Taxi

So we get a taxi from the airport. You tell the guy running the thing where you are going, he gives you a price, and you get in the next taxi in line - pretty typical. We paid 450 Baht (about $15), which was expensive from what I heard, but we pretty much didn't care at that point.

Thailand has roads and lanes and traffic laws and signs just like the US, but no one really seems to notice, care, or abide them. There are 3 lanes on the street, but for some reason we are travelling in a 4th lane on the shoulder. We pass within inches of cars around us and squeeze into spots that you didn't think a car could fit. We are driving on the left side of the road, the driver sits on the right side of the car.

I don't know if it's because I was so tired, or because I figured the driver was a "professional", but I didn't really care about the driving. Seinfeld does a routine about taxi drivers, talking about how they drive like lunatics but we all just sit in the back thinking they know what they're doing. That's pretty much how I felt. Anyway, we made it. Traffic, as warned, is ridiculous. Kane said one red light lasted about 10 minutes. And others would cycle green to red repeatedly and we would go nowhere. Like LA, I guess. But with no laws. Don't drive here is the lesson.

Our ride took us 1.5 hours to get to our seedy hotel in Banglamphu - a travellers district of Bangkok. It's nasty here, I don't know why I thought we would like it. We'll move on soon.