Okay.... but...

How does one know? 

Pavement Pecking Order

The leering eyes of a gargantuan beetle from a B movie are staring into my rearview mirror. Its mouth is an angry grid of chrome-plated pincers hungry for my bumper, taillights and rear wheels. It is growling its gears at my cautious speed. It is at the top of the macadam food chain – it is the monster king – the most feared creature on Thai roads– it is CEMENT TRUCK.

My left side mirror is a mini TV screen playing images of nervously flitting schools of two-wheeled fish darting in and out of one another, changing positions and vying for head locations when they reach the next traffic light. They are the motorbikes – perched second to the lowest rung on the hierarchy of street denizens.

Pedestrians teeter precariously on the bottom rung. Ahead, I see a woman standing in the middle of the road. She's holding a baby in her arms. She's made it safely to the center of the road (where most of the world expects to see a white line) and is waiting for a break in traffic in my lane so she can scramble quickly to the other side. The responsibility for crossing safely is totally hers once she commits to the tricky dance steps needed to cross the street. My western sensibility tells me to stop and allow her to cross in front of me, but if I do, the monster bug on my butt will not anticipate, or understand, my action and will devour both me and the woman, gobbling up the baby for desert. She is on her own and understands the risks. She's performed this maneuver since she was a kid. My heart skips a beat as traffic coming from both directions whizzes by her with only inches to spare. She will survive.

A joyrider is coming up fast in my right side mirror. "Joyrider" is what we call a young man on a motorbike, or motorcycle, who weaves in and out of traffic at breakneck speeds, ignoring all traffic lights and the unwritten rules of these roads. (Many of them do indeed break their necks.) They are the most unpredictable and dangerous creatures on the pavement. Their standing in the traffic hierarchy is undetermined. No one gives way to them and they give way to no one. They appear suddenly from out of nowhere, buzz past, or in front of you, in a blur, scare the hell out of you, and then disappear. They are accidents going to happen. I don't get too angry with them. I had a motorbike here for eight months a few years ago and I have to admit that I did a bit of joyriding myself. It's hard to resist when you have a powerful machine between your legs and exhilarating, cool air rushing over your face. However, I did do my joyriding at two or three in the AM, when there was almost no traffic – it was only slightly safer, but still dangerous (and great fun).

Tour buses are long, tall, lumbering, triple-deck affairs that defy the rules of gravity. They rule the lanes just under the cement trucks. I cannot imagine what it must be like to drive one of these top-heavy centipedes, through dense traffic on narrow roads with sharp curves and roller coaster mountains, much less park them on streets where even a motorbike can have a problem finding an open patch to throw down the kickstand. Bus drivers (who you can never see, because they are up so high - maybe they are robots?) are polite and blink their lights at you before passing and pulling into the oncoming lane, causing all traffic to scramble and slide out of their way. They are so tall that, when they pass you (and they always do), all you can see is a huge billboard scrolling across your car's window. As you might expect, they occasionally topple over while negotiating mountain curves. I give them a lot of room and respect, but not as much as CEMENT TRUCKS.

Vans are another story altogether and rank just below buses. Some people think that the van drivers are the best drivers in the world. Maybe they are, but, from my observations, I would say the reverent opinion of them comes principally as a result of their high survival and low accident rate, despite their fast and dangerous maneuvers. A car never argues with a van, anymore than it would with a cement truck, or a bus. And they really are good drivers. The vans toting tourists and hotel guests around the island are on the road every day, all day, and the drivers know every quirky pothole and turn on every road. They too are always in a hurry and are generally impatient with poky cars.

High quality asphalt is being laid on some of the island's roads these days and there is much widening of heavily trafficked conduits, so the road experience is improving exponentially with the increased traffic, but, like everything on the island, the old is mixed with the new and it's often difficult to discern the dividing line between them. Street vendors in coolie hats, pushing large carts of wonderfully crafted brooms and such are likely to be waiting at a traffic light next to a Mercedes. (It was only about twenty years ago that there were only four public telephones on the island and one had to stand in line to use them, so the catch-up has been intense and it shows.)

I've had a few hair-raising experiences on the road – oh... like about three a day (see the Valentine Day post below) – but I enjoy driving here. It certainly forces one into the present and, for my part, anything that helps me live each moment with full awareness is welcomed.

I think Thai drivers are damn good drivers. They have to be to survive the lawlessness of this traffic and the subtle, unwritten rules of the road. And they are very polite - road rage is practically unheard of. As I jokingly told a friend recently, maybe the reason one sees so many good drivers here is because the bad ones get killed off quickly – survival of the fittest and all that - but that's not it at all - you simply have to keen your driving skills to an advanced level to navigate the motorized spahgetti of the Thai driving experience. It's early days, but I think I'm getting a handle on it.

I haven't mentioned our unique and notorious tuk-tuks and motorbike taxis in this post. They are in a category all their own and I think they deserve a space in the blog that's all their own. Maybe the next post.

Yin Dee Valentine Cocktail 

Valentine Day

Three weeks and three days since we arrived – a lovely feeling of having been here forever. Well, you know... folks is folks no matter where you pitch your tent and home can be anywhere in the world if you join the neighborhood without political or religious prejudices, have flexible mores and are open to new ways of doing things. We were at home in Portland and we're at home here, and our family of wonderful friends continues to grow globally. Ease of travel and fast communication has made a neighborhood of the world.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I've never been in a country where this day for celebrating love was welcomed more vigorously. It's odd, in a way, and a bit out of context, since the holiday stems from Christianity, but it's not surprising to find this gentle Buddhist culture embracing customs that honor respect and love.

Our celebration of the day was a bit traditional and a lot bizarre. We weren't sure we would be able to make plans at all, because the usual newbie stomach bug had me tethered to home conveniences. It happens every time I arrive. My stomach is bombarded with alien bacteria and it takes a few days for my intestines to learn their tricks and how to deal with them. It's an uncomfortable adjustment, but it passes after my body enlists a fresh battalion of guardian troops.

The traditional part of our Valentine's Day was an elegant meal on a high perch on the south end of Patong overlooking the town and the beaches. Yin Dee is the name of the restaurant, meaning "Good Fortune" (roughly translated), and it was certainly our good fortune to be there, not only for the incredible food and ambiance, but also for the fact that we survived the journey getting there. I will post about driving in Thailand in greater detail another time, but let me relate this one harrowing snippet for starters.

We live on the southeast side of the island on the coast and usually trip across the island to Patong, but decided to take the coastal route to our Valentine dinner. The road snakes along coastal cliffs on an up and down road that readily flunks all US highway safety specs for turns and grades and it is heavily traveled by all sorts of vehicles, from motorbikes to triple-decker buses, that always look as if they are ready to topple over – and sometimes they do. One is not allowed the luxury of laid-back driving here, no matter whether you are on the rare straightaway, or navigating the winding mountain roads, so I've become quite accustomed to focused concentration on the road. I think I have a pretty good handle on the complex, unwritten rules and I think I'm ready for the unexpected. I didn't expect the white van coming at us in our lane at the top of one hill as we were wheeling towards Yin Dee. It's the closest I've ever come to a high speed, head-on collision.

The scene: I'm traveling up a steep grade with twisting turns in second gear in our small Nissan – there are motorbikes behind me, in front of me and on either side of me – (motorbikes play 'first man to the top wins' on steep grades). I get to the top of the precipitous hill (allowing all motorbikes to win), shift up to third gear as I begin leveling out, breathing easily as I make the last sharp turn, only to find myself staring at nose of an oncoming, speeding white van in my lane that is passing a long line of vehicles in his lane. There is no time. It's all happening too fast for my American driving habits. The van driver knows that any vehicle he might encounter coming from the opposite direction on that turn has 'just enough' room to swerve to the left against a guard rail and get out of his bloody way. He's betting against odds that a scared shitless "farange" (foreigner) won't be coming at him in that curve. He lost the bet, and we almost both lost our lives. Somehow, with a survival reflex I didn't know I had, I yanked my wheel to the left, hugged the guardrail and watched the side of his van miss our vehicle by about three inches at 50mph – combined speeds potentially creating a 90mph collision. I saw his face (he needed a shave) and his expression told me that he too thought we were all on our way to reincarnation (certainly not nirvana). Happily, A is a trusting and savvy passenger and I was so thankful that she didn't scream out (although I know her guts wanted to) and distract me into a mistake. We survived it and a lot of deep-breath, fear-shaking silence followed. It was another reality show, Thai driving lesson.

The meal at Yin Dee was grand and genteel to the nines – the picture perfect setting for a Valentine dinner. We then headed out to Simon Cabaret; a fabulous stage show performed by gorgeous gay, transvestite and transgender males. We will have to go again, because A missed too much of the show while concentrating on shooting photos. Like my promise to post again about driving in Thailand, I promise to post more extensively about the wonderful, highly respected, overtly gay community on the island.

We ended the evening by stopping at Klab Kluai, a Thai restaurant owned by Khun Nit and his wife, one of the best amongst the best Thai people I've ever known. I hadn't seen Khun Nit in over three years and the exuberant greeting, with hugs and laughter brought tears to my eyes. He whisked us to a table in his simple, Thai style outdoor restaurant and was ordering food for us before we were seated, and before we had a chance to tell him that we had just eaten a large meal. A and I looked at each other wide-eyed, wondering how in the hell we could stuff another morsel into our bellies. The food that came at us was out of this world. It is easily the best Thai food I've ever experienced and we discovered that it wasn't that hard at all to down the delicious flavors – tom yum soup, spicy chicken with cashews, stuffed crabs with a hot peanut sauce (to die for) and a steamed wrap of eggs laden with all sorts of seafood. We couldn't eat it all, of course, so we brought home a bag of goodies to munch on the next day.

Khun Nit and I caught up on small news and big news (the biggest being that I was finally with a wonderful woman who also loves Thailand). All my Thai friends are very happy to see me here with a partner at last.

Me too – 'happy-happy spend Varentine Day with loving pahn-ra-yah' (wife).