Adventure!! - part 1
Well, a little bit anyway... ;)
Yesterday afternoon I was having some English conversation class with the son of my yogateacher when Dada called, my computer student, the dentist had asked Dada if he could help with the car to move some stuff from Bangkok to Rayong.
But the car was in Rayong while Dada was in BKK, so he called me to ask if I could drive the car to Dada's house in BKK?
Well, as I've said before driving in Thailand was no problem and driving TO BKK was not a problem, but he was asking me to drive the car INTO BKK.. :o
I've been in BKK many times now and one thing is a constant, the traffic, from 5 in the morning till 11 in the evening there is a traffic jam and how in hell to find my way to the house??
But I decided to give it a try anyway.. Dada had told me where to get off the highway, so it should be ok.
And as I expected reaching BKK was quite easy, the motorway is quite good and traffic wasn't too bad and the car behaved very well, so it took me two hours to reach BKK, a very good time.
But then the BKK outer-ring started and it turned out there was quite some construction going on, but unlike in Holland, the parts with construction aren't marked well in advance, no you're just driving along and suddenly there's a roadblock ahead, with just seconds time to decide to brake or to move to a different lane.. Very dangerous. And of course it caused a lot of delay, a few miles of standing and slow moving traffic.. And that's where the car showed it's one big defect, the gearbox, sometimes when you want to shift gear it just refuses to go into a new gear and you have to stop the car, turn it off and start again, that trick always seems to fix it. :) So in the end I just drove the whole traffic jam in second gear, low enough to accelerate and high enough to move along with traffic when it was moving.
In the end it took me more than an hour more to get from the edge of BKK to the house, still not too bad considering the traffic, I even managed to find the right street and the house in one try! :)
That was the trip to BKK, tomorrow part two, the trip back home, another adventure. ;)
Yesterday afternoon I was having some English conversation class with the son of my yogateacher when Dada called, my computer student, the dentist had asked Dada if he could help with the car to move some stuff from Bangkok to Rayong.
But the car was in Rayong while Dada was in BKK, so he called me to ask if I could drive the car to Dada's house in BKK?
Well, as I've said before driving in Thailand was no problem and driving TO BKK was not a problem, but he was asking me to drive the car INTO BKK.. :o
I've been in BKK many times now and one thing is a constant, the traffic, from 5 in the morning till 11 in the evening there is a traffic jam and how in hell to find my way to the house??
But I decided to give it a try anyway.. Dada had told me where to get off the highway, so it should be ok.
And as I expected reaching BKK was quite easy, the motorway is quite good and traffic wasn't too bad and the car behaved very well, so it took me two hours to reach BKK, a very good time.
But then the BKK outer-ring started and it turned out there was quite some construction going on, but unlike in Holland, the parts with construction aren't marked well in advance, no you're just driving along and suddenly there's a roadblock ahead, with just seconds time to decide to brake or to move to a different lane.. Very dangerous. And of course it caused a lot of delay, a few miles of standing and slow moving traffic.. And that's where the car showed it's one big defect, the gearbox, sometimes when you want to shift gear it just refuses to go into a new gear and you have to stop the car, turn it off and start again, that trick always seems to fix it. :) So in the end I just drove the whole traffic jam in second gear, low enough to accelerate and high enough to move along with traffic when it was moving.
In the end it took me more than an hour more to get from the edge of BKK to the house, still not too bad considering the traffic, I even managed to find the right street and the house in one try! :)
That was the trip to BKK, tomorrow part two, the trip back home, another adventure. ;)
posted by Richard | 22:22
3 Comments:
Well, at least you found the house! :) Glad you made it back in one piece, looking forward to reading the second part. I think it's quite brave to just start driving in a strange country, with a strange car with strange gears, strange roadblocks even!
Hi Richard, funny isn't it, how Holland stays with you all the time. The rain, the trafficjams ... What'll be next? I hope something positive for a change. Otherwise ... well ... we know you'll make it anyhow. ;)
I'm looking forward to read part two, too. Take care!
Kathleen
It's not really a lot like Dutch traffic here, much more chaotic. ;)
And really almost everything here has been positive so far, so don't worry.. Traffic and rain can't ruin my fun here. :)
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