It never crossed my mind before, but an incident that happened to me last week has prompted me to say - Take care when walking in Udon Thani.
No, I was not mugged or even just beaten up - the chances of this happening in Udon Thani seems very remote - no, I fell over and as a result have three fairly large gashes on the knees and elbow. This was caused by three factors, and one of them is the dreadful nature of the footpaths, or walkways (call them what you will). It is something I noticed during my first minute of Bangkok in daylight but as most of my walking around is normally during the day, I have never really thought about it too much, because you can see how bad the paths are.
However, after a couple of drinks with a friend, we embarked on a short walkabout around the city. We were walking along, talking and laughing (as you do) and thus not concentrating on what was going below the waist a great deal. Then it happened, a raised part of the footpath met with my toe at just the right angle to make me tumble over and I was totally unprepared for it.
It is not just the general condition of the footpaths that you need to be aware of, it is also the manholes for the storm drainage network that are a particular hazard as they are often raised about the footpath level. Sometimes they are only a few centimetres higher, and these are the rouge ones, especially in the dark as they are barely noticeable.
Normally at night, I walk around ferang alley and use the road as opposed to the footpath and this is a far safer place to be, and that is allowing for the passing traffic. Perhaps the next time I venture in to the city at night I will do the same, where there is less chance of inflicting unnecessary damage to myself, and I would recommend you do the same, especially if you are likely to be distracted while walking along.
No, I was not mugged or even just beaten up - the chances of this happening in Udon Thani seems very remote - no, I fell over and as a result have three fairly large gashes on the knees and elbow. This was caused by three factors, and one of them is the dreadful nature of the footpaths, or walkways (call them what you will). It is something I noticed during my first minute of Bangkok in daylight but as most of my walking around is normally during the day, I have never really thought about it too much, because you can see how bad the paths are.
However, after a couple of drinks with a friend, we embarked on a short walkabout around the city. We were walking along, talking and laughing (as you do) and thus not concentrating on what was going below the waist a great deal. Then it happened, a raised part of the footpath met with my toe at just the right angle to make me tumble over and I was totally unprepared for it.
It is not just the general condition of the footpaths that you need to be aware of, it is also the manholes for the storm drainage network that are a particular hazard as they are often raised about the footpath level. Sometimes they are only a few centimetres higher, and these are the rouge ones, especially in the dark as they are barely noticeable.
Normally at night, I walk around ferang alley and use the road as opposed to the footpath and this is a far safer place to be, and that is allowing for the passing traffic. Perhaps the next time I venture in to the city at night I will do the same, where there is less chance of inflicting unnecessary damage to myself, and I would recommend you do the same, especially if you are likely to be distracted while walking along.
The image above is something you are likely to see quite often wherever you go in Udon Thani, or indeed anywhere in Thailand. This is of course very obvious and easy to avoid, but it's the obvious one's that will catch you out, so just remember to take care when walking in Udon Thani. The image above is one from Bangkok and from what I can recall is very typical, and such a shame that maintenance of them is far from being any kind of priority here.