Written by Thais once again are going through very difficult times. People displaced, jobless and over 530 deaths as I post this. The overall situation shows little improvement with some of the water receding but there is still large areas of the country, mainly north and around of Bangkok totally inundated.
Heading to Nikon at Rojana Industrial Park
Click here to see all the 26 photos
As a Nikon shooter, I was curious about how bad the flood situation is in the area that the factory is located in, so I decided to try to see it with my own eyes and off I went, yesterday November the 14th.
The factory is loacated 87 kms from my home here in bangkok. Wasn’t very complicated to get there but took a bit longer than usual due to the floods. It was a bit risky to take a small car like my Civic but the car made it through.
Strangers to Rojana Industrial Park are kept away. I think possibily to avoid any looting. At this point I felt a bit frustrated… According to the GPS I was just 1800 metres away from the factory. No way I have driven to there and not even to be able to even see the Nikon logo!
Walked around and saw a guy resting on a boat and in no time we had made a deal and I was on my way on the main road to the factory. Road? Not really! Just water and more water.
Farther down the road and look at that power substation. Probably it will take long until electricity is feeding the power grid again and all the Industrial Park.
The view from the boat. Look at that water level… at least 150 cms high, I think.
Farther down the road and to my surprise I found Canon insted of Nikon. I have no idea of what they make in there, printers perhaps? Cameras? Photopaper? I really don’t know.
Well, at this point, so close to Nikon the guards told us to turn away. I Believe I was about a couple of hundred metres away from the factory. Anyway as we can see, past the guards is dry road again. it seemed to me that the Nikon factory was built on higher ground than the majority of the other buildings at the park.
I went back to the car and decided to try to goaround the Industrial Park and then I saw the Nikon logo on a tower. It really seems to me that is was built on a higher ground if compared with the other buildings in the area.
The factory is right behind that building.
An this was the closest I could get to the factory.
The way back home was a nightmare drove 4kms over lots of water and for a few moments the engine was choking and I thought my car was going to die. It took me about 4 hours to get back home.
I am no expert but I think that will take a while to get some Nikon gear coming out of this specific factory again.
The map below shows the exact location of the factory. 25 out of the 26 photos are geotagged (not the very first one in the album) , click on Show Caption/Info and then on the Map Icon to see a map with the photos exact location.
