It is crazy out there
During a 20-minute taxi trip Saturday night the following happened:
First the driver refused to speak to me. He had the radio on loud and listened to a football match in England. At the half time break he suddenly let go of the steering wheel and clapped his hands. He looked at me and laughed.
I rolled my eyes.
- Are you interested in football? the driver asked.
- Not really. Are you gambling?
- Yes. I am about to win 10 000 baht.
Secondly we came to an intersection were perhaps 50 motorbikes were gathered. They blocked normal traffic. The drivers were young men, each with a girl on the back of the bike. The crowd reeked of aggression and arrogance.
- Dangerous, said the driver.
I locked the door.
- It is a motorbike gang? They are racing? I asked.
- They are goolian, said the driver.
- They are what?
- Goolian. Mafia. Same have in England.
The driver let go of the steering again to illustrate violence by boxing in the air.
- Hooligans? Oh I see.
A couple of the motorbike drivers backed off enough to let us through. I wondered where the police were. I saw them later 1 km away and they did not look like they were in a hurry to do anything.
Third, we were driving on a road with three lanes, two in our direction and one coming towards us. There was little traffic and the taxi I was in was doing 80 km an hour.
A man on a motorbike came towards us. He wore no helmet. Suddenly he left his lane and headed straight towards us. My driver braked as hard as he could and did a manoeuvre to avoid hitting the motorbike. The man on the motorbike yelled something and kicked his foot in our direction. My taxi stopped completely and the driver looked in the rear mirror. I could tell he was angry.
- He is crazy, I said. – Go go!
I didn’t want to stick around if the taxi driver and the motorbike guy wished to discuss the fine details.
The motorbike guy disappeared, still doing good speed, and we did not follow him.
The 2nd half of the football game began and the driver turned up the radio again. It seemed the entertainment quota was used up for this trip, and nothing further happened the last five minutes of the ride home.
Tag: gay Thailand
October 16th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
wow. scary scary.
October 16th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I remember looking out of my high-rise hotel window whilst on holiday in KL a year or so ago.
It overlooked a busy intersection controlled by traffic lights.
A group of about 20 mopeds stopped at the lights in a haphazard fashion. More arrived.
Then one moped rider made a misjudgement and collided with another and fell off. He took off his helmet, threw it to the ground (making it useless in the future no doubt) and attacked the guy he collided with.
]
In seconds, the proverbal riot errupted! there were fists flying everywhere, people chasing each other, bikes falling over. It was pandemonium!
[exciting to watch though
Then the lights changed and traffic started to move. They all got back on their mopeds and rode off! Wierd.
October 16th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
Somehow the thought of biker gangs on mopeds doesn’t strike as much fear in my heart as seeing the Hell’s Angels on a ride up Coastal Highway 1 on their Harley-Davidson “hogs”. Still, when you get a bunch of young people clustered together on a road and they have malevolence on their mind, I’m sure it will get the hair on the back of your neck standing up.
October 17th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Why do:
- motorcycle gang people take off their helmets to fight?
- US football players take off their helmets to fight?
- US baseball players throw their bat away to fight?
- Hockey players take off their gloves and drop their sticks to fight?
There’s one great moment in sports that I’ve always wanted to witness, but have never seen. That’s a fight between two water polo teams.
October 18th, 2006 at 1:41 am
Don’t forget all those seemingly slight boys were taught the Thai national sport at school…