Driving in Thailand - Not for the weak of heart

Blue steel

First things first: the night dive was absolutely superb! I didn’t get bitten or stung by anything, and being immersed in pitch black water was actually pretty relaxing, not gloomy like one might imagine. I’m now back in Bangkok sorting out my visa-stuff for Myanmar, and I’m ashamed to say that on arrival I headed straight to Burger King :) Then to MacDonald’s. Then back to Burger King :D The reason for this junk food binge is that I’ve reached a saturation point in Thai cuisine. The past six weeks, I have basically lived only on noodle and rice dishes with very few exceptions, and although they are tasty, they're coming out of my ears. Now, I’m taking full advantage of the fast-food selection here and am totally pigging out! Maybe on this diet I can eventually stop using a safety pin to hold up my shorts too! Speaking of clothing, like an idiot, I went out today in a red t-shirt and was wondering why some of the Thais were looking at me kind of funny. When I got back to the guesthouse, the Japanese owner (who looks a hell of a lot like Mr. Myagi btw) asked me if I had been at the Democracy Monument demonstrating with the other redshirts for the reinstatement of the ex-prime minister Thaksin. Duh.

 

One thing I neglected to mention earlier is that I had my first experiences driving in Thailand a few days ago on Koh Phangan, when I rented a moped with a friend. The blue Honda we got was a truly amazing machine, going from zero to eighty in something like two minutes and coming to a halt again in almost the same time if the breaks were squeezed like our lives depended on them (which they did). I had never driven one before, but luckily both the controls and the local traffic rules are pretty intuitive. In fact, the main rule seems to be “If it’s bigger than you, it has right of way”, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever sworn as much while driving as here. There’s just something about seeing an SUV occupying three-quarters of your lane and hurtling toward you at a hundred kilometres an hour that forces profanities out of your mouth. Also, the hills around Hat Rin on Koh Phangan are just mental, as they wind up like corkscrews at angles that slowed our moped to a crawl. The real fun bit, of course, was not going up, but coming down. In fact the first time we came down one particularly nasty hill known locally as “The Hill of Tears”, it honestly felt like coming down a steep bit on a roller coaster, with both of us open-mouthed in a silent scream.  Still, as a whole, the mopeds are an insanely easy way to get around, and if you stay sharp and drive safe, I can definitely recommend them as a mode of transport. Also, they are a hell of a lot of fun.

 

Next, I’m heading a few hundred kilometres south to a beach town called Hua Hin. I will spend the Thai New Year there and do a kite-surfing course at the same time. To be honest, I don’t really know what to expect from the course, but I keep imagining a US Marine Corps style sergeant screaming at me at the top of his lungs: “THAT IS THE WORST GODDAMN KITE-FLYING I HAVE EVER SEEN SON!!!” We will see.

 

Mr. T had his own bike of course

P. S. Thai reggae. I hadn’t heard of it earlier either, but it is just impossible to go anywhere here without hearing this catchy tune. Seriously, it is EVERYWHERE.

Job2do – Doo doo doo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAdZzr0ysxg