The Bangkok Blitz Pt 4 - Taxi

When I said that ‘Global Warming’ was an anagram for Toyota, I wasn’t kidding. If you’ve been properly acquainted with Bangkok’s famed traffic, you should be well aware of the following,

1. 1 km in distance approximates to about 10 minutes of driving time.
2. Despite what road signs may indicate, it is actually okay to drive against the flow of traffic.
3. It is okay to make a U Turn anywhere, just as long as you horn to indicate your intention
4. Traffic lights can be ignored, even if you are not driving an ambulance.
5. Checking of blind spots is not required. It is the duty of the trailing cars to watch out for you.
6. You can cut any taxi queue, so long as you offer to pay more
7. If you drive a Ferrari, you probably have not changed into 2nd gear before.

And from our latest taxi experience,

8. Taxi’s can have a DVD player, full set of gauges and other electronic gadgets, but they don’t have enough battery to run the fare meter.

When we first arrived there, we were marshaled by TheScout’s moral stamp of commuting ethnic, which dictated that every taxi ride was to be strictly by meter, even if it meant passing up on several cabs for a difference in fee that would probably be less than $2 tops.

It was as he argued, ‘a matter of principles’ - I never understand these anyway -, which was met with some disagreement on my part, because $2 was a price on ‘principles’ I was willing to sacrifice, so long as I got to my destination faster.

This eventually changed when we got tired of standing in the torrid humidity, bargaining with taxi’s to run the trip on meter. Our surrender to 'principles', eventually got us on the ride of a life time.

It was a cab we took to Paragon. He was young and adamant on a fixed fare of 100baht, but we were seasoned and rooted to our then crumbling punctuation of ‘principles’. Under the cursed afternoon heat, with perspiration trickling down my back, we eventually surrendered defending our cause and agreed to his fare.

The only thing was that we wanted him to run the meter anyway. It was fundamentally experimental, just to see how much the difference would chalk up to, but there was a subtle symbolism in that to ease our bruised pride for caving in on 'principles'. It was like asking a eunuch to wear a condom.

Me: “You on meter, but I still pay you 100baht.”
Cabbie: “No no. No meter. 100baht.”
Me: “Yes, we give you 100baht, but I want to see meter how much. Just for fun.”
Cabbie: “No no. No meter. Car no battery.”

We laughed our asses off. For one, you have to see how much electronic junk he had in the car to understand why this was perhaps the dumbest funny excuse anyone could conceptualize. He had at the passenger side, an LCD TV with DVD player. He had a full set of gauges lining his dashboard and side pillar. He had a fully functional mp3 headunit that was arguably more advanced that what I have in my car and some other stuff which had lights running round it.

All that shit and not enough battery to run the meter? All that cab needed was a popcorn machine and it would have qualified as a mobile theatre, and he actually came up with some bullshit of not having enough battery? Amazing.

Reznor: “You have to give it to him for effort babe. This is the best excuse I’ve heard.”

That however, was the least remarkable thing about the cab driver, because however proficient he was in giving excuses, he was about an infinite fold better at driving. In that 10 minutes cab ride, he had defied every traffic regulation that had been institutionalized.

It was the cab ride from hell.

He was weaving between cars, driving against the flow of traffic, ignoring blind spots, believed that braking isn’t as important as accelerating and should only be done when your horns don’t work. In short, if this was a Singapore driving practical test, I would need a calculator for his demerit points, because an immediate failure just won’t do it justice. And some new underwear, because I might have peed in mine.

Reznor: “Can someone tell him this is not an F1 trial?”

I was not going to trash talk the driver. He had just mis-timed an emergency brake, had to swerve to avoid the hit, and as a result, caused the car on that lane to slam the brakes to avoid colliding as well. All that near misses and instead of breathing a sigh of relief - as normal drivers would -, he was back to cursing the traffic.

We eventually got off at Paragon taxi stand and I parted very willingly with the 100baht, with trembling hands. Then this group of ladies got on to that cab.

Me: “Anyone wanna warn them?”