How many people does it take the cross the road...

... in a moto?

So far, standing record sighted is 6. The question is how many human beings can these people squash into a single scooter or moto. We've figured out 4 is the upper limit for adults, but we wonder how far they will push it to stack their own kids on as well.

On top of that, one can't just claim to have seen the number. It needs to be witnessed by someone else or provided evidence, such as this photo.

Blurry? Yes, but given that I was rolling on a tuktuk, fumbling for a camera, trying desperately to capture them before either I or they rolled away, I produce the only photo taken amongst our group.

To bike or not to bike

A friend's recent conversion from public transportation to biking for commute reminded me of the one dilemma I've been struggling with for almost a year. To bike or not to bike. Her conversion was relatively easy. She lives in Washington DC and between her and her girlfriend, they had four bikes that I saw when I visited. My scenario, not so simple.

Despite the fact that we are talking about an Asian city, Bangkok is not a biking city. First, there are no shoulders on the streets. Second, there are no reliable sidewalks that haven't been treated more like a plot of land for mobile street storefronts than a strip for pedestrians to walk safely out of the street. Between one and two, there is no consistent area or side that a biker can conceivably stick to.

Oh, I haven't even started on the motorised vehicles. Road stripes? Decoration. If they still exist. A three lane street? May well be a four lane one. Or a two lane with two and a half additional lanes of taxi and bus pull over. The motorcycles, probably are the worst danger, really. They weave in and out of lanes, between cars, onto the sidewalk, whichever way they can fine space to avoid coming to a stop.

So to bike or not to bike? Despite all this.. I'd get the basic bike with a basket on front. Like those bikes you envision people riding leisurely through the French countryside. That's right. I don't actually own a bike right now. I haven't had one in years because...

I'm horrible on a bike. I have scars to prove it. My last bike was used the grand total of once. Then I left it tied to the balcony, for the squirrels to have a feast off the handles. My last year of biking while in college? On each separate occasion, I hit a car door, got my front wheel stuck on a crack and went heels over head in a somersault, got pushed off a sidewalk into oncoming traffic. I gladly gave my bike away.

Yes, now, I want a bike. A cherry red one. With basket a on the front.

Please relinquish your seat for...

.. the monks, the elderly, the pregnant women, and the children, in that order. Or maybe not the specific order... No mention of handicapped. Sign seen posted in the car of the subway line. It was the colourful monk picture that grabbed the attention. Where else have you see that?

Thanks to harraton & TPG for pointing this sign on the MRT out to me. I've seen it but absorbed it in my thats-how-it-is shrug... not seeing the blog post potential.

BTS

I take the BTS, or skytrain, to and from work daily. In fact, for most expats living in the city, it's our primary mode of transportation getting around.

The train runs pretty frequently. For my first few weeks here, I never had to wait more than three minutes. But as I start going out and about in more different times of the day, I have waited double that. Still quite nice compared to my worst wait in DC's metro- 27 minutes.

There's an odd system about how they run it. Each platform is "guarded" by a security officer whose uniform looks almost military-like, and whose main job is blowing the shrill whistle around his neck when he sees someone stepping any closer than a foot from the yellow line on the edge. I rarely see them talk, but I was surprised one evening by an off-duty officer's mumble behind me as we encountered an enormous crowd when he declared, in perfect American English "Oh MY God!"

The people queue up at the platforms. There are arrows indicating where to stand in line, usually two lines on each side of each door. And the Skytrail conductors bring the trains to a stop aligning the doors to the floor markings with very uncanny accuracy.

Depending on the time of the day, as people file in, they sometimes self-patrol and stop entering the car when it gets crowded, forcing everyone in line to wait with them for the next car. However, in the dead heat of the rush hours, that chivalry sometimes disappears. And the foreigners never honor it.

The Skytrain operates only two lines, stations marked with a N,E,S,W and number based on which direction and how many station aways you are from the system's central point. The "central point" is where the two lines interconnect, and is located by one of the biggest shopping centres in the newer part of town, Siam.


On the one interchange station between the two lines, the two platforms have only escalators between them. Thais don't walk on escalators. They just stand, even if the platform they are approach already has a train about to leave. They won't budge until their step reaches the platform, then they will break into a bolt to try to catch the train. Being stuck on the escalator is fast becoming my biggest pet peeve about the Thais.

MOVE, GADDAMMIT.

For some of you who want to know about cost of living stuff:
My daily fare, if I take as close as door-to-door is possible: 20ThBaht/trip for work, which is an equivalent of 60cents.

Tuk tuks

Tuktuks are probably one of those things you get on once, than that's it. Not for me. I get on one every morning. But it's because the apartment complex has one on hand, at a rate of 10 THB for a ride down the street.

There's no way for me to describe it. I don't have the vocabulary and writing skill for it. Instead, I offer a pictoral definition.

It's not as common as it sounds now that taxis are slowly taking over. To hire and ride them on the streets are usually pretty dangerous and expensive. Dangerous in the sense that not only could you get flattened by a top heavy speaking truck, you could also be taken on a detour by the driver trying to rip you off.

In the Bangkok roads, you're more likely to get bugs and dust in your eyes and breathe smog in these things than really get a touristy sight-seeing experience. Having said that, I still see Thai locals on them, from four students crammed in for a ride home or a lone maid or restaurant worker loading every stuff-able cranny of the passengar compartment with product from the Klong Toei market.

My apartment tuktuk is allowed only two destinations- down the street to almost the intersection of the closest Skytrain station and through the backstreets to the Emporium shopping center. Towards the end of my first week of riding it, it started to sound like it was on its last engine, sputtering when being started, and stalling mid-ride on a few occaisions. Which makes the ride feel wilder because the driver is trying to rush down to get me there before it stalls out and we're careening down and around the traffic of what I had formerly thought was a two-lane road.

So, yes, I take the tuktuk every morning. And I can't help giggle everytime I say that.