Anyone familiar with Samae Dam area?

[lynx2bangkok]

Hi, I'm looking at one-year expat assignment from Singapore and my office would be around this area. My housing and transport are covered but my guess is that my company will try to arrange for me to live in/near Samae Dam as well. Looking at the map, it looks like it is a suburban area outside of Bangkok. I'm familiar with central Bangkok (been many times on short trips as tourist). I'll be moving here as a single 29 year old and I wonder if I should live closer to where the action/fun is or if it would make better sense to live close to where I will work.

I like sports, nature and exploring culture/food. I'm not too interested for crazy nightlife and hooking up, but regular pint of beer in a nice friendly pub where I can mingle with locals and expats alike would be an ideal for me. Would be good to be near where I can go for gym, running, rock climbing, hike and swim in lap pools.

Would be nice to hear from someone who is familiar with Samae Dam area to tell me what it is like, and some discussion on whether I should live in between central Bangkok and Samae Dam, or just Samae Dam would do.

Thanks.

[thaitorrent1]

Live near where you work everyday or you will suicide because of traffic.

[asanee]

there is a fairly big difference between SD itself and the area (coming of central BKK) before the ring road. This is TH, so food and Thai ''culture'' is everywhere. But simplified: before ring rd its town/urban, after it much more rural. Also consider transport options. "Nature'' is a very relative thing, as such IMHO it does not exist at all in SIN. The same type of swamps and some ricefields are also still there in SD. There are also some fairly nice smaller villages a little beyond with special groups, like Mon, differing from Thai.

In fact nice pubs etc do not exist Thai style-thats all farangy and for the yuppie type Hi-so spoilt set around Thonglor and Aree. There is a large beer hall (used to be Heineken) just some 2 kms before ring rd along Ram 2. There are also the usual giant AC shopcentres along there: Central, BigC, tesco and some markets.

NO idea about gyms, pools etc there-I guess not. Rock? Its all flat swamps there.

[lynx2bangkok]

there is a fairly big difference between SD itself and the area (coming of central BKK) before the ring road. This is TH, so food and Thai ''culture'' is everywhere. But simplified: before ring rd its town/urban, after it much more rural. Also consider transport options. "Nature'' is a very relative thing, as such IMHO it does not exist at all in SIN. The same type of swamps and some ricefields are also still there in SD. There are also some fairly nice smaller villages a little beyond with special groups, like Mon, differing from Thai.

In fact nice pubs etc do not exist Thai style-thats all farangy and for the yuppie type Hi-so spoilt set around Thonglor and Aree. There is a large beer hall (used to be Heineken) just some 2 kms before ring rd along Ram 2. There are also the usual giant AC shopcentres along there: Central, BigC, tesco and some markets.

NO idea about gyms, pools etc there-I guess not. Rock? Its all flat swamps there.

Thank you asanee. That's a very valuable input, especially about the ring road part. My office is around Soi 60 something, just before the ring road coming from the central Bangkok. I notice that there are many condominiums around that area too so it makes sense to live near where my office is. I will have a car as part of the package but thaitorrent1 is right, I don't think I can deal with insane traffic jam on daily basis.