Bangkok streets and google maps

[Tartegogo]

I am often very confused by Google maps and how people refer to streets on Line or on this forum.

How do streets in Bangkok work?

I'll take one example: another thread here talks about Home Massage on intramara(sic) 29. When I search on google, I only find Inthamara (with an h) 29 and it must be right because it is just in the right area according to the rest of the post. Are h and r equivalent transliterations for a Thai sound?

Also, I looked at their line account and they report this location:

อินทามระ31

But looking on the map I can only see Inthamara 29 and inthamara 33, it looks like 31 was replaced by a giant motorway. https://goo.gl/maps/wmcdy1Hq1fkU8p4P8

Interestingly, when I type "31 อินทามระ"  into google maps, it takes me straight to a house on inthamara 25. https://goo.gl/maps/qiWVfmhnjvR3YwjcA

So how does it work? Does placing the number before the street name has a completely different meaning from placing it after the street name?

If it is before the street name, the number is the house number, not the alley number? 

Also, when they only give you the alley number, how do you know which house to go to? Some don't seem to have a sign. Do you ask the neighbours for the "gay massage spa with the cute boys"? 🙂

 

Someone help this newbie please.

[reader]

This confused me, too, when I first went looking for KK Massages. When I was nearly ready to give up, I showed motorbike driver address on phone and he pointed almost directly across the soi to a shop on Sutthisan Winichai Rd. 

Since then I’ve located Home Massage by using its Intramara location as a sort of mile marker on Sutthisan Winichai Rd. I have no idea if that’s the way it’s suppose to work but it did for me. TIT.
 

[macaroni21]

I will leave it to those who can read and write Thai to comment about transcription, but I think we need to accept some variation in the English transcription. This happens not just with Thai, but any language.

As for Google maps, I often find that it has outright errors. I have seen errors in road names, tram stop locations, tram line numbers... Even whole churches are marked in the wrong spot, more than 300m from where they should be.

I read somewhere that Google deliberately introduces errors so that they can spot when someone has copied from them and violated their copyright.

 

[pong2]

Basis:

only big streets have names-the translation/transcription can vary an awful lot-also between western languages

These streets will have dozens of side streets, nbrd the same way as houses mostly in the west: 1 side the odds, other side the evens. (like Sliom 2 - 4 -6 etc>

These sidestreets= soi can also have sub-sois (mostly called yaek, but that means corner)

Buildings should be nbrd as also in west but very often the old system still applies: in order of when they were built (I think the JPNese also do that) so it may appear hodge-podge. It is very, very common for Thai to ask+ask again where an unknown place is located-or rather to put it all in the hands of your friendly motosay guy or taxidriver. Thai order taximeters mostly not to an adress but a point anyone knows nearby and will then guide driver to place to step off (most taxi´s are used that way) or trust driver to find it by himself if the place is unknown.

Besides google there is open source openstreetmaps. org but I still have to compare what it can deliver for BKK

This site originates from Germany and is in general pretty good in also transport lines etc.

[PeterRS]

4 hours ago, pong2 said:

These streets will have dozens of side streets, nbrd the same way as houses mostly in the west: 1 side the odds, other side the evens. (like Sliom 2 - 4 -6 etc

That is how it is supposed to work. Years ago when I went to the fantastic Ubon Ratchathanee Candle Festival, I had heard about a gay sauna. No longer recall the name, only that it was on Soi 2 leading off a larger road. I assumed it would be easy beause that road only had sois on the side leading down to the river. Having walked quite a long way from my hotel, I found Soi 1. After a while I found Soi 3. Where was Soi 2? After dark there seemed to be no one else in that part of Ubon. I retraced my steps. Perhaps it was very small and I had missed it. No luck. In the heat and humidity I was about to give up when I noticed that Soi 2 was actually quite a way after Soi 3! So, Soi 1 followed by 3 followed by 2. The sauna was quite pleasantly laid out and soon was worth the trip!

[bkkmfj2648]

49 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

Perhaps it was very small and I had missed it. No luck. In the heat and humidity I was about to give up when I noticed that Soi 2 was actually quite a way after Soi 3! So, Soi 1 followed by 3 followed by 2. The sauna was quite pleasantly laid out and soon was worth the trip!

I have had this experience many times.  This is one of the reasons that I try to prepare a small map (even if it needs to be homemade) with my trip reports.  My worst fear is to find myself lost in one of these unknown far away sois with the soi dogs on the prowl.

[macaroni21]

And then there are sois numbered Soi 3/2 or 3/4. A friend once asked me why  an address could be on *either* Soi 3 or Soi 4. He interpreted the slash as an option.

[thaiophilus]

21 hours ago, Tartegogo said:

I am often very confused by Google maps and how people refer to streets on Line or on this forum.

How do streets in Bangkok work?

I'll take one example: another thread here talks about Home Massage on intramara(sic) 29. When I search on google, I only find Inthamara (with an h) 29 and it must be right because it is just in the right area according to the rest of the post. Are h and r equivalent transliterations for a Thai sound?

Also, I looked at their line account and they report this location:

อินทามระ31

But looking on the map I can only see Inthamara 29 and inthamara 33, it looks like 31 was replaced by a giant motorway. https://goo.gl/maps/wmcdy1Hq1fkU8p4P8

Interestingly, when I type "31 อินทามระ"  into google maps, it takes me straight to a house on inthamara 25. https://goo.gl/maps/qiWVfmhnjvR3YwjcA

So how does it work? Does placing the number before the street name has a completely different meaning from placing it after the street name?

If it is before the street name, the number is the house number, not the alley number? 

Also, when they only give you the alley number, how do you know which house to go to? Some don't seem to have a sign. Do you ask the neighbours for the "gay massage spa with the cute boys"? 🙂

 

Someone help this newbie please.

You're expecting consistency and correctness. TiT so it isn't going to happen.

• People make mistakes when transliterating unfamiliar languages.
• Google Maps regularly gets things wrong outside of California, and is slow to correct them.
• Given a mixture of letters and numbers that it doesn't recognise, it's likely to guess that you want what someone else recently searched for.
• There is no single satisfactory romanization of Thai, so everybody makes up their own. (There's an official romanization but it isn't satisfactory: it doesn't even distinguish short and long vowels, never mind tones)
• The 'r' sound is fluid. It's a marker of the Bangkok prestige dialect but in other parts of the country it becomes 'l' or disappears altogether.  And at the end of a word it's pronounced 'n' .
• In this case the Thai spelling has no 'r' symbol ร, so 'intramara' is just wrong.  'inthaamara' would be a better representation (h after t means it's aspirated - a 'breathy' T, not the English "th" sound) and the second vowel is long.
• A canonical address would be something like "<plot number>/<house number> thanon <street name> soi <number>" but there are many variations

HTH 🙃

[fedssocr]

I guess it makes sense to just contact the shop and ask questions about location before you set off. They should be able to give you some directions. 

I know Japan also is well known for having undecipherable addresses. I think some of the massage and houses of boys will give you a meeting point and send some one to get you.

[Keithambrose]

In Tokyo there are mostly no street names, except in the centre. Business addresses often just refer to the office block name, ie NYK, Yusen Building. The hotels have huge detailed maps to help. Addresses are district, ie Chiyoda Ku, then sub district, Chome, the block number,  say 4, then number on block 8-4. These are not in order!

 

Great fun 

[PeterRS]

7 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

In Tokyo there are mostly no street names, except in the centre. Business addresses often just refer to the office block name, ie NYK, Yusen Building. The hotels have huge detailed maps to help. Addresses are district, ie Chiyoda Ku, then sub district, Chome, the block number,  say 4, then number on block 8-4. These are not in order!

 

Great fun 

It can be fun, but it can also be extremely frustrating! I will try google maps but expect I'll still rely on my bilingual map. For example, one Tokyo sauna has this address - 2-30-19 Toshima-ku, Ikebukuro Ni-chome, Tokyo. Chances are that if there is a phone the guy who answers will not understand English. Your hotel concierge will probably be able to give detailed directions to get there, but once almost outside the sauna it may be up a floor and the signage may be in Japanese!   

Once you get the hang of it, a bilingual atlas becomes very easy to locate addresses as it has all the detail @Keithambrose mentions including the block numbers. Some taxi drivers won't even know these! I was once going to be late for a meeting and stupidly decided on getting a taxi. We got close - and then he started going around virtually in circles. I didn't know and he didn't that during each of those circles he passsed by the llittle office which was my destination. Cost a near fortune! It was after that I got my atlas.

[Keithambrose]

43 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

It can be fun, but it can also be extremely frustrating! I will try google maps but expect I'll still rely on my bilingual map. For example, one Tokyo sauna has this address - 2-30-19 Toshima-ku, Ikebukuro Ni-chome, Tokyo. Chances are that if there is a phone the guy who answers will not understand English. Your hotel concierge will probably be able to give detailed directions to get there, but once almost outside the sauna it may be up a floor and the signage may be in Japanese!   

Once you get the hang of it, a bilingual atlas becomes very easy to locate addresses as it has all the detail @Keithambrose mentions including the block numbers. Some taxi drivers won't even know these! I was once going to be late for a meeting and stupidly decided on getting a taxi. We got close - and then he started going around virtually in circles. I didn't know and he didn't that during each of those circles he passsed by the llittle office which was my destination. Cost a near fortune! It was after that I got my atlas.

This recalls an experience I had pre mobile phones, and before I used the subway. Each subway station has large maps in English setting out all the nearby buildings. Anyway I went by taxi to a law firm. Hotel instructed the taxi. We got there, or so I thought. Driver indicated the building and drove off. It was not the building, he was lost. Luckily I had been trying to follow the route on the map I had bought and remembered we had just passed a sports stadium. I also, luckily,  had the right change for a payphone. Once I told the law firm about the sports stadium, they worked out where I was, and collected me! Not good for blood pressure!

[thaiophilus]

The Japanese lack of street names is logical (to them!): "why would you want to label the empty spaces between buildings?" 😵

Because of this, they have small district police stations all over urban areas, whose main job is to give directions: https://jref.com/articles/koban-japanese-police-boxes.199/

"If you want to know the way, ask an omawari-san".

[ChristianPFC]

Now with years of experience and being able to read Thai, no problem finding these places. Most of them are placed correctly on googlemaps (only if the name is only in Thai a problem for the average tourist - and indeed, that's the problem, Home Spa is in Thai only on google maps).

Street view helps a lot to confirm location (for my general travel satellite image as well).

In all cases in OP, the numbers refer to the alley, but often do not mean the massage place is in that alley, but near the entrance, or even across the main road.

In Thailand, soi numbers are even on one side of the main road, odd on the other side. There might be sois with slash, e.g. there are Silom Soi 22, followed by 22/1, followed by 26 (24 missing?). The odd and even get out of sync, e.g. Silom Soi 15 is opposite Soi 22/1.

In Thailand and Cambodia, I always found a sign, in some cases small, with the name of the shop.

Only in Myanmar did I have to ask locals to show me the way or call the shop for directions, once I got to where it was supposed to be but no sign.