Rickshaw charity rally assured Bangkok not flooded Skip to main content

Rickshaw charity rally assured Bangkok not flooded

The Nation October 17, 2011 9:03 am
Rickshaw charity rally assured Bangkok not flooded

With 28 teams of motorised rickshaws on a 3,000km journey through Java to Bangkok, Thailand has assured visitors that the kingdom is safe for travellers with many key tourist attractions unaffected by the floods.

The rickshaw journey will cross the Straits of Malacca into Malaysia's Penang Island. They will continue to head north, and are expected to complete the first ever Asean Rickshaw Run in the Thai capital of Bangkok. News of the flooding in Thailand had caused some concern among the organisers, although the intrepid racers seemed totally unfazed.

"The flooding is not as widespread as the media coverage may indicate. It has mainly affected some of the provinces in the Central Region," Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Suraphon Svetasreni said in a statement. "In Bangkok, the central areas where tourists like to go are not flooded and are fully accessible."

Thai tourism officials have also assured the rally participants that southern Thailand remains unaffected, and the access roads to Bangkok are still safe and clear.

Parts of Indochina have been hit by torrential rains or typhoons, which triggered one of the worst floods in decades. The worst hit is Thailand, where more than 200 people have died, and another 2.6 million people have had their lives disrupted. The inaugural Asean Rickshaw Run is one of the many events, which the regional group is introducing, to better connect with the people.

According to the Asean Secretariat's statement, the journey is to raise money for "Breakthrough Breast Cancer", a charity dedicated to improving and saving lives through encouraging early detection, ensuring precise diagnosis, discovering new and better treatments, and improving medical services; and BirdLife International, the world’s largest conservation and authority on birds and their habitats.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chronology of the Press in Burma

1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern  Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period.     March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper,  The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s  Hsa-tu-gaw  (the  Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of  Sgaw ,  is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian  Dhamma  Thadinsa  (the  Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl
Post a Comment
Read more

ARSA claims ambush on Myanmar security forces

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Sunday claimed responsibility for an ambush on Myanmar security forces that left several wounded in northern Rakhine state, the first attack in weeks in a region gutted by violence. Rakhine was plunged into turmoil last August, when a series of ARSA raids prompted a military backlash so brutal the UN says it likely amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority. The army campaign sent some 650,000 Rohingya fleeing for Bangladesh, where refugees have given harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of security forces and vigilantes. Myanmar's military, which tightly controls information about Rakhine, denies any abuses and insists the crackdown was a proportionate response to crush the "terrorist" threat. ARSA have launched few attacks in recent months.  But the army reported that "about ten" Rohingya terrorists ambushed a car with hand-made mines and gunfire on Friday morning
Post a Comment
Read more

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do
1 comment
Read more