What Again?
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Rupert says:
As if the first experience wasn’t enough we were coaxed into a deal to take a second tuk-tuk, this time we knew our destination, or at least where we intended to go.
We found ourselves once again walking through the backstreets of Bangkok, trying to find a taxi back to our hotel. Not one. How is that? We walk for hours with taxi’s slowing to offer us a ride every quarter mile and now, when we actually want one; nothing. At least our trusty tuk-tuk’s are on standby when in need!
Laura wasn’t keen, and rightly so, but we had a time limit and we were running tight; so we jumped in. I asked how fast he could get us to our hotel. This I think was my first mistake, he must have taken that as a challenge. “Twenty minutes!” he said excitedly. Excellent! Or so I thought. The driver introduced himself as Kai, and we began to wonder if he was going to take us to the hotel at all, remembering reading that a tuk-tuk will never take you straight to your destination without dropping by a few of his mates jem and clothes shops. That concern, however, was the least of our worries. Kai twisted the throttle and the three wheeled cart leapt into the dense traffic hurtling past in a carcophony of two stroke engines and high speed Corolla’s.
This is when I pin pointed a few interesting facts about the road rules (and I use that term lightly) of Bangkok. Motorbikes and mopeds, and tuk-tuks for that matter, have the mirrors pulled in, not stuck out as us normal and sane western lot do. At first I thought this was to get them through smaller gaps, and I’m still convinced this is a factor, but not the sole reason. What I realised they are actually viewing is their blind spot; what’s immediately to their left or right, and not neccessarily what’s behind them. You see in Bangkok you need to be either stupid or insane to drive, let alone ride. The city is built up with one way systems with roads and streets usually three or four lanes wide. And the Thai’s are always changing lanes. Always changing but never letting you know about it. or at least it seems that way at first, but I’ve come to realise that although most Thai’s don’t indicate they do have this uncanny ability to read what I would like to call ‘vehicle language’. Bangkok’s traffic flows, and it flows quickly, but I’ve rarely witnessed a harsh brake or an emergency stop, let alone a collision; and with this many vehicles crammed into this place I expected some action, but as our tuk-tuk glides into another lane to put us just milimeters off the front bumper of a taxi, and a moped with three gas bottles and a box of groceries balancing on the back throws itself in our path with no room for error, all at sixty miles an hour, I come to respect these folk for the art they create on the roads of the craziest city I’ve ever visited. So in a way they are rules, but rules of the people rather than the law.
Kai was clearly enjoying the ride more than us, flinging his legs out the side and making the tuk-tuk jump with revs when sitting in standing traffic, all the while smiling a laughing. I laughed back, more in fear than agreement.
To our pleasant surpise our tuk-tuk driver slows, but not much, to turn into the driveway of our hotel. On three wheels. We flew up the slope with a few wheelies and landed outside, exhausted and trembling we peeled our bottoms off the backseats and ran inside. I made a promise to never take another tuk-tuk again.
You have to give the chap credit, we were at the hotel in under twenty minutes.
Tags: Bangkok, Thailand, Travel
Monkey
nice monkey!!!