SHANDY POCKETS | AN ONLINE TRAVEL MAGAZINE
  • Home
  • Features
    • Interviews
  • Destinations
    • Africa >
      • Africa by city
    • Antarctica
    • Asia >
      • Asia by city
    • Australia
    • By Country
    • Caribbean
    • Europe >
      • Europe by city
    • Middle East
    • North America >
      • North America by city
    • South America
    • United Kingdom
  • Reviews
    • Hotels
    • Food & Drink
    • Attractions
    • Products
  • Guides
  • NEWS
  • Videos
  • About

POSTCARD FROM BANGKOK (2): Heave ho

14/7/2023

 
Picture
After a long morning reclaiming a newly-damaged suitcase that arrived at Bangkok Airport five days after I did, I splurge on a cab home. My driver, Chakan, has what I can only assume is a heroic hangover. He keeps asking me the destination in a whispered moan every half mile.

“Where again?”
“Sukhumvit, Soi 12.”
“Oh yeah.”

Driving in Bangkok, it’s like surfing a glacier. The panoramic lines move almost imperceptibly. This is good news for Chakan as he can open his door every now and then to wretch chaotically onto the blistering tarmac. It’s a real greatest hits, a tour de force of expulsion - dry heaves, angry bile, full-throated vomit. I double mask, discreetly. If it’s not a hangover, I don’t want his norovirus, having exuberantly redecorated the bathroom of a very exclusive restaurant the last time I was in town. I’d get out, but we’re on a highway and I’m neither linguistically skilled nor geographically confident enough to know how to negotiate that situation.

“What address?”
“Sukhumvit, Soi 12.”
“Oh yeah.”

Bangkok built toll roads from the new airport to try and alleviate the vehicular pressure. It worked for a few years, but slowly people just bit the bullet and everyone started using them. These arterial roads are now awash with automobile cholesterol (carlesterol?).

The toll roads are brimming with lurching steel, drivers just using hard shoulders and the median strips as extra lanes. Their utility is gone, but you still have to pay to use them. It's a neat trick. The roads are now taking their toll on the drivers. Especially Chakan, who has taken to manically turning the radio on and off for a sliver of a song every twenty seconds. In his license photo, he looks like Colin Firth. In the glare of the front seat, swaddled in booze sweat and perma-fumes, he looks like Colin Firth wearing prosthetic makeup to play the main role in a biopic of Keith Richards.

“Where…oh yeah.”

Two hours later, I clamber out of his cab several blocks from my place, just to give him space to suffer. In any case, I can walk faster than he can drive, even with my junked suitcase. Back home, I look up Chakan's name. It means ‘healthy body’.
​

    Sign up for the free newsletter:

Submit

Comments are closed.

    Shandy Pockets: News

    Shorts, news, miscellaneous.

    Archives

    August 2024
    March 2024
    January 2024
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023

    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Americas
    Asia
    Culture
    Details
    England
    Food And Drink
    Hotels
    Photos
    Postcards
    Reviews
    Thailand
    USA

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Features
    • Interviews
  • Destinations
    • Africa >
      • Africa by city
    • Antarctica
    • Asia >
      • Asia by city
    • Australia
    • By Country
    • Caribbean
    • Europe >
      • Europe by city
    • Middle East
    • North America >
      • North America by city
    • South America
    • United Kingdom
  • Reviews
    • Hotels
    • Food & Drink
    • Attractions
    • Products
  • Guides
  • NEWS
  • Videos
  • About