, would be nice to know if they've upgraded the border, was having shiny new buildings built back then, the border I went through was scary in a Soviet kind of way.

sotonsteve · Post by **sotonsteve** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 16:44

There are a lot of road schemes that have been built recently or are under construction in Thailand, which is good.

Two negative points...

Firstly, Bangkok is a very congested city, and driving on any non-expressways during the daytime is not recommendable!

Secondly, with apologies, Thai drivers have terrible discipline and are not such good drivers as Brits (I know, we're not too good either!). On multi-lane roads lane discipline is almost non-existant with most drivers of four or more wheeled vehicles cruising along the overtaking lane in order to keep a constant speed. Some drivers cut corners, although I wouldn't say that it is any worse than in Britain! Speed limits are often ignored, probably because they are set way too low, such as 60km/h on dual carriageways (37mph) (Britain, take note!), and in urban areas some taxi drivers ignore traffic lights. It would appear though that certain provinces of Thailand has a turn left on red rule (in one place I went it happened all the time, and in another it didn't happen at all).

Taxis are quite cheap out there. For example, our taxi journey from Heathrow T4 to Bedfont Lakes on the southern perimeter of the airport cost more than all of our taxi fares combined in Thailand.

And from Krabi, if you are willing to travel by air conditioned coach for 24 hours you can get to Singapore for £15.

I don't know what you want to do in Thailand, but I would say avoid driving in urban areas.

csd · Post by **csd** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 21:52

Thanks for the tips, folks!

First leg, the positioning move from Dublin to London, is tomorrow. The trip proper starts on Sunday evening. Might get a chance to update from the road, but otherwise I'll post a full account on my return.

/csd

Chris Bertram · Post by **Chris Bertram** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 08:32

sotonsteve wrote:... It would appear though that certain provinces of Thailand has a turn left on red rule (in one place I went it happened all the time, and in another it didn't happen at all)...

So Thailand drives on the left, then?

M1 · Post by M1 » Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:00

Yes, its an odd story really. The Thai king visited the UK, and since he liked the road order there so much, he wanted his country to drive on the left as well. Since the Thai people love their king so much, they went through the process of altering every road so traffic drives on the left. No idea when this happened though.