TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Monday, March 6, 2006

4:19 PM
Posted by jodi rose

stringing the cables one by one

just had to move rooms as the rats in the wall kept me awake with their scrabbling and squeaking all night. new room is deluxe but less luxe than the old.
quick stop at the ocean net on our way to pratanum for high tech electronics consumables - mari wants to find a monopod, lisa a new battery and me - well more variety of contact mikes would be fun, although I'm not sure what to expect. maybe a di-box or preamp could come in handy too.

we had our first trip to the bridge this morning - it's the rama III on the new industrial ring road, and is extremely impressive. curving concrete roadways twined with cranes and pylons, cheerful yellow cables - which the old bridge rama IX is now copying, painting their black cables yellow - and hundreds of workers in a variety of fashions, everything from cowboy shirts to I love honolulu t-shirts and the standard blue overalls. Interestingly there are lots of women workers - our guide explained they are husband and wife teams who work together, all trained by the company for this job and probably moving on to the new airport link when it's finished.

I forgot about my slight fear of heights, climbing ricketty iron ladders and going up the side of the bridge in a bright orange lift cage brought it all back.
The middle is not quite joined, so we walked out to the edge, watched a man shaking the cable casing as each strand is pulled through - this is the latest in bridge technology, the strands are installed individually. previously done with all the multistrands grouted together and crane-lifted into place - this way takes only a 15 pound life and two workers - then the strings are tensioned individually too. can't wait to hear them - first thing in the morning we meet the chief cable engineer, who invited me here.
he asked only for an interesting musical composition to play at home and in his office, so it's a pretty good deal. VSL build bridges all over the world - coming up in australia, dubai and new delhi - and have already built them in vietnam, japan, china... I'm thinking this could be the start of a beautiful friendship :) Lisa and Mari did a little filming, but as it was a site tour we mainly just looked around and learnt about the construction. After the first pylon, it was across the river in the company ferry, and up to the other side - a clearer perspective behind the bridge without any other roadway cluttering it up, but I preferred the first with it's jungle like tangle of cables and concrete. Richard, the french vibration analyist promised to show me the software and digitizing technology of their system, and also recommended the saxophone club near the victory monument for live music. Catu showed us the vegeterian restaurant near the Hindu temple back at our hotel, and now we have the visit to Pratanum.