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Thai Postal Addresses..Need a code breaker!

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I am sure this must have been asked many times before, but I have searched and could not find anything!

Does anyone know where the post office keeps the magic map that turns Thai addresses into street numbers and easy locations, as per anywhere in the West.

This nonsense of estate number/house number, moo number, tambon/amphur does not make it easy to find somewhere.

I am convinced it is another fiendish ploy to confuse everyone...and they have suceeded.

So where is the magic code breaking map?

Removed a troll post and the reply to it.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place

 

There is no such map.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place

 

The postmen in the urban areas seem to have kind of handdrawn(?) detailed maps with the house/mooban nr. in their area.

I accidently stumbled upon such maps watching two postmen in Khon Kaen.

Looked liked a training for a newbie.

Another time I saw in a TV report that a village headman had such a map. No idea whether they have such a map in our village.

I am always impressed how the postmen, waterworks people and so on find the right house.

But to my knowledge: still no consistent public- let alone online - source for that magic code breaker.

Unsolved mistery for me.

Greetings from house no. 340, next to house no. 8, our shop house around the corner (three houses in between) being no. 443 biggrin.png

This nonsense of estate number/house number, moo number, tambon/amphur does not make it easy to find somewhere.

Slight objection: the hierarchy of province (changwat), district (amphoe), subdistrict (tambon) is not that myterious.

Each amphoe referring to one zip code.

(naming is different in Bangkok)

Having the correct transcription (or address in Thai script) I would find any such place down to this level.

Well documented e.g. in the WiKipedia.

But from there, OK it gets difficult.

These lists are quite helpful (having transcript following rules and Thai script):

Provinces of Thailand (links to the provinces)

List of districts of Thailand

List of tambon in Thailand

Edited by KhunBENQ

Only the postal carriers know where mail goes.

And certain officials at the lowest level if administration will find the houses in their area, e.g. PEA (electricity), waterworks (in the village) etc.

Here in the village you pay your electricity and waterbill cash at the garden gate tongue.png

And most houses have no house number displayed!!!

A colossal task for Google left to do cheesy.gif

Edited by KhunBENQ

Only the postal carriers know where mail goes.

And certain officials at the lowest level if administration will find the houses in their area, e.g. PEA (electricity), waterworks (in the village) etc.

Here in the village you pay your electricity and waterbill cash at the garden gate tongue.png

And most houses have no house number displayed!!!

A colossal task for Google left to do cheesy.gif

Not much street view here either! When we built our place here in the sticks, we had to get our address from the Puu Yai Bann who basically conjured it up on the spot, giving us the choice of a few different numbers. We picked one and then went to the post office to tell them where we lived as I was expecting some mail. We live more than a kilometer from our nearest neighbor but a postal carrier showed up a week later coming down our muddy drive with the package. Mail delivery here has been 100% since!

Here is an example how a hotel in Thailand that calls itself a five star hotel gives its address on the website:

Hotel address
115 Moo 7 Tambol Bangkao
Phetchaburi
76120 CHA AM
Put that in your GPS navigator and see where it gets you.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place

 

Somewhere on the beach I guess laugh.png

Hey come on, it's only about 2*8 km to search through biggrin.png

http://goo.gl/maps/ntrs7

I looked up the website and there you find the only useful information for a navi: coordinates.

"tambol" and "amphur" (from the hotel own website): examples for the chaotic transcription.

Edited by KhunBENQ

  • 2 weeks later...

Here is an example how a hotel in Thailand that calls itself a five star hotel gives its address on the website:

Hotel address
115 Moo 7 Tambol Bangkao
Phetchaburi
76120 CHA AM
Put that in your GPS navigator and see where it gets you.

I know where is this hotel, not easy to find with this adress ( which is not correct : it must be : Cha am Petchaburi 76120 )

better to follow the signs on the road

the coordonnees are correct ; to see where it is on Google map, look here and type them : http://www.gps-coordinates.net/

The houses in my Moo Baan are numbered according to what the monk said was lucky. And maybe according to who could pay the most. The houses are all 111/???, with the nicest being 111/222 and the house owned by the developer's parents being 111/111. There is absolutely no order amongst the 150 or so houses, and as you may have noticed, the number of houses is considerably lower than the highest number in use.

Those who are complaining about Thai postal addresses...need to see what its like in Japan.

GPS - address searching generally doesn't work right anyway since there's no standardized way to translate from Thai to English. That's why "points of interest" databases exist; search for the hotel in the "hotels" section of your GPS instead of trying addresses. Even in other countries where postal addresses are to your expectations, street numbers are generally interpolated and not actual.

If your destination isn't in your GPS DB, use the actual GPS coordinates - many of the smaller businesses will post this information (the larger hotels etc can expect to be in the GPS). If not you can obtain the GPS coordinates off Google maps.

...

GPS - address searching generally doesn't work right anyway since there's no standardized way to translate from Thai to English...

Google Maps uses the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGST), taking into account the few exceptions that exist (eg Pattaya, Sukhumvit), although initially they had Phatthaya and Sukhumwit but somebody must later have told them about the exceptions. I don't know what system other maps used by some GPS devices employed for the transcription.

In navigation mode, Google Maps for Mobile shows the names displayed at the top of the screen only in Thai script. This might be because they regret ever having done the transcription, of because in most of the country road signs are only in Thai.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place

 

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