voracious

Thanks ThaiLearner. I learn something new every day.

Yes agree about it being puddles compared to other places. Just updating for the sake of tourists. Devastation on the other side of the banks, particularly to the north where people have been swimming for (some) close to a month now is tragic.

Goes with my other theory that there'd be a lot more peace in the world if everyone was busy getting laid.

Nope. Gross excess in terms of a numerical disparity. Not behavior. I think all people men and women equally are capable of good and evil.

It has always been my belief that gross excesses of men invariably lead to war. Whether one chooses to put the blame on sociology or in the powers that be wanting to stabilize their population, the result is the same. After all, what ruling group/party/class wants a country of angry men? Not safe for the status quo.

Ratchada & Sukhimvit still fine. Chinatown flooded a bit yesterday. Right now, with the exception of superior shopping mall and movie choices, it's probably better to be in Pattaya. If arriving this week, I don't know that the extra travel cost and time would be worth one night in Bangkok up front. Perhaps better for those coming to go direct to Pattaya and tag on your Bangkok shopping days at the end of your trip. Just my 2 cents. Of greater concern to me is the anger that is building among the displaced, and the tearing down of flood walls and such. It would be most unfortunate if the flood turned into something.... more. edit: (someone on scene said they were estimating Chinatown would be drained by early yesterday evening. I did not go back to check.)

I stayed at China Garden a little over a week ago (hotel report still coming) and ate there once. I would have eaten there again, but took a cooking class for 2 days and both days had no appetite left over for eating by the time I came back. Upon arriving at China Garden, I had some time to look around. The first thing (and one of the most important) is how clean the restaurant is. From the dining area, to the kitchen to the toilet. The place is clean. That's the first and most encouraging sign, if you have a chance to look at a restaurant before it opens. The night I ate there is was lightly busy, but I tend to eat earlier than the average nightlife person, so I may have been early in the dinner seating. Now this is an English style Chinese restaurant and I had no idea what that meant, but I'll clarify for Americans. This means Chop Suey is on the menu. That's neither good nor bad, just different if you are used to popping into San Francisco Chinatown for Chinese food. I ordered the crispy special noodles (76 on the menu I believe), which was fried noodles with a Chop Suey based sauce, if I remember the description correctly. Before the order arrived, I was served a bowl of (do they call this Prawn Toast in England?) shrimp chips, as I grew up knowing them. It was a sizeable portion and they were quite excellent. Very tasty, not oily, and very well done. When the noodles arrived, the dish was comprised of two parts. The noodles, which were sort of like fried wonton skins, but as long as noodles (perhaps they were flat egg noodles fried) and the bowl of chop suey. Here's the entire spread, including the prawn toast. What I found was the dish was prepared well, served hot and the ingredients top quality. You can tell when the kitchen is serving wilted ugly vegetables or cheap frost burned shrimp and I'm going to tell you...you're NOT going to find any here. Everything was fresh, the broccoli was firm, green and tasty, every ingredient had good flavor. The sauce was equally good, showing care in preparation. A good soy based sauce is not hard to prepare, but is also easy to mess up if the kitchen doesn't care. It was very tasty, had good texture and consistency and was nicely balanced. One surprising ingredient was the bamboo shoot. It was unusually tender and tasted very fresh and mild. Really enjoyed it. Bottom line is that even though Chop Suey is like foreign food to this Chinese-American, it was excellent and impressed me enough that I will certainly eat at China Garden in the future. I hope to try some of the dishes I'm more (traditionally) used to like the duck and see how that fares, but knowing that they take the time and spend the money to use good ingredients and prepare their dishes carefully assures me that my future experiences will be good ones.

Just a thought. What an upside! Girls bailing out of Bangkok and no work, need to make ends meet...doing a little "part-time work" Look for the silver lining, you lucky bastards!

@Jacko: Had (and have I suppose) the option to go back to Pattaya vs. hanging out here in Bangkok, but I wouldn't want to deal with the traffic! Hang in there guys, you have it better than Thon Buri. What's to worry. A bad day in the Pat's is better than most days most other places :)

high tide tonight about 6pm. some new areas are getting wet here in Bangkok. Thai Flood Map Richard Barrow is cycling around Bangkok and taking pictures of areas that are flooding and putting it up on Twitter HERE Still dry (and hot) here on Ratchadapisek. We're going to just hang out here & Sukhimvit and not bothering evacuating unless it floods here...

Bangkok Ratchadapisek update: Woke up this morning and the streets are dry. Traffic is typical for ~8am. Rained last night and water rose quickly to 5-10cm (street and hotel parking lot) and then drained once the rain stopped. No big deal here. Closer we get to tonight, the less I'm worried about it. If we get to Monday with no problems I think it'll be fine for inner Bangkok (barring any breaks in flood walls)

Topic says it all. Even though I'm not English, I fancy a bit of black pudding from time to time and stumbled across Le Katai while staying at China Garden (review on that coming soon!). If I recall, 140 baht, all in and I got everything here. Good breakfast. Still full well past 2pm. If I ate like this every day I'd be one fat(ter) bastard At any rate, good breakfast, good service, nice place along Soi Lengkee on the left as you walk from Soi Boukow. Cheers. (p.s. yes. I'm American. No idea why my grammar changes when writing about things English. Must be reading too many ex-pat posts and picked up the vocabulary )

Actually expect a lot of Thai families wandering around, shopping central festival and hanging out on the chairs at the beach There's room for everyone, no worries!

Just wanted to add. If the baht bus honks (a little toot-toot) at you or slows down as you give a little wave it's taking fares. If it blows by you, it's not personal, it's hired "private" in most likelihood. Some people get frustrated until they understand the system. Yes, you're expected to be a little psychic, since the baht buses all appear to be identical. Also be careful if you try to get on a private hire baht bus when it slows down, they'll often gun it a little to make sure you don't get on. I haven't had problems for years since I figured it out, but I remember having problems my first time around. Have a good trip! :)

Water level in Ratchadapisek as of today. After the photo was taken, it rained for half an hour or so - pouring rain. Water got up about 5-10 cm around the street and parking lot near the hotel before the rain stopped. Everything looks fine now.

Things fine this morning on Ratchada. Taxi ride yesterday, even small elevated portions of freeways and flyovers had lines of cars parked there. A guy, who seemed pretty intelligent, was on Thai News. He was saying (my paraphrasing, could be off a little bit) that cutting the roads is a good general idea, but has to take into account where the diverted groundwater is going, how it will interact with inundated areas, and care must be taken that the overland water will not cause more devastation than is being avoided. (basically let's think before we start cutting). Looking at the map, we're expecting at the most, a half meter here (if it's accurate), which wouldn't even reach the hotel door... if it's true then we're in good shape here...(on Ratchada in Ding Deng)

Apparently parts of Chinatown did flood a bit yesterday. Royal palace has a few inches of water. Sukhimvit Soi 49 South in Phrakanong has had a break in their flood wall. What does this all mean in Pattaya? Nothing. Rain in Pattaya? No problem. The water from the North is not flowing your way. Water levels in Late November or December? I wouldn't worry too much about it. Supply Chains? I would bet it'll be resolved very shortly. We have Malaysia and other countries to buy from, and many chains are already establishing supplies from there. The ONLY thing you need to worry about at the moment is if you are imminently going to arrive in Bangkok and had planned to go somewhere in the flooded area. This tempered with the fact that high tide is expected tomorrow night. I figure if we clear the weekend the problem will diminish rapidly from there. If you're headed anywhere but Bangkok, don't worry too much.

Hami, most food and water shortages appear to be short term and one grocery has already made arrangements to import water from malaysia to compensate for the 40% reduction in water production capabilities that their suppliers are experiencing at the moment. I would suspect that you'd be fine in December. (or else can I have your tickets? :D jk) Only you can decide for you, but if you're going straight to Pattaya all these problems are passing them by and the stores are not necessarily as hard hit as they appear on international news. even here in Bangkok it was business pretty much as normal at the two Thai open markets I went to, with plenty of food. Vendors may be experiencing temporary price increases, so that 25 baht bowl of noodle may be more like 35 baht, but it won't kill your wallet. Two of us at a great bring-home open market dinner tonight for under a couple hundred baht...

Glad you made it in safe, evil. you should be good to go tomorrow. Traffic, if anything, does seem to be a bit lighter. I saw on Thai (I think it was local...) a bus station with lots of people waiting to get out and complaining about it being hard to get on one. Water level @ Chinatown, Bangkok (walking from Hualomphong MRT into Chinatown) looked like this at 1PM yesterday. Is it enough? I don't know how much is coming.

All areas of Bangkok on watch now. Went to Chinatown & Sukhimvit and all was business as usual + sandbags. Some shopkeepers are actually building cinderblock flood walls around their doorways (walk around the corner from MBK for a good example) and have a set up steps to get over and back down the wall. Some tuk tuk driver tried to convince me the way I was walking in Chinatown was neck deep in water and he'd drive me to a better area (yeah right 555). I politely declined I didn't see any flooding, but I didn't head up to Chatachuk either so...

oh yeah I'll be in CM in a couple weeks, after I hit Phnom Penh (holiday & visa run). Looking forward to it. I was going to drive back down to Bangkok and see Ayuddaya (planned months ago) but scratch that! I'll be cancelling the car. edit: scratch taking luxury bus or train as well.... I guess I'll be flying in and out of Chiang Mai :)

7-11 Ratchada in Bangkok. Certain categories of items = empty shelves. Staff trying to wrap single bananas to have something to put on the shelves. Letter is on the door.

oh and to reiterate, it's fine, just don't go to Bangkok. Once you hit the airport go straight to Pattaya and if you want to ride or explore, head South or East.

I found the place and shot a couple pics before jumping in a car and leaving town :) It's called La Cerise Guest House & Restaurant. The pics will show you what I saw. I didn't have time to go in and check prices. It's on Soi Lengkee about 2/3 of the way down the street on the right as you walk from Soi Boukow.

Left Pattaya to Suvarnabhumi today. No problems road was dry, traffic fast. Airport is fine, things are dry at the moment. Left the airport and headed into Bangkok an hour later. Road from airport to Ratchada all good. Traffic moving fast. Here on Ratchada and it's bone dry outside. I see the MRT has sandbags ready to go at the stairwell entrances. I'd hate to be caught down in the tunnels if it started to flood quickly.