Moving About in a Home Away From Home
By Garry | November 27th, 2002 | Category: Driving, Feature Articles, Taxis, Tourism, Tourists | 1 Comment »Abridged & Published in Chiang Mai CityLife Magazine – January 2003
A Level Playing Field – Part 1
CHIANG MAI, Thailand – 27 June 2002
I’d been almost 24 hours on the move. I’d decided to travel from the airport to the hotel by air-con taxi. After agreeing the price to Pattaya (Baht 1,000), and loading the baggage, I was starting to believe I was in the correct country, when my first experience of Thai driving skills – between the Domestic terminal and the expressway on-ramp, convinced me of it.
The idiocy of the truck that carved us up made the taxi driver ask me for a cigarette – something no other taxi driver has done since; ergo, it was a seriously close shave. It set my opinion of Thai driving logic (and skills) from that moment on. An opinion that has never changed, and maybe never will …