by Alex Gunn
There’s a lot of parsimonious old guff talked about “how the locals drive”. Sometimes, around by the pool and the club house you get little gangs of ex-pats who are always moaning about the terrible driving misdemeanors they have witnessed. It’s as though a bit of rather idiosyncratic driving legitimises an endless rant against Thailand, its culture, its history and all of its people. You kind of wonder if they are so upset about it all what they’re doing here.
On first appearance driving in Thailand doesn’t make a lot of sense, but of course that is just an illusion. With a little bit of practice and perseverance you realize it makes perfect sense, just a different sense to what you might be used to.
For a start there are about a million times more motorbikes on the road here, all weaving and flooding through junctions like bargain hunters flooding into a discount sale in an expensive department store. Most people here, rich and poor, will own a small 100cc or 125cc motorscooter. You can buy an old one for as little as 1,000 Baht (two pints of Guinness at Heathrow airport), with fancy new ones selling for about 60,000 Baht. I have heard that if you are a teenage boy you won’t get a girlfriend unless you have a motorbike, and preferably one that looks flash with thin racing wheels and a tiny chrome sports handle bar and an uncomfortable looking sleek racing seat. It’s lucky I’m not a teenager in Chiang Mai.
Part of the unique experience of driving in Asia compared to the west comes from this sheer volume of motorbikes. If you are a car driver waiting to pull out onto a main road you are confronted with a never ending sea of motorbikes; thousands of them. Waiting to pull out into the main highway in a gap in the traffic doesn’t really work when there is no gap. I’d be interested in how the “now wait for a clear break in the traffic” line would work from western driving instructors. Driving lessons could potentially go on all day and half the night just waiting for the traffic to subside. Eventually the give way rule wears thin and in order to maintain sanity and get to where you’re going in the same day a slow nudging out into the main flow of traffic is required. Nobody really minds, nobody cares as long as it’s not dangerous and motorbikes will just flow around any obstacle, including you, like fast flowing water around a rock.
There is of course a highway code but like most rules and regulations there are seen as guidelines that may, or may not be useful. The “real” Highway Code is governed by what often seems govern things here, two really important qualities; acceptance and pragmatism.
Within a very space of time in Thailand you can’t help but notice the very different attitude that people have to rules. In the west a red light equals stop and green for go, that’s it, and no argument, no ambiguity and woe betide you if you try to meddle with it. Here there is an awareness of all the shades of grey in between rules and reality, a deeper understanding of life’s ambiguities, it’s actually quite grown up and requires more responsibility and give and take but can be quite liberating once you get the hang of it.
So, for example, imagine you’re driving to the airport along the Hang Dong Road, you are driving on the left as is normal (most of the time) here. You come to the traffic lights and the left turn opposite Tesco’s (you know the one), the light is red but there is no traffic turning from the opposite lane, and you too want to turn left, what do you do? You could just sit there for no reason other than the light is red, which at first, of course, I did, which is fine as the traffic behind you won’t hoot and honk and get annoyed, they’ll just accept that sometimes in life you get stuck behind a dopey foreigner, or you could act pragmatically and turn left taking great responsibility that nothing is coming towards you. It does of course make perfect sense, and as they say in Thailand “same same but different”.
The most incredible thing about driving around Chiang Mai is not the regular sight of families of four or five on one motorbike, or driving the wrong way up a one way street or even people driving motorbikes on the pavement carefully avoiding pedestrians who tend to walk in the road anyway, but the almost total absence of drivers using their horn.
My most vivid memory of a brief time that I spent working in Cairo is lying on my bed late at night listening to the never ending drone of thousands of cars hooting and honking their way through the dark city intersections. Hooting and honking your way around Egypt seemed to be an extension of the male ego. The more you honked the tougher the driver. Here it is the complete reverse. Overt displays of anger or hostility are unequivocal signs of weakness. Woe betides the driver who demeans himself by honking. Better to sit in stationary silence for hours in the middle of the road while some old lady brings the city to a standstill with her motorbike than give a friendly honk and get her to move a bit. Even at times of danger when the car horn should be legitimately used there is great reluctance. Better just to look the other way and accept whatever happens.
So, as an aid to all of those about to brave the Thai traffic for the first time here is a quick user’s guide to the alternative Highway Code which will make perfect sense once you start driving:
Remember that acceptance and pragmatism rule and leave your Highway Code at home.
Abandon all preconceived ideas about traffic controls and start making use of your common sense; if the road is clear you can drive down it, if it’s busy be careful.
Never lose your temper when driving; road rage is a sign of total failure and weakness (also comes in very useful to remember at the immigration office).
If an old lady blocks the road with her motorbike while she toddles off to pay the electricity bill in the 7 Eleven don’t honk your horn but sit and accept the transient nature of life and all things.
You are supposed to wear a crash helmet while riding a motorbike, if you don’t nobody will mind but you may get pulled over in a road block that periodically appear around town (usually around the moat or Narawat Bridge or outside The Holiday Inn Hotel, just in case you happen to be around town ). If they ask for 500 Baht think of it as a tip, smile, hand it over and drive on with or without your crash helmet on....they won’t mind, it’s your head after all.
You can get up to five people plus assorted luggage and chickens on one 100cc motorbike.
If the road is partially blocked by an elephant just slow down and carry on and pretend that it’s the kind of thing you are used to seeing all the time.
If you are stuck in traffic on a motorbike just bump it up the curb and drive on the pavement.
If you are trying to walk on the pavement which is busy with motorbikes walk at the side of the road where there will be a mysterious absence of motorbikes.
If you are waiting in your car at traffic lights and a street vendor tries to sell you flowers/ lunch/ wafer bread/ lottery tickets wind down your window, smile and give them 20 Baht, try not to wave them away as though they are trying to do you harm, they really do need you to buy something.
A car or truck flashing its lights will either mean their electrics are on the blink/ their brakes don’t work/ they’re not slowing down/ you go first/ you go last/ a combination of all of these.
If a distant member of a royal family/ a member of the military/ politician or other visiting dignitary comes to town half the roads will be shut down. Road closures are frequent and can also be caused by funerals/ weddings/ parties/ public holidays/ monks/ house blessings/ spirit house erection/ elephants/ chicken invasions/ sausage stalls/ herds of buffalo or Crazy Joe.
5 bottles of Chang beer will make you think you can drive like Barry Sheen but actually you will drive like Mr Blobby and probably crash.
Chapter 12
Scraping By and Hanging On
It would be fair to say that for the first 4 months business wasn’t exactly brisk. It was in fact the opposite of brisk and money was tight. Having blown a substantial amount on publicity and a truck as well as a steady outgoing for rent and elephant rides we were staring at the outer boundary mark of our now massive overdraft. Beyond
this was lurking the nightmarish vision of a long awkward flight back home and the pitying looks of everyone from my Mum to Keith “why d’yer wonna move to Taiwan anyway” The Builder.
How the hell would I explain it all to everyone? Would I blame it on the recession or just admit we weren’t good enough. Would I get my old job back? Did I even want my old job back?
Although life was far from easy it felt like we had come such a long way. I’d stopped dressing like a yoga teacher and had even picked up enough of the language to say that I didn’t understand anything that was being said to me. In terms of language acquisition this was miraculously a step forward and back all at the same time.
We had bought a lovely ancient pick up truck, survived elephant parks, set up a business, entertained at lavish expense, four top international journalists who were going to write brilliant articles about our new business, found our Son, but most importantly the boys really, really liked their new school.
The Indian boy who I met on the first day of school had become friends with my eldest son and had been for a sleep over at our house. He had told me all about the economic boom in Dubai (again) and the weakness of the English batting order amongst many, many other things. If ever, and in the unlikely event, the Indian Government wanted to create the post of Junior Ambassador, he would certainly get my vote.
Despite our terrible lack of money life was shaping up. I still had the international vision thing going on at the back of my mind; the big shiny car and Pepsi Cola multi cultural lifestyle. We just didn’t want to admit defeat just yet.
Two things happened to save us; someone booked one of our new “Life Change Holidays,” which although didn’t go far in paying back the massive overdraft did boost our confidence, and a friend of a friend emailed my wife with a contact who needed copy writers. I didn’t even know what copy writing was, but as it was something I could do from a computer and it paid real money I agreed to it eagerly. It was poorly paid, sounded deathly boring, but at least was something.
As a new boy I was given the crappiest jobs, mainly writing invisible pages for huge web sites with the aim of boosting key words in a cunning manner that would appeal to both humans and the sophisticated machinery that pushes web sites up search engine pages.
I was writing up to 5000 words a day (and night) on subjects ranging from engagement rings, cruise line holidays and smoked fish products, interspersed with taking our first customer through her super duper, tailor made, motivation boosting Life Change Holiday.
The programme worked really well. It was based upon an idea I’d had for ages. It sounded quite simple in my mind but out loud always left people staring blankly.
For many years I have been involved with an offshoot of Motivational Psychology that is concerned with how much change can be generated in how little time (wonderfully ironic for someone who up until now specialized in changing absolutely nothing).
I became so involved with it that I gave up my job in London teaching Drama and English to junior villains, to go back to university to study it properly. I even travelled to America to study with the leaders of this exciting new emerging science, well, I thought it was exciting.
Like most things I suppose, the harder you look the more fascinating it gets. Change, for example, of any kind whether big or small, from deciding to get divorced to buying a cheap sun hat follows the same predictable pattern, albeit at a different pace, and contrary to popular belief is open to manipulation. It can be speeded up (good news for people who want to sort things out fast) or slowed down (good news for people who make important decisions too quickly), and rarely acts like most people think it should.
For example, you would assume that more treatment/ therapy for anything equals better results, but it doesn’t. Take any hundred people, that for arguments sake, want to lose weight, and divide them randomly into two groups. One group receives a luxury 2 week residential treatment with expert advice, help and support while the other group only gets 2 out patient sessions of the same kind of thing in a condensed form.
Now, it kind of makes sense that the people who have had 2 weeks worth of treatment will do better, but I promise you that if you followed them up after just 6 months the difference would be negligible. Follow them up 1 year later and you would see no difference whatsoever.
So, what on earth is going on? If change is not dependent upon time what is it dependent upon? It’s questions like this that really get me going.
Here’s another interesting idea. Let’s say you’re a doctor; a busy General Practitioner. You have 5 minutes left from a standard 10 minute consultation and your patient clearly needs to cut down their drinking; they need to at least halve their alcohol intake. Being a nice conscientious doctor, as I’m sure you would be, you decide to use this time responsibly and try to help your patient see that they need to change. How much change can be generated from 5 minutes talking, and what would you say?
It was while working on these kinds of ideas and with clients in private practice that I first began to think about putting motivational psychotherapy together with a thumping good holiday, designed to help people who want to make big changes fast, and who also might appreciate a thumping good holiday.
The 16 hour week long programme would be an amalgamation of other briefer motivational programmes that had an evidence based proven track record. It would be a motivational super programme. It would save hours of needless therapy or life coaching or counselling, it could help save marriages, kick start new careers and help people make all kinds of life changes. It would be great. It was bound to work. But as I have learnt there is a world of difference between day dreaming in your cosy faculty office, or over a glass of wine round the kitchen table and getting out in the big bad world and actually doing it.
Still, I remembered the words of my lovely geese. It was me who decided to spread my big geesey wings and fly over the hedge to unknown pastures new and it would have to be me who would make it work.
Not only did the programme work well but everything else seemed to fit just right. The excursions with the lovely Son (he really is the kindest man in the world) were really good, especially the trips that you simply wouldn’t be able to do by yourself or as part of a bigger tour party, like the custom made tasting tour around all the local Thai food markets.
Even the hotel that we selected was special and unique. Khun Att and Khun Koy who run the hotel really understood what we were aiming to offer our guest and plied her with complimentary drinks and food and looked after her like she was part of their family. They and all their staff were (and still are) brilliant.
When the week came to an end there was an emotional goodbye at the airport. Her Change Plan involved quite a lot of big changes on her return home but with continued support from us over the next 12 weeks via skype and messaging it would see her through the most treacherous first 12 weeks. Everyone was pretty confident that everything would work out.
We waved enthusiastically to her through the departure gates and I had that feeling that I’d been here before. A bit like going back to your old school; reassuringly familiar but at the same time somehow completely different. Suddenly I knew the script, it was my own friendly lines that I had rehearsed privately for so long. The fog of bewilderment lifted and I could see the stage directions, the familiar routine that I had observed and secretly re-played over and over again. We would wave, turn, walk back through the airport and out into the car park. We would drive home and have one last swim before I popped up to the market to buy dinner.
It wasn’t word perfect, there was no harbour side restaurant, no bowl of steaming mussels, no jokes with a friendly waiter but it was close enough. Fantasy and reality were beginning to merge. The shiny international life seemed, for the first time, within my grasp. For a few moments life felt good. It was like a sneak preview to a really good film that you know you’ll like. If only I can make it all work and keep it going. It�
�ll be alright, it’ll be alright.
Chapter 13
Christmas in a Greek Taverna
When I was about 5 my Mum told me that on Christmas Day in Australia everybody goes to the beach and has a big BBQ in the sun. This image was in such stark contrast to the cold dark winters in South East Essex that it barely seemed possible. For the first time ever I was going to have a tropical Christmas, which was now only a couple of weeks away.
I’ve always loved Christmas. I love it to the point of wondering whether I suffer from some kind of mental disorder where the part of the brain that gets excited by Chris Chris Kringle and his tingle ingle ingle never fully matures. I really do understand when people moan about the unbridled commercialism, the never ending expense and the merciless marketing that starts in mid August. I do understand all that, but inside I’m thinking “yeah but what about the real magic, what about the shop fronts ablaze on dark snowy afternoons, hot chestnuts in Regents Street and picking up your Christmas order from the butcher early on Christmas Eve. But whatever was in store for us this year would be very far away from all of that.
The really delightful thing about all celebrations in Thailand, is that apart from celebrating absolutely everything, they really enter into the spirit, even if the detail is a little off the mark. Whatever might be lacking in authenticity is more than made up for by effort and sincerity.
It’s kind of like the opposite of what happens in the west. At home we’ve got all the ingredients to make a really authentic Christmas, but just can’t be bothered. In Thailand there are practically no ingredients, but there is enthusiasm by the bucket load.
In the local supermarket there were wonderful Christmas displays made out of supermarket items with no other connection to Christmas other than they happen to have been imported from the west at unbelievable expense. By mid December the entranceway to the store looked like some kind of modern art display with the working title of Wholesale Christmas Fiasco.