using GPS in Thailand

I was surprised to hear that over one thousand attendees are here at the World Blind Union in Bangkok. It was quite fascinating to sit around the breakfast table with 10 people from 9 countries.

I have Thai maps on my BrailleNote. The street names have Thai characters which sound like gibberish. There is only a limited POI set so far. This isn't a place where there are a lot of English notetakers anyway.

Nonetheless, I am finding both the BrailleNote and Sendero Maps on the PC quite useful. For example, I want to visit another city while over here but I have no idea how far away the different cities are or in what direction.

People have suggested several places to visit. I put Bangkok as my virtual location or search from my GPS location and have learned the distance and direction of the various possibilities.

While exploring Bangkok, it is great to set user points and to use the relatively few commercial landmarks to find my way around.

Within the hotel in WiFi range, Blindsquare on the iPhone is fantastic. It is rich with points of interest. It would just be too costly to turn on data roaming in order to use it around the city. This is where having local data on the BrailleNote, Braille Sense or Mobile Geo is so helpful.

Mike