Duck, Dive, Wheel, Weave

For the May Day bank holiday weekend I went to Bangkok with my parents who are visiting at present. It’s only about a two hour flight from here and flights are cheap cheap, so this is, I think, my fourth visit in the last couple of years. Each time I’ve been, though, I’ve been with someone who is making their first visit to Bangkok, so I do the same things.

So, I made my fourth trip to the Grand Palace, where I tried to get this photo right for the fourth time. I made my fourth trip to Wat Pho with the giant reclining Buddha. I made my fourth trip in a long-tailed boat down the canals of Bangkok, buying my fourth beer from the one-boat “floating market”. However, my parents’ enthusiasm ensured that it was anything but a chore to revisit these places. Actually, the places themselves are well worth at least four visits anyway.

The highlight of the weekend, though, was probably the tuk-tuk journeys, which started off being rather hold-tight-and-close-your-eyes kind of trips for my folks. By the end of our second day, though, they were saying “shall we take a tuk-tuk?” every time we had to take a journey. Indeed, on our last night, the meal at the restaurant was just something that happened in between tuk-tuk journeys.

I love taking tuk-tuks myself, which seems a bit odd seeing as I hate riding pillion on a motorbike. It’s probably the fact that in a tuk-tuk there are three wheels rather than two or something. Bangkok is a sprawling town-planners’ nightmare in which it’s very easy to become disorientated. On the street where our hotel was, there were five lanes of traffic heading one way and only one lane of traffic heading the other. Tuk-tuk drivers weave in and out of the lanes, often turning back on themselves or driving at right angles to the traffic in order to change lanes. As you sit in the back seat, you’re forever thinking “He’s going to hit that wall! He’s going to hit that wall! Actually, no, he isn’t. He’s simply pulling off an improbable three point turn.” All this ducking and diving and wheeling and… er… weaving through the traffic just adds to the disorientation.

Agreeing on a price for a journey is a tricky matter, as is agreeing on a price for anything. Quite often, while agreeing a price, a small group of spectators made up of other tuk-tuk drivers will form and they’ll always laugh once a price is agreed, no matter how high or how low it is. I usually manage to get them down to at least half of the first asking price. Experience has taught me to make sure that I laugh as soon as a price is agreed too. This doesn’t achieve anything other than parity in the “I-know-something-you-don’t” stakes.

The journey is a close-to-the-ground, smog-in-the-face experience. The tuk-tuk engine is a deep, throaty belch which vibrates through the seat. They have a top speed of just under 40 miles an hour, but feel like they go twice that speed.

You race down a street, turn a corner, leaning out to help the vehicle keep balance. You reach some traffic lights. The driver turns the engine off to conserve fuel. He asks you where you’re from, says “David Beckham” or “lovely jubbly” in response to the fact that you’re English. He asks you whether you want to go to a silver shop and you turn him down graciously. Then it’s off again, the driver occasionally catching your eye in the mirror and smiling. By the end of the journey, you like him so much for being friendly and for letting you ride in his tuk-tuk that all that bartering at the start is rendered a complete waste of time and you give him his first asking price.

That’s the way it goes for me, anyway.

Here are a few more photos of Bangkok. I didn't take many this time, probably because I already have four sets.











As well as going to Bangkok, I’ve also been out and about a bit more often in Singapore recently due to the fact that I have visitors who want to see it. It’s not a bad place. Here are some photos.