A Bus full of Monks

Today I went on a trip with Mike the Secondary Art Teacher to the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre with the Year 10 and 11's. I was asked to go because it is ideal for a male and a female teacher to go on any school trip so I was asked to join them.

The journey is very long as it takes round about 2 hours to get to Bangkok but what they don't tell you that as soon as you get there, it will take you about an hour to get through what I would call a parking lot traffic. We were stationary for about half an hour at Central World and I managed to draw this in that space of time. I only draw if he bus is stationary. 

Bangkok is crazy when it comes to traffic, you have buses, coaches (some are double decker coaches), trucks (some have trailers), vans, mini buses, cars (they call it a car but they are more like 4 wheel gas guzzling people carriers), taxis, taxi mopeds, mopeds, songthaew and Tuk tuks. And when you see all these vehicles together in one one chaotic mess you will not be surprised to see an entire family on one moped, typically the dad drives with a baby in between mum and their teenage kid. And of course no helmets and that is without a sidecar. So when the traffic is at a standstill and the family of four on a moped weaves their way through and don't be surprised to see that the dad is smoking or the mum texting on the phone at the back or even an iPad. 

You will see fully grown adult sized trees on the back of a lorries or just vans, eight cows squashed on a van not a truck or lorry. Hay bales stacked higher than a typical lorry on just a van, so high you would not believe it is a van because from behind as you are over taking it looks like a lorry. 

Whilst trying to get over that you will see workers on the back of trucks amongst supplies or stock travelling to and from work, some just sitting and some would take the trouble of making it a comfortable ride by lying there if it's hay bales or planks of wood or even sacks of rices, but some even have hammocks just tottering along. 

What I cannot get use to are the U-turns on major motorways with three lanes on both sides, there are some U-turns bridges dotted here and there but a lot of the time you will find trucks making a U-turn not only trying to get onto the fastest lane on the other side but to go directly across taking up all three lanes including the hard shoulder. That is just crazy and when you are in a car trying to make the same manoeuvre it is terrifying. In the UK if someone flashes you that means they will give way but in Thailand if they flash it means "I will not give way and don't even think about pulling out because I am not slowing down", so you are just waiting there trying to pull out on a major motorway in the fast lane what is essential like the M25 where it would be unlikely to see a break In the traffic. That's why trucks just pull out and go across all the lanes and you are forced to stop. 

The "Do whatever you want lane", that is the hard shoulder and you will find them on any type of road where mostly mopeds will be. We call it the "Do whatever you want lane" because it would appear to not have many rules, they may have rules but they are not enforced. We have seen parked cars and trucks, stalls selling vegetables, roadwork signs placed, cyclists, cars driving down them and also driving down them the wrong way.

What I found amusing was stopping at a Seven Eleven (the place to be) on the way back from Bangkok and I witnessed a bus full of Monks. That's Thailand.