Bangkok: first impressions

After a long, long, long travel day, we arrived in the craziest, most intense city I’ve ever been in. Actually, the trip over was pretty easy as we took the red eye and were able to sleep most of the way. That and the personal digital players make the time go by quickly. Nothing like watching helicopters and planes get blown up in Die Hard 4 and Transformers to soothe any flying jitters you may have!

Anyways, back to Bangkok. You have to have some serious stones to drive in this town. The yellow lines are merely a suggestion, and one that no one seems to take seriously. Two lanes can actually fit four (two cars, a scooter and a tuk tuk), and the center lane is a quick way to duck around pesky traffic jams, on-coming traffic be damned. Tuk tuk’s are basically three wheeled open air go carts with a bench in the back.

 

Half the vehicles on the road are tuk tuk’s and scooters, and between them zig zagging in and out of traffic, and pedestrians sprinting to get across the street, you feel like you’re participating in a live action version of Frogger. It’s nuts, and you can only pray to the lucky buddha that you’ll get to your destination intact. So far so good!

~ by ardentdays on November 25, 2007.