Nong Prajak Park, Udon: bikes and the like

[Craig krup]

The park is one of the best things in Udon. However they've got daft rules and they don't enforce the good rules. They've gotba cycle track - fair enough. But they've picked the inner lane for the bikes which means that people can't walk next to the water, feed the fish, use the seats and catch the breeze off the water. It also makes no sense to put the bikes through tighter corners, nor do you want a bike accident anywhere near water. They've also got an absolutely needless one way system for pedestrians - like something out of Midnight Express. What are you supposed to do if you aren't walking all the.way around the lake? Leave the park to change direction? And the best of all - the bikes use the pedestrian walkway as well, motor.scooters use both walkways, and nobody does a ******g thing about it. And yes, I did have an altercation with a cyclist a couple of hours ago. What is so difficult about making sensible rules and then enforcing them? 

[lassebasse]

Well you are a touchy one. The park is very nice with lots of things to do. The biggest problem as I see it is that there is only one entrance for strollers or wheelchairs and in my case it is on the other side of the park.

[Craig krup]

@ lassebasse - I don't think I'm "touchy", I just can't believe that the best common resource in a city of nearly half a million people can be all-but ruined for the want of two seconds' thought. I saw a toddler run in front of a bike last week. She wasn't hit, but she could easily have been. For the reasons I gave above the bikes should be on the long tarmac strip on the outside, not on the wide pavement with the seats next to the water. That way you'd cross the bike track once and then you'd be in the park. The present arrangement excludes pedestrians, people with prams and pushchairs, couples taking photos, the feeders of fish and everyone else from most of the park, and it doesn't even advantage the four regular two-wheeled fantasists who thereby colonise the park, without producing enough power to pull the skin off a rice pudding. Do you think we should have motorcycles in the park, or do you think the cops should enforce the law? Do you think a one way on the pedestrian walkway - nine feet wide - makes any kind of sense at all, or is it just ludicrous? If it isn't ludicrous how do city streets, and the parks in every other country, function?

This country's poor, and it's poor because people think that reason doesn't matter. Mai phen rai? Mai chai. Reason just so does matter, and the consequences of the disregard of it are everywhere.

[johnnygimbo]

Only one answer. This is Thailand.

[Craig krup]

Yup, Johnny, this is indeed Thailand. In eight days I'll be standing in Scotland, and I'll be having a good post- Brexit think about life, the universe and everything. I'll be going up to Nong Prajak in a minute, and doubtless the civil engineering students from the vocational college will be there, wearing plastic safety hats, screeching, lolling on the grass and fannying about with theodolites. And like a good little conformist - who knows he has a right to be in an Enlightenment centre and that he'll be exercising it in a a week - I'll walk counter-clockwise on the mandated path, and try to avoid being hit by a motor scooter.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Craig krup
Missing word

[Craig krup]

Ever think this forum could be monitored? Yesterday at 1630, just as I was leaving the park, a cop car drew up on the Tasa Road at the entrance to the park. One went and stood at the entrance and his mate took his picture. They then went and talked to a Tuk Tuk driver. Almost as if a boss had said, "Go and talk to some locals and find out if there are motor scooters in the park. Take a picture to prove you've done it". If they'd been there ninety seconds earlier they'd have seen a clown on a scooter come from behind me on the pedestrian walkway and weave between two other walkers. He was, of course, running parallel with the road - he wasn't even gaining anything.

 

But as I say, I think someone employed by the Thai state has a wee job reading this forum. To be honest, you'd expect it, and it might even be welcome!