Travelogue 1 Jan. 17 - Bangkok
 
Things I have learned on my first day and a half: PEOPLE AFRAID OF TRAFFIC - STAY HOME!

I hold my breath while walking along busy streets or riding in non-air-conditioned (and therefore open-windowed) buses. This is not due to the smells, which are bad enough but which I have gotten used to in years travelling abroad, but due to the exhaust. I have learned to hold my breath for several blocks at a time. The blue in my face is better than the grey from exhaust, I figure.

I watch for motorcycles on the sidewalk. Motorcyles snake kamikaze-like through mounds of traffic. But when traffic is too much, hell, just jump up on the sidewalk to get around it. But as an assertive (OK, aggressive) Montreal driver, I am thoroughly impressed at the control these drivers have. Huge tour buses share six-lane roads with taxis, three-wheeled tuk-tuks, mini-vans and motorcyles. Huge toru buses back out of driveways into traffic on streets that make Cambie/16th at rush hour look like a dead-end street in the middle of the night. Buses come within a hair's breadth of one another while motorcyles pass right across three lanes of moving traffic (and I mean perpendicularly across or even against traffic, not your average changing-lanes-cutting-people-off moves. But they're all so aware of what's going on and so quick on their reflexes I have yet to see even a slight fender bender. And if someone comes too close, it's such an oddity that a screech will draw everyone's attention.

People wear all manner of headdress/masks to ward off the exhaust, including knitted balaclavas in the 35 degree heat, and bandanas that make them look like they're about to rob a bank.

Crossing roads is like something out of a cartoon. There are hardly any lights that will completely block traffic in one direction as they want to keep traffic moving as much as possible. So pedestrians have to cross one lane at a time while traffic moves around them. Typically, a street will have one lane in one direction and three in the other. So you look for traffic to slow in one direction, run across those lanes, then stop and wait for the traffic to slow in the other direction, while the traffic behind you starts up again. Uncertainty is NOT advised. There are painted crosswalks but I've realized they are just suggestions of where to cross.
Sidewalk vendors sell chicken kabobs, fried dumplings, sliced fruite, fresh-squeezed juice and pressed fish. Don't know what the fish is all about but I'll give it a go when I get more used to the food.

I've had to learn to lift my feet several inches when I walk so I don't trip over the broken sidewalks, manhole covers askew in the middle of a sidewalk and the odd pipe that juts out fo the ground for no apparent reason.
At red lights motorbikes all sneak up between cars to get to the front so when the light changes, they're the first ones off an it looks like the tour de France of morotbikes has just left.

The transportation system is not hard to figure out but you need to find someone to write out directions in Thai to give to bus drivers if you need to get off at a certain stop. And I've discovered I need three maps to get around. The bus map doesn't actually show the names of the skytrain stops. For that you need a tourist city map. And some maps show the "intended" skytrain route, without actually saying it's intended and doesn't exist yet.

Overall, I'm loving and hating the city. Dirty and noisy but so full of life. I'll be here at least another week as I wait for some visas to come through. Next insert perhaps I'll write about some tourist stuff I might actually do.
Bye from Bangkok.