Bangkok

Orient Express luxury brand announces first hotel in Mahankhon

Published

4 weeks ago

December 22, 2018

The King Power Mahanakhon Building in Bangkok, Thailand’s tallest, will have the world’s first Orient Express Hotel. At 78 storeys high, the Mahanakhon Building is currently the tallest building in Bangkok, pushing the slightly shorter Baiyoke Tower into second place.

Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, CEO of King Power Group, said they spent over 100 million baht on the new hotel.

The new AccorHotels luxury brand is set to open its doors in the first quarter of 2019 and is aiming at the top end of the traveling market.

“The Orient Express brand has been reinvented for the future, with a vision to build a collection of prestigious hotels, steeped in tradition, myth and adventure”, said Aiyawatt.

Accor acquired a 50% stake in Orient Express from French national rail company SNCF Group back in October 2017, with the intention of reviving the brand. The hotel company, now known as Belmond, used the Orient Express brand until 2014, but the company rebranded its hotels after its licensing deal with SNCF expired.

The Orient Express MahaNakhon Bangkok will include 154 rooms, including nine suites and two penthouses. Amenities will include an outdoor pool and Jacuzzi, and an Orient Express Spa by Guerlain.

On the second floor, guests will be able to dine at Mott 32, a Cantonese restaurant and cocktail bar named after 32 Mott Street, the site of New York City’s first Chinese convenience store.

The fifth floor will house Mahanathi by David Thompson, the latest venture from the Australian-born chef. Known for his expertise in Thai cuisine, Thompson was most recently affiliated with Michelin-starred restaurant Nahm in Bangkok.

Guests will also have access to the building’s MahaNakhon SkyWalk observation deck on the 74th, 75th and 78th floors, as well a rooftop restaurant and bar on the 76th floor with sweeping views of Bangkok.

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Bangkok

Bangkok smog: Police on the lookout for dirty exhaust from vehicles

Published

15 hours ago

January 16, 2019

The Thaiger & The Nation

Bangkok smog: Police on the lookout for dirty exhaust from vehicles | The Thaiger

by Khanathit Srihirundaj

It’s either a knee-jerk reaction, media stunt or something we hope to see a lot more of.

Checking vehicles with plumes of dirty smoke coming out of their exhaust.

To help curb fine-particle dust pollution in Bangkok, traffic police have increased the number of checkpoints where they will check vehicles spewing black exhaust smoke.

The number of checkpoints was increased on Tuesday to 20 from the previous 12, leading to 1,000 vehicles being cited and fined, traffic police commander Pol Maj-General Jirasan Kaewsang-ek said on Wednesday.

Jirasan said diesel-engine vehicles were the main culprits, along with too-old engines, and they together made a large contribution to the 60 per cent of the polluting PM2.5 particulates that were attributed to vehicle engines.

Police are putting an emphasis on removing the exhaust-spewing vehicles from the most pollution-prone areas such as Bung Kum and Chatuchak districts.

As there was insufficient staff for the checkpoints, police would ask that some officials from the Pollution Control Department be assigned to aid them during this period, Jirasan said.

In future, police may impound the vehicles or suspend the vehicle’s use as a more severe punishment, he added.

SOURCE: The Nation

Bangkok

Bangkok smog: Chatuchak school closes for the rest of the week

Published

18 hours ago

January 16, 2019

The Thaiger & The Nation

Bangkok smog: Chatuchak school closes for the rest of the week | The Thaiger

A kindergarten in Chatuchak, to the north of central Bangkok, has suspended classes because of air pollution that has landed Bangkok in the top 10 list of worst-polluted cities.

Bangkok still lags far behind some of the world’s most polluted cities, including the Afghani capital Kabul (at 576), Delhi in India (306) and Mongolia’s Ulaanbaatar (300). But the Top 10 worst air-pollution list is not the list Bangkok wants to be in.

Bangkok and Pattaya remain in the ‘unhealthy’ or ‘unsafe’ levels today whilst some cities in northern Thailand are also suffering with poor air quality.

Surang Khamneungnet, director of Jananan Kindergarten in Chatuchak, said pupils had been kept indoors in recent days and the grounds sprayed with water three times a day, but the children had become listless and were eating less.

The school is closed for National Teachers Day today anyway but will remain closed tomorrow and Friday because of the air pollution, she said.

Chulalongkorn University logistics expert Manoj Lohatepanont at a seminar on Tuesday advised schools to consider closing temporarily to reduce health risks for students and curb the number of cars on the roads, one source of PM2.5.

PM Prayut Chan-o-cha separately said the Education Ministry should use its discretion in deciding whether “at-risk” schools should be closed.

SOURCE: The Nation | aqicn.org

Bangkok

Crisis meetings in Bangkok today over smog solutions

Published

20 hours ago

January 16, 2019

The Thaiger & The Nation

Crisis meetings in Bangkok today over smog solutions | The Thaiger

PHOTOS: The Nation

Urgent meetings are being held in Bangkok today to address the acute smog problems in the capital.

The Pollution Control Department and Bangkok Metropolitan Administration are gathering today in their latest efforts to battle with the persistent smog while dust particles continue to blanket the capital with smog levels alarming locals and causing tourists to cancel their holidays.

The meeting was organised after the authorities concerned rushed rushed to find solutions to help ease the problem, including cleaning roads more often, spraying water over Greater Bangkok’s sky (useless), trying to produce artificial rain with cloud-seeding and enforcing strict laws against vehicles emitting excessive exhaust fumes.

PM General Prayut Chan-o-cha “has instructed relevant authorities to introduce additional measures to deal with this situation”, Government Spokesman Puttipong Punnakanta said.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and the Army’s efforts to spray water to ease the pollution on Monday night and yesterday morning did not appear to help much.

For instance, pollution was marginally brought down to 90 from 96 on Monday and to 71 yesterday on Phaholyothin Road in the capital.