Walking in Bangkok is like One Giant Game of Frogger
Alright ladies and gentleman, men and women, boys and girls, here it is the long-promised (and definitely overdue) blogpost. As of this Thursday (9/21), I have officially lived in Bangkok for two months. With that being said, I have experienced and learned a lot already so I am going to try to encapsulate some of the glamorous and not-so-glamorous experiences and encounters I have had thus far. My aim is to get more consistent with posting but I will do my best "cliff notes" here to get it started now.
Let's start simple: the title of this blogpost--Walking in Bangkok is like one giant game of Frogger. You know the one I'm talking about: the cute little frog attempts to hop his way across levels and levels of traffic without getting run over by the tractor trailer whizzing by, squishing the sad, unseeing frog to the pavement like vulture food or waiting for him to be scooped up by the alligator when hopping onto those (sometimes) disappearing logs across the river. If the frog does make his way successfully across this, he hops his little frog body into a little square of froggy freedom where he gets to eat a nice fly snack. So what the heck does this have to do with Bangkok?
I'm so glad you asked. Bangkok is one of the most traffic-filled cities in the world but has not quite built up the infrastructure to support it's growing population and expanding community of motorists. Coming from the DC metropolitan area, I KNOW traffic, but, believe me when I say this, traffic in Bangkok is a whole next-level kind of deal with it's own set of bendable traffic laws. While there are (sort of) sidewalks throughout the city, one would quickly notice that driving, walking and really just taking up any sort of space on the downtown streets of Bangkok can be dangerous. Some background that is important for you to know:
Taxis: Some of the cabs here are pink. Pink. Not yellow. Not red. Pink. Like, hot pink. If they aren't pink, they are likely half yellow/half green. If they are yellow and green, this is an indication that the cap is likely owned by the driver. These tend to be the cleaner, more well taken care of cabs. Another thing to note is that taxi drivers will say "no" to you if you give them an address somewhere that they don't like or don't want to go there. On some occasions they may also kick you out of the cab if they decide during the ride at any point that they don't want to go to the destination anymore or traffic is too bad to get you there. One day, this happened to me 3 times in a row.
If a regular cab isn't cutting it, you can always try a motor taxis. It is exactly as it sounds. A guy on a motorcycle/motorbike that is a taxi driver. This means as the passenger, you hop right on the back of it. These are more dangerous but sure to get you to your location faster as they can weave in and out of the lanes of traffic even when everyone else is stopped (see above understandings on traffic laws).
At first, you wouldn't have caught me dead on one of those motor taxis, but now, and sometimes with a few adult beverages, I hop right on the backs of those babies and zoom through to my destination faster. I recently commuted to work on one of them when attending a professional development conference downtown. This got me to the conference in 20 minutes instead of the 45 minutes it would have taken me in a regular cab. I am getting better at looking like a local on them; however, the first time I rode one, I held onto the taxi driver so tightly that he was cracking up. It was only after I got off that I learned why. Apparently, when you take a motor taxi you are supposed to hold onto the handles on the sides of the seat, not wrap your arms around the driver. Needless to say, he must have enjoyed it because he only charged me 20 baht (about 1 USD) for the ride where my friends and colleagues each paid 50-80 baht (about 2-3 USD). Some key terms to know for the taxi driver include (spelled phonetically) Yo sai (turn left), yo kwa (turn right), Tong pie (go straight) and jootini (stop here).
If all is lost, you could always just take a party tuk-tuk. (See pictures).
Key Phrases and one big grammatical thing: Becoming a local requires that you at least attempt to learn the language a little bit. Aside from the above taxi lingo, I have started to learn some important key phrases. Most of this will be spelled phonetically in case you want to try practicing these phrases yourself.
Sah-wah-dee-kah-- This means hello/goodbye from a female
Sah-wah-dee-kahp-- This means hello/goodbye from a male
Kahp-khun-kah-- This means thank you from a female
Kahp-khun-kahp-- This means thank you from a male
MA- this means dog (of course I know this one)
Ma-ow- this means cat
Jet-sip-et-- this means the number 71 and is important for me to know since my house is on the street number 71
Soi- street
Pridi-alley
Khlong- like a canal/river
Moo-bahn- neighborhood
Chi- Yes
Mai-No
For-ang- foreigner
So the big grammatical thing is that women say "kah" at the end of almost everything and men say "kahp". More language lessons to come. For example, I would said, "chi kah" if I wanted to say yes.
Money: The money here is called "baht" like saying bat with an accent. 100 baht is about 3 USD. The bills are 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 baht. The coins are 1, 2, 5 and 10 baht. A meal at a nice restaurant with a beer in downtown Bangkok can run you anywhere from 200/300 baht to 500/600 baht. Street food is cheaper and you can get a whole meal for under 100 baht.
Toilet: You can't flush toilet paper down the toilet. There are little trash cans next to every toilet for you to throw it out in. The sewer systems and pipes cannot handle the tissue paper or anything else down the drains. Also, in many bathrooms, there isn't even toilet paper because there are sprayers next to the toilet to spray yourself off like a wet wipe. They look like the sprayers in our kitchen sinks except they are next to the toilets. In some places there are the squat hole toilets. I have yet to use one of those so I am not really clear on the logistics of that yet. More to come later when I get braver.
Napkins: A good napkin is hard to come by here. Actually, a good napkin if you get a napkin at all is usually just toilet paper. I miss napkins.
The Dog/Cat Scene: There are stray dogs and cats EVERYWHERE. At first, I thought this was sad and I felt bad for all of them until I realized the Thai people kind of take care of all the strays. They don't see these cats and dogs as strays but rather community members that after fed and cared for by the whole neighborhood/block/island/etc. With that being said, they usually get fed or find scraps, travel in packs and live outside. Some of them look pretty dirty but they pretty much leave people alone and you don't pet one unless you have gotten to know them and they have given some indication that its okay to do so. With that being said, I have been building a relationship with one particular "Ma" for quite awhile. She finally let me scratch her head last week. It was glorious. In other news, island dogs are usually friendly. One weekend I pet over 20 of them. Definitely still getting my dog fix here. Also, every once in awhile, you might see a dog with eyebrows. The jury is still out on whether or not this is some weird genetic thing or some Thai person is dying their eyebrows. Take a look.
Signing off on this blogpost. I feel like I could go on with about a million other thoughts about my time so far but I think I will save some of those things for the next post. For now, I leave you with a few of my favorite pictures so far of some friends I have made and some views I have seen. I will write more soon!
Let's start simple: the title of this blogpost--Walking in Bangkok is like one giant game of Frogger. You know the one I'm talking about: the cute little frog attempts to hop his way across levels and levels of traffic without getting run over by the tractor trailer whizzing by, squishing the sad, unseeing frog to the pavement like vulture food or waiting for him to be scooped up by the alligator when hopping onto those (sometimes) disappearing logs across the river. If the frog does make his way successfully across this, he hops his little frog body into a little square of froggy freedom where he gets to eat a nice fly snack. So what the heck does this have to do with Bangkok?
I'm so glad you asked. Bangkok is one of the most traffic-filled cities in the world but has not quite built up the infrastructure to support it's growing population and expanding community of motorists. Coming from the DC metropolitan area, I KNOW traffic, but, believe me when I say this, traffic in Bangkok is a whole next-level kind of deal with it's own set of bendable traffic laws. While there are (sort of) sidewalks throughout the city, one would quickly notice that driving, walking and really just taking up any sort of space on the downtown streets of Bangkok can be dangerous. Some background that is important for you to know:
- In Thailand, Thais drive (and walk) on the opposite side of the roads/sidewalks than we do in the U.S. exactly like England. For a foreigner like me, this has been an especially difficult thing to get used to as I am consistently looking the wrong way first before crossing the street.
- Traffic laws: While I am not driving here, it has become apparent that these are more of a suggestion than a requirement for most of the motorists on the road. A red light is merely a suggestion to the pack of motor scooterists deciding if they want to wait the 20 second countdown to the green light. (Hint: Most of them do not wait. ) The traffic lane lines are more of guidelines for taxi drivers to weave into and out of as necessary to get down the road faster.
- Yielding for Pedestrians? You guessed it, that's not a thing. So, as a brave new resident of the city of BKK (fancy way to say Bangkok here), I typically just shut my eyes and start crossing those streets hoping that all the motorcyclists, taxi drivers and various other motorists swerve to miss me or stop, annoyed, as I quickly pass over every city block street or small alley.
- Of all of these hazards, there is one thing that is absolutely ESSENTIAL to know: Once you've committed to crossing that street, under no circumstances, I repeat, NO CIRCUMSTANCES, should you chicken out and run back. This is most surely the best way that you will get hit by a motor-scooter zooming by, when they were swerving to avoid you in the first place
Taxis: Some of the cabs here are pink. Pink. Not yellow. Not red. Pink. Like, hot pink. If they aren't pink, they are likely half yellow/half green. If they are yellow and green, this is an indication that the cap is likely owned by the driver. These tend to be the cleaner, more well taken care of cabs. Another thing to note is that taxi drivers will say "no" to you if you give them an address somewhere that they don't like or don't want to go there. On some occasions they may also kick you out of the cab if they decide during the ride at any point that they don't want to go to the destination anymore or traffic is too bad to get you there. One day, this happened to me 3 times in a row.
If a regular cab isn't cutting it, you can always try a motor taxis. It is exactly as it sounds. A guy on a motorcycle/motorbike that is a taxi driver. This means as the passenger, you hop right on the back of it. These are more dangerous but sure to get you to your location faster as they can weave in and out of the lanes of traffic even when everyone else is stopped (see above understandings on traffic laws).
At first, you wouldn't have caught me dead on one of those motor taxis, but now, and sometimes with a few adult beverages, I hop right on the backs of those babies and zoom through to my destination faster. I recently commuted to work on one of them when attending a professional development conference downtown. This got me to the conference in 20 minutes instead of the 45 minutes it would have taken me in a regular cab. I am getting better at looking like a local on them; however, the first time I rode one, I held onto the taxi driver so tightly that he was cracking up. It was only after I got off that I learned why. Apparently, when you take a motor taxi you are supposed to hold onto the handles on the sides of the seat, not wrap your arms around the driver. Needless to say, he must have enjoyed it because he only charged me 20 baht (about 1 USD) for the ride where my friends and colleagues each paid 50-80 baht (about 2-3 USD). Some key terms to know for the taxi driver include (spelled phonetically) Yo sai (turn left), yo kwa (turn right), Tong pie (go straight) and jootini (stop here).
If all is lost, you could always just take a party tuk-tuk. (See pictures).
Key Phrases and one big grammatical thing: Becoming a local requires that you at least attempt to learn the language a little bit. Aside from the above taxi lingo, I have started to learn some important key phrases. Most of this will be spelled phonetically in case you want to try practicing these phrases yourself.
Sah-wah-dee-kah-- This means hello/goodbye from a female
Sah-wah-dee-kahp-- This means hello/goodbye from a male
Kahp-khun-kah-- This means thank you from a female
Kahp-khun-kahp-- This means thank you from a male
MA- this means dog (of course I know this one)
Ma-ow- this means cat
Jet-sip-et-- this means the number 71 and is important for me to know since my house is on the street number 71
Soi- street
Pridi-alley
Khlong- like a canal/river
Moo-bahn- neighborhood
Chi- Yes
Mai-No
For-ang- foreigner
So the big grammatical thing is that women say "kah" at the end of almost everything and men say "kahp". More language lessons to come. For example, I would said, "chi kah" if I wanted to say yes.
Money: The money here is called "baht" like saying bat with an accent. 100 baht is about 3 USD. The bills are 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 baht. The coins are 1, 2, 5 and 10 baht. A meal at a nice restaurant with a beer in downtown Bangkok can run you anywhere from 200/300 baht to 500/600 baht. Street food is cheaper and you can get a whole meal for under 100 baht.
Toilet: You can't flush toilet paper down the toilet. There are little trash cans next to every toilet for you to throw it out in. The sewer systems and pipes cannot handle the tissue paper or anything else down the drains. Also, in many bathrooms, there isn't even toilet paper because there are sprayers next to the toilet to spray yourself off like a wet wipe. They look like the sprayers in our kitchen sinks except they are next to the toilets. In some places there are the squat hole toilets. I have yet to use one of those so I am not really clear on the logistics of that yet. More to come later when I get braver.
Napkins: A good napkin is hard to come by here. Actually, a good napkin if you get a napkin at all is usually just toilet paper. I miss napkins.
The Dog/Cat Scene: There are stray dogs and cats EVERYWHERE. At first, I thought this was sad and I felt bad for all of them until I realized the Thai people kind of take care of all the strays. They don't see these cats and dogs as strays but rather community members that after fed and cared for by the whole neighborhood/block/island/etc. With that being said, they usually get fed or find scraps, travel in packs and live outside. Some of them look pretty dirty but they pretty much leave people alone and you don't pet one unless you have gotten to know them and they have given some indication that its okay to do so. With that being said, I have been building a relationship with one particular "Ma" for quite awhile. She finally let me scratch her head last week. It was glorious. In other news, island dogs are usually friendly. One weekend I pet over 20 of them. Definitely still getting my dog fix here. Also, every once in awhile, you might see a dog with eyebrows. The jury is still out on whether or not this is some weird genetic thing or some Thai person is dying their eyebrows. Take a look.
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| Eyebrow Dog |
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| This is a stray dog at a temple in Chang Mai. |
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