Drive

Staying in Bangkok…. Do I miss Singapore? No. Do I miss my pals.. No also… why? Almost every darn week.. there are people coming form Singapore. And with so much work stuffed up my arse.. I had to squeeze time to go visit them. 2 weeks ago.. Uncle Presvin, Gary. Last week, Willie Tan. This week, my cousin (The Wong Fei Hong look alike one that sold me my car.) and yesterday.. my mum and the whole ching gang of aunties inclusive of my antique grandmother.
Been really able to drive around a lot over Bangkok lately. But as my mental road map of Bangkok gains in size, so does my frustration. By the way, we got our Volvo back.. repaired the gearbox.. I was hoping for an engine swap (Supra engine) but I guess that will have to wait till next time. Ok… I have a map of Bangkok… but it is no darn use. When reach junctions, roads that were physically present does not appear on map. And when looking for subjects in map such as a highway exit, on reaching physical location… the junction mysteriously disappeared from the face of Bangkok. And when I am lost.. all blardee signs are in Thai.

When asking friends for directions… broken English leads to lost driver in Bangkok. And when driving on highways, the number of exits encountered on some locations are like cock hair. On reaching cock hair junction, all exits signs have very unfamiliar names. Will die one!
Therefore… I navigate like a sailor now. I ignore all road signs. I use tall buildings as landmarks and I drive in general directions. Seems like all the roads are squarely crisscrossed in Bangkok and I always managed to reach my destination somehow. I use the sun to tell which direction I am heading too.

Drawbacks…. Drove in wrong directions occasionally on roads and caught by police once. Drove into roads that do not have u-turns. Drove wrongly up some expressway that leads me to a u-turn only 2 kilometers away. Drove passed the same 7-11 more then four times. Drove and on reaching junction realize cannot turn right. Drove into lanes with oncoming traffic because I did not understand the road sign that suppose to say time of traffic direction change. Drove wrongly up the toll way and have to pay. Drove to strange place that if want to make u-turn, got no choice but to go off-road into some fields and come out form junctions that I made myself. Drove like tortoise and held up traffic. Drove and made sudden turns almost making carpet out of some motorcyclist. Drove up pedestrian road pavement to park my car illegally. Dove into very small lanes that does not look like it is meant for a car. Drove into a bird. Drove constantly with Hokkien verses blabbering out of my mouth. Bla bla bla bla bla….

Why don’t they have more multilingual road signs!