BANGKOK AND THE NOTORIOUS TRAFFIC

......  After arriving in Thailand I lived in Bangkok (in Silom area) for the first two months studying Thai in a language school. I found Bangkok fascinating, but the traffic was scary, it still is! In Finland we drive on the right hand side of the road, here it was on the left-hand side. I was using buses quite often, but in the beginning I could not figure out which side of the road I should be waiting for the bus, so I got lost very often, and one reason that I very often missed the right bus, was that I was always standing at the bus stop, but the buses usually did not stop at the bus stop, but some 200 m before it.

      Crossing the street in Bangkok was a nightmare, before coming to Thailand I had lived in Finland and England (a short while also in Norway), in these countries a pedestrian is "the King of the Road", but in Bangkok the poor soul was the last in the pecking order (the cars stopped for stray dogs and cats, but not for people), so already very early I learned to look for fly-overs and gratefully climbed (sweating profusely of course) the steep stairs in order to reach the other side of the road in one piece.

      Later on when I started driving myself, the only crash that I ever had in Bangkok was, when at the Wong Wien Yai traffic circle I stopped just before the pedestrian zebra crossing to let some elderly ladies cross the road, and a "sip loo" hit the right front corner of my car breaking the lights (and of course, "the driver fled the scene").

      But during the years the left hand traffic became so much a part of my thinking, that now when I visit Finland, I very often wait for the bus on the wrong side of the road, and it even happened once in Finland that I nearly collided head on with a bus while driving on the wrong side of the road.

      But one thing that I have always liked here in Bangkok was the easiness to get a taxi, tuk-tuk or even samlor, you just stood by the road-side and hailed the cap, in Finland you had to call a taxi by phone.I got so used to this, that when going to Finland for a holiday, I tried to hail a passing taxi in the same way, and I got a very surprised look from the taxi-driver! Then a nice Finnish gentleman who had seen my futile attempt came to me and asked if he could phone a taxi for me.

      Nowadays Bangkok taxis are air-conditioned and have meters, but at that time when I came to Thailand they had no air-condition and you always had to bargain the price for the trip before entering the taxi. It was quite a hassle sometimes, but again I got so used to the practice that once while holidaying in London, England, before entering a taxi I started asking how much the driver would charge me, and he got offended and looking at me (as if I was a fool), he said:"How can I know beforehand what this trip will cost?" (Well, those of you who have been to London know that London taxi-driver are very professional and proud of being honest in every way, so my question was a real insult to him)

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