Living like a local in Bangkok: # 1

Bangkok traffic

My 30 minute ride to work on a rickety old Bangkok bus is often the highlight of my day. I don’t like to ride in taxis, although they are cheap, convenient and trustworthy; which is more than I can say about the taxis in Hanoi. The sky train is great but it is modern and does not give an authentic Asian feel. The open-air buses have aged character and once I jump on I really feel like I am in Bangkok.

Bangkok open-air bus

I take my seat and a lady in a standard blue uniform comes to give me a ticket. It usually takes me a few times to explain where I am going. My trip costs 8 Baht. Catching the bus is a great way to weave into the local culture through observation. I enjoy people watching; seeing locals going about their normal lives and really showing no interest in me. Today I found a seat at the back of the bus, sitting in the middle with a guy on either side. The one on my left was an older guy, wide mouthed and asleep with his head resting on the window. He had three big bags of mangoes and one bag of flowers at his feet. He was wearing a large fake pink emerald ring on his index finger. It seemed a bit out of place. The guy on my right was much younger, muscular, with a spray on type grey t-shirt. He wore army pants and big black boots. He had a laptop strap around his neck, the laptop resting in his lap. He was also sleeping, his head bent forward. Sitting in the middle meant I had nothing to hold on to. This was needed as the driver often slammed on his brakes, jolting me along the seat, pulling up just short of the vehicle in front. The guy to my right woke suddenly, still drunk with sleep, before dozing off again.

Bangkok Bus

The bus shook as we drove along, gears grinding loudly. The seats are old but all in decent condition. The back of some seats have graffiti tags. The bus has wooden floorboards and a few poles to hold onto for support. On the ceiling are blue and green revolving fans, a brief reprieve from the humid Bangkok weather. We stop and start our way through the busy late afternoon traffic.

The open-air bus also gives you a bird’s eye view of everything that is happening on the street outside. There is so much to see in Bangkok. My eyes darted from image to image trying to take in the scene. We passed street food and markets, shopping centers and large Buddha’s. People were everywhere going about their day. Canals run adjacent to the main road with small houses packed along the water. In many places there is construction on building sites. Services take to the streets and on one corner there were two men, one repairing shoes, the other fixing watches and an old women working tirelessly on a sewing machine on the pavement only a meter from the main road. Next to them was a young guy selling DVD’s and a girl selling fruit. As we crawled along smells from the street vendors would find us on the bus.

Bangkok canal

The ride, somehow, relaxes me and puts me in a good mood before I go off and teach my class. Living in a different culture requires an effort to do what the locals do. Catching the open-air buses is a simple, easy and in my opinion enjoyable way of doing this.