Bangkok Scooter Ride

One thing neither of us anticipated was taking a scooter ride in Bangkok.  Seeing all the wounded foreigners in the Southern Islands of Thailand made us realise how bad Westerners are at handling scooters but also how hazardous the conditions can be.  So naturally Bangkok was crossed off immediately as a place to hop on one of these two wheeled death machines.

However, when you're running later for an overnight bus, compromises have to be made.

We speak to our French friend Guillaume, who we would be meeting at the bus station, and tell him we we're running late.  In his typical French accent and through the speaker of my crackly Thai phone he gasps, "Ohhhh in zat case you must take zee taxi scooter...it will cost 60 Baht ($2)".  We both look at each other, "Here goes nothing".

For anyone who's ever been to Bangkok you would know that peak hour doesn't exist.  It's always peak hour.  Crammed with pollution pumping and driver tooting cars, buses, trucks and scooters it's not a city for the faint hearted.  Or those with asthma.

As we cross the bridge from the metro we look down at the stampede of vehicles and weaving scooters below and wonder whether we will soon be part of this madness.  It's a scene reminiscent of Lion King when Mufasa is in the gorge being trampled by buffallo.  We hope that we won't meet a similar fate.  We meet our drivers.  Mine is in his 60's.  This gives me a brief sigh of relief, "atleast he's still alive after all these years", I think.  However, as we set off into the heart of the stampede my optimisim begins to fade.  I feel more and more like Simba and want nothing more than to escape the immediate chaos.  The driver ducks and weaves through the encroaching traffic, ignoring the fact the has an 80kg white guy on the back with a 20kg back pack.  When there's no gap to be found and a crash seems imminent he crosses three lanes to slide between two semi-trailer trucks.  I look sideways and see Dylan laughing his head off as he videos the ride....crazy Canadians.  I look ahead and see that there's a dead end ahead, 'we've reached then end of the gorge', I think.  But in true Mufasa spirit, my driver jolts the bike left and finds a path only a driver of his experience could, up the footpath*.  With barely a centimetre on each side, but not an ounce of concern, I strangely begin to relax and to feel a paternal like protection from Mufasa.

*footpath= sidewalk