Taxi. Meter.

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in This Is Thailand . . .

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Maybe it’s just that I’m getting old, but I’m starting to think about my after-life. No one really knows for sure what happens to you after you die, but I’m kinda drawn to the idea of reincarnation. The faithful of those faiths that hang their hat on that ideal believe that if you are a good man in this life in your next one you’ll come back further along the road to enlightenment. If not you get demoted down a few rungs on the enlightenment/evolutionary scale. So you could come back as a cockroach. Or if you really broke the karma bank, like some fans of Sunee Plaza, in your next life you’ll be an even lower life form. Like Dick Cheney.

But that’s all guess work. What really happens, and how that comes about is a mystery. But I think I should hedge my bets. For all I know when you die you only have a second to call dibs on who or what you’ll be the next time around. And if you are not prepared with a quick answer, then your fate rests on the spin of the wheel. And who wants to take the chance that you’ll end up spending the next eighty years or so as a straight man? Or worse, a lesbian? So I’ve been mulling over my options. And I think I’d like to try my hand next time around as a taxi driver in Bangkok.

I’d guess most of those prepared enough with an answer would go with being a multi-millionaire. Or billionaire. But your answer could also be a test. Just to see how greedy you are. And even if it isn’t, despite the riches, I wouldn’t want to spend even one lifetime as one of the Koch brothers. But being a taxi driver in Bangkok would suit me well. ‘Cuz spending your life fucking with the minds of touri would be lots of fun. I thought of being a tuk tuk driver too, just as an option. But I don’t know that even reincarnated my system could handle taking that many naps daily. So driving a taxi is gonna be my choice.

I used to wage a private battle with Bangkok taxi drivers. Especially those at the airport. Except my first. A total novice to how things operate in Thailand at the time, I have no idea if I got ripped off on the fare or not. I’m assuming I did. But along with no doubt a quoted fixed fare I was offered a girl almost as soon as my ass hit the backseat of the cab. And when I showed no interest, that offer quickly got changed to a boy. It was years and several trips later before I started enjoying the commercial sex offerings of the Kingdom, but as an introduction to the country, knowing I could have the guy of my dreams even before checking into my hotel told me that Thailand and I would have a long and enjoyable future together. But from that ride forward, it was all down hill. Well, except for that commercial sex thingy.

No longer a newbie and wise to the ways of taxi drivers in the Big Mango, when a driver tried to scam me with a quoted fix fare from there on in I took it as a personal insult. And devised ways of scamming them right back. That doesn’t make for a warm fuzzy welcome back, but does help you get into the right mindset for the rest of your visit as soon as you go feet wet. But I’ve mellowed. Now when one tries the fixed fare scam on me I just laugh at him. Or if he’s an old guy and obviously not fresh off the farm I give him a taste of nostalgia and say, “Taxi. Meter.”

Back in the day there were taxis and taxi meters plying the roads of Bangkok. The former were for haggling your fare, the later for using a meter. And touri were always warned to make sure they hailed a taxi meter instead of taking their chances on an unmetered taxi. The drivers eventually caught on and everyone switched to using a meter. Or having one in their cab. ‘Cuz haggling over the fare was and is still a fun option. At least for the driver. The latest version of the meter/no meter ploy is to use one but have it set so that runs up quicker than it is supposed to. I’ve only had that experience once. And let the driver know he was slime. Nicely, of course. But slime none the less. ‘Cuz most taxi drivers believe in reincarnation. And even Bangkok taxi driver don’t want to take the chance of coming back as member of the Tea Party.

But scam or no scam, these days I try to keep things in perspective. Bangkok is not New York. At worse, the driver is gonna try to get an extra 200 baht out of you. And that’s like six bucks. On the Big Mac index it’s even less. It’s hardly an amount to get upset over. And don’t try to tell me it’s about the principle and not the money. Because for anyone who uses that old chestnut, it’s always about the money. The value of baht is easy to lose sight of when you are dealing in that currency daily. So you end up haggling your ass off over fifty baht for the purchase of something you didn’t really need in the first place. And forget that fifty baht will feed that vendors family for the day.

If a buck fifty is really that important to you, you should have stayed home. Instead you are in Bangkok, staying at a hotel that would cost you twice as much back home and offing hot handsome men who’d be getting four times as much back home. Per hour. And even if you pay the scam fare to get into town from the airport, the same amount wouldn’t get you two blocks in a major metropolitan city in the U.S.

When I become a Bangkok taxi driver in my next life I’m gonna have that printed up on little cards to hand out to my passengers. Not all of them. Just the cheap bastards who look like they’re about to start whining. So obviously, they’ll be printed in English. And then I’m gonna pull over and drop them off in some local’s part of town where their only option for getting to their hotel is a tuk tuk. Who knows? I might come back as a taxi driver in my life after that one too.

That’s part of why I’ve been concentrating on keeping the value of baht in perspective too. Fifty baht means nothing to me now. But as a taxi driver, after paying gas, tea money, the taxi mafia, and vehicle rental I’m sure that will seem like a princely sum. I’ve already got a plan for altering the incline of the back seat in my taxi to encourage loose change to slip from passengers’ pockets. Because the small baht coins I throw on the ground to be found by one of the snake men beggars these days will one day mean the difference between having a ball of cold rice for lunch or a bowl of chicken rice.

But things for my next life are looking up these days. Thanks to the Good General wanting to turn his version of the country into a happy place (not to mention having to try to sway the taxi mafia to his side) a modest increase in Bangkok’s taxi fares is going into effect just in time for the holidays. I’d tell you what the new rate is, but taxis are so cheap in Bangkok it really doesn’t matter. What does is that taxis are not allowed to use the new rates until they have been certified by the Department of Land Transport. If they pass the inspection, they get a blue certificate decal to display on their cab. And then get to charge the new, higher rate. When I read that news I figured that meant there would be a lot of taxis with ramped up meters that wouldn’t be getting their cherished blue decal. Then I remembered, this is Thailand.

The inspections being carried out are about air-conditioning, tires, seat belts, headlights, and turn signal indicators. Not that anyone in Bangkok uses turn signals. No one is looking at the meters. ‘Cuz the new fares are only about 8% higher. And that would mean a loss for those who’ve been using a meter that’s been set to run up the fare quicker than it should. Nonetheless, something tells me – and that something is having been visiting Bangkok for far too many years – that there will soon be a large underground business in fake blue inspection labels. I tried to find a picture of the new decals on line so I could print a few out myself. I thought they’d make a great gift for the taxi drivers I use on my next visit. Those guys may become my brethren one day if everything goes as planned. And making friends with my future cohorts now just makes a lot of sense.

But If They’d Just Use A Cattle Prod . . .

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Travel Commentary

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Transportation

Air travel sucks these days, but there is one way to improve the experience for elite passengers.

I’m boycotting United Airlines and refuse to ever fly with them again. Not because they were the first to charge for baggage, or because the seem to specialize in surly flight attendants, but because they teamed with Capital One so that fans of high interest rates get to board their flights first. The only first on board privileges based on the option you selected to pay for your ticket should be when you swiped your American Express Centurion Card. Because the rich should always come first. Just as the gods intended.

Even then I’m of two minds when it comes to boarding a flight. The problem is that I’m not a fan of being on that damn plane any longer than absolutely necessary. So as much fun as it is to board first, and then enjoy the floorshow the airline puts on for you of beleaguered and bewildered lower-class passengers dragging oversized roller bags down the aisle in hopes of finding a coveted storage space while those of us who count passed ours to a flight attendant at boarding and told him or her to put it somewhere, I’d just as soon spend that time in the airline’s lounge. The one they reserve for the best of the best. And despite missing out on the refreshments that come along with the floorshow, there’s something to be said for allowing the entire plane to board before you finally make your entrance.

I miss stop-overs at Narita when I used to fly NorthWest. When you were a Passenger Who Counts, they’d hold the plane way past its scheduled take-off time waiting for your entrance. You didn’t even have to pay attention to the clock. They’d send a girl running through the airport calling your name. Nowadays when you finally make an entrance the passengers who paid to be ballast are so tired and beat down from what both the TSA and the airline just put them through they barely have the energy left to shoot daggers at you for making them dwell in hell even longer than planned. Flying today just isn’t as much fun as it once was.

Why cattle class passengers are allowed to pack their entire household in their carry-on is beyond me. It’s not like they own anything of value.

Flying once was the most expensive form of travel. And the airlines treated passengers as gods. Or at least not like freight. Then they got greedy, thinking more passengers meant more profits. Instead, they convinced those meant for bus travel that they too could fly. And the cattle said thanks by demanding lower and lower airfares. So the airlines had to cut costs and service was the first thing to go. That went so smoothly they started whittling away at everything that once made flying enjoyable. And the herd mentality said, “Moo.” Which would have been fine if they kept that to steerage where it belonged. Now even in first class you have to put up with all of the tribulations that flying has become. That means often having to stand on the tarmac waiting your turn to climb a steep flight of tacky metal stairs. And sometimes even having to catch a bus to the actual terminal because the airline was too cheap to pay for gate privileges. Seriously. If I wanted to ride on a bus I’d have taken Greyhound, not paid thrice the ticket price than did those in the back of the plane who are forced to share a bathroom with their fellow 500 passengers.

Boarding procedures were once simple and democratic. First class passengers got to board first. And then everyone else was allowed on the plane with the rest of the luggage. Now they let old people get on before others, even though any idiot knows that just slows everyone else down. Then they let passengers with infants and small children board, even though infants should not be allowed on a plane in the first place (as for small children, they’ll fit in an overhead, so what’s the problem?) Next comes each level of that airline’s frequent flyer club. And then those damn Capital One credit card holders. And it keeps going and going and going. Meanwhile, those of us up front have to wait. We’re never supposed to have to wait. For anything. We had an iPhone 6 a week ago. A much more simple and easier way to fill the plane would be to allow first class passengers to board and get settled in. And then open the boarding gate doors and tell everyone else they have five minutes to get on and grab a seat or they’ll be left standing on the tarmac. You may think that’s an elitist attitude. But science backs me up.

Airlines are big on tradition, especially on those procedures that never worked well in the first place. Most still use the board from the back to the front scenario by default, although some airlines have updated that procedure by using groups and zones although the system and its outcome is still the same. A few, to be different, use the window to aisle filling pattern thinking that will clear the aisles fastest. It would if not for the passengers who sit in the window seat on aisle 38 when their assigned seat is the window seat in aisle 37. And Southwest started the fad of the free for all seating mob scene, though you have to give them credit for having the balls to be honest enough to admit they really don’t give a damn who you are or where you sit as long as you paid for your ticket. Air Asia used that system too until it realized it could charge passengers extra for assigning them a seat.

Group 5 is for backpackers. It leads back out to the curb in front of the airport.

Herb Kelleher, one of Souhtwest’s founders said, “Planes only make money in the air.” A statement that’s all about profits through keeping those planes full and moving shouldn’t necessarily be something passengers get behind, but if that means shortening the amount of time I have to deal with the flight experience, I’m all for it. Hiring TSA agents who weren’t shopping mall security guard rejects would probably be a good first step. But Kelleher was defending his airline’s use of the free for all seating scheme, the least favorite boarding procedure amongst passengers because far too many end up seated in the middle of a row ‘cuz they are too slow to grab a good seat before everyone else does. But that’s Darwinism at work. And it works for Mother Nature. It turns out that also works the best for loading a plane with passengers.

The brain trust at Mythbusters, a popular US television program that routinely proves how many stupid things we take for granted are lies, recently tested the four most popular plane boarding procedures for efficiency. For their speed test, they used a simulated average-sized, single-aisle airliner complete with gate-checked luggage, real-world flight attendants, and last-minute stragglers. The ever popular zone scheme, wherein first class boards first then the plane is filled by zones from the back to the front, took the longest at 24 minutes, 29 second. Because that is what is most familiar to flyers, it’s also the boarding procedure they most favor.

Next Mythbusters tested a not-so-popular boarding procedure: free for all boarding, but with assigned seats. The line nazis hate this scheme because they miss standing in a queue; the passengers who Darwinism favors dislike it because even though they get on the plane first there’s no reward. But cutting out the boarding line alone saved 17 minutes in boarding time. The test took 17 minutes, 15 seconds to fill the plane.

Forget the nuts, live midget wrestling would put a smile on every first class passenger’s face.

Filling the plane from window seat to aisle seat (after first class boards) is another variation on the zone boarding procedure and is the second most popular boarding scheme among passengers. But it fails too because you are dealing with humans and many of that species are just not too bright. In Mythbusters’ test, this boarding procedure took 14 minutes, 55 seconds. So it still is quicker than the back to front method. Until that 90-year-old woman sits in seat 34A when she’s supposed to be in 36C.

Last up was the totally unpopular, only the strongest survive, free for all boarding where everyone rushes onto the plane pushing and shoving to grab the best seat before someone else can. Note that unless you are on a budget carrier – which you shouldn’t be – there is still a first class on these flights and those passengers, rightly so, still get priority boarding. In Mythbusters’ test, this boarding procedure was the quickest. It took only 14 minutes, 7 seconds to load the plane so it could get on its way. Even better, depending on where you are seated, it provides the best floor show for first class passengers. And using the Darwin approach to plane boarding shaved ten minutes off the plane’s ground time.

Whichever class you are flying, air transportation is brutal these days. It seems to me that now that we know how a carrier can be more efficient, and can provide a better onboard entertainment experience for its passengers who count at the same time, all carriers should adopt the free for all boarding procedure. Low-cost carriers who insist on nickel and diming passengers could even make more profits by providing first class passengers a paid option for a color commentary feed of the boarding melee in the back of the plane so no one would miss the 90-year-old woman using her cane to snag a window seat away from a mother with two infants. In fact, airlines could charge more for tickets based on the passengers booked in cattle class. ‘Cuz who wouldn’t pay more to watch midget wrestling during boarding? And that, as Western Airlines once proclaimed, is the only way to fly.

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Bonus Shot: Sleeping With A Friend

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Bangkok

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Photography, Transportation

Tukered out

Today’s post was gonna be another in the 7 Shots series, but as usual trying to limit potential photos to seven was a more difficult task than planned. And I kept wanting to include this one even though it didn’t really fit the theme. But that’s the nice thing about not blogging for dollars, you can post whatever you want and any one who complains looks like an ingrate for whining about what they get for free.

I’m surprised I haven’t found an excuse to post this photo before. Not that I have a foot fetish, but the feet of kicked back tuk tuk drivers working at napping is one of my standard photographic subjects. You just don’t usually find them in pairs. Um, the drivers, not feet. But if you didn’t know better you’d assume napping is the #1 duty of tuk tuk drivers. Which ain’t a bad way to make a living. Fleece an unsuspecting tourist or two early in your day, and you can then spend the rest of it parked in some shady spot catching up on your zzzzs.

That makes finding some sucker to take to a Special One Day Only Government Sponsored Gem Sale! hardly worth the effort. Except that usually means another comfy nap while said sucker maxes out his credit card scooping up the unbelievable bargains he finds thanks to your largesse. And if he spends enough, that means either a free lunch or free bottle of booze from the gem shop. Either of which make for a good excuse for another nap.

I’m not sure what it is you have to do in your current life to qualify you for coming back in your next as a tuk tuk driver, but it’s something I aspire to. In the meantime, just in case, I think I’ll go practice now.

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7 Shots: Un-American Graffiti

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in 7 Shots, Bangkok

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Photography, Transportation

Khaosan Road is a good spot in Bangkok to see American automobiles from the ’50s. There are a lot of American hippies from the ’60s there too.

I know that title sounds like a reference to the House Committee on Un-American Activities but it’s an allusion to George Lucas and not Joe McCarthy. And while you may think Star Wars when you hear George Lucas, I think American Graffiti. ‘Cuz my buddy and I took a hit of window pane when we went to see the first Star Wars movie and those that followed have just never made any sense to me. So I’m talking about the golden years of the American automobile and not X-Wing Fighters. Not that Joe McCarthy doesn’t play into the theme of this post too: despite the gorgeous automobiles they helped produce, unions and their organizers were assumed to be commies back in the ’50s. Not unlike how the Tea Party views unions today. But then the Tea Party too is becoming a thing of the past. They’d probably have done better if their platform included bringing back the 1955 T-Bird rather than reestablishing an American utopia that never really existed outside of the television studios.

George is a local hometown hero where I live, there’s even a statue of him downtown. And, again, it’s because of American Graffiti, not Star Wars. Even though the latter would probably do more for tourism. But George’s earlier flick was a homage to the weekend nights of his teen-age years spent driving up and down the same stretch of pavement and that pavement happens to still exist and belongs to what once was a small speck of a town squatting in the Central Valley of California. Mel’s Diner, may or may not still exist too. I’d have to check. It keeps re-opening and closing again, and then opening elsewhere before being re-opened in or near its original location. Kinda like a Jedi mind trick on the local populace.

Every few years the town fathers decide it’s time to recreate the city’s golden years and promote weekend cruising along the strip again. Most are old white dudes who were born and raised in the area and somehow manage to forget their forefathers did their damn best to prohibit that activity back when they were young. And then being old white dudes who actively support the Tea Party, they also tend to forget the valley’s demographics have changed over the last fifty years and now when all the cool old cars from the ’50s and ’60s do make an appearance on the strip, they’re all low riders. So instead of downtown being filled with modern day versions of Opie from Mayberry RFD, the local Latino gangs show up, violence ensues, and the town fathers’ plans turn into a night or two of the police busting up the low riders cruising the Strip instead. Just like in the good old days. Which pisses everyone off. Except for me. ‘Cuz I’m a big fan of irony.

Outside of California, everyone thinks we are a bunch of dope-smoking hippie astral travelers, forgetting that Saint Reagan was from California. And ya know back in the day Nancy would have just said no to the idea of cruising too. The truth is the conservative right is well represented in the Golden State, and the Central Valley is a hot bed of conservatism. Not to mention Mennonites. But they don’t count because we use electronic voting machines now. So the local vote tends to go to the Republicans, even though Tea Party aficionados are out numbered by Latinos three to one. No problemo. Our governor is a dope-smoking hippie astral traveler, so anything the local conservatives attempt to do he thwarts anyway. The irony is that the Latino community is, by and large, conservative themselves. And would vote Republican if the Grand Old Party would embrace their conservative ideals instead of trying to pander to them. The Tea Party could double its voter roll by signing up new members during a low rider version of American Graffiti night if they’d spent those last fifty years getting to know their Latino neighbors instead of just hiring them as gardeners. Instead they view immigration reform in the context of a foreign invasion. And think nominating Marco Rubio as their presidential candidate will lure the massive Latino voting block to their team.

Marco is the Tea Party’s golden boy ‘cuz they think since he speaks Spanish he can reach all of the people they’d like to see deported. A ten minute conversation with their gardener would dissuade them from that train of thought. Latinos are not a homogenous voting block. When it comes to Latinos, those with the strongest prejudice against Latinos are Latinos. If you don’t believe me, go ask a Mexican if his family is from Guatemala. I’d have said Cuba – like Marco’s familia is – but then you probably wouldn’t be alive long enough for me to say I told you so. Even those Latinos who do decide to vote Republican in 2016 will not vote for Marco Rubio because he speaks Spanish; they’ll vote for anyone else because he is Cuban. Not that it matters anyway. Everyone has already conceded the race to Hillary. Which is a good thing. ‘Cuz I really want to vote for Marco, but don’t want my vote to be the one that puts him in the White House. ‘Cuz I don’t support pretty much any of his beliefs. But there is just something about him that makes me want to bang the hell out of him. And it’s about time the U.S. had a doable president. Or another eight years of Bill Clinton. Which, face it, is why Hillary will win the race.

So locally, we just had another attempt by the town fathers to turn back the hands of time, and the local paper sent a staff reporter to cover the event. They could have made the error of sending an old white Tea Party fan, but instead compounded their error by sending a fish too young to even remember the film much less the glory days of cursing the strip. Her take on the event was that celebrating the golden days of the American automobile was quickly becoming a thing of the past because all she saw was a bunch of elderly men with gray beards or gray mustaches, a rather myopic view considering the large number of Taco lunch trucks that had descended on the Strip. But she thought she’d come up with a cute twist to her story, that the only people interest in cars of that age were those of that age themselves. Which only proved fish are no better at appreciating cars from the ’50s than they are at doing math. And she decided the reason that young (white) people were under-represented at the event was because today’s youth treats its automobiles as they do most other things in their life: as a disposable commodity. Which does little to explain why most of the garages on my block turn into mini-repair and body and fender shops every weekend. But then most of those homeowners are Latino and don’t count. Until election time rolls around again.

Cambodians, on the other hand, evidently don’t count at all. There used to be a large Cambodian wat about a mile from my house. It looked nothing like the wats in SE Asia, but along with the Mennonites you would occasionally spot a monk in saffron around town. Too bad I never saw one driving a 55 T-Bird, ‘cuz that woulda been a cool photograph. But unlike the Strip, the town fathers decided that temple had nothing to do with the city’s history so they used eminent domain to buy the land, told the monks to get the Buddhist version of hell out of Dodge, and then turned around and sold it to Walmart to put in a new super-sized store. Which is a very American thing to do. So now I have to travel to SE Asia to see Cambodian monks. As well as automobiles from the ’50s. Because I’m not Latino and when they hold an American Graffiti night locally, I don’t fit in with all the low riders. But then otherwise today’s post would have been a Monk Shot! instead of a 7 Shots post, so I’m not complaining.

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TIT: In Thailand Happiness Is A State Of The Army’s Mind

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in This Is Thailand . . .

≈ 10 Comments

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Bangkok, Transportation

The people of Thailand are becoming so happy they can barely contain themselves.

First it was the Big Cock Show! on Soi Twilight, now it’s the taxi scams at Suvarnabhumi. If someone doesn’t do something about the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) soon, before you know it you’ll be able to visit the Grand Palace without finding that it is closed. And then how are you gonna get to visit three wats for only 25 baht?

With the army now running things, Thailand is at a crossroads. And under the guise of the military’s “Bringing happiness back to Thai people” program it’s taking a giant step down that slippery slope to ruin. The country has worked diligently over the last fifty years to earn its world-renown reputation and in less than a month the generals in charge of the nation have taken draconian measures to insure that reputation becomes a fond memory of the past. Where once the kingdom was known for sex, shopping, and scams – a trifecta that wasn’t difficult to find in one singular experience – the junta seems hell bent on stamping out both corruption and those things that go bump and grind in the night. And where is the happiness in that?

Even down in Pattaya things are getting ~~ugly~~ happy. A week ago they raided Sunee Plaza (again). And now the authorities are cracking down on the under-age bars on Walking Street. The raids in Sin City have been coming so fast and furious that sexpats barely have the time to take to the internet forums to wail about the end of life as they know it before the next one occurs. And back up in Bangkok the military has installed encampments both opposite the end of Soi Twilight and by Soi Cowboy, Thailand’s two most popular boulevards dedicated to prostitution (depending on whether you prefer innies or outies) to enforce happiness on the city’s commercial sex workers. With the recent closing by authorities of the Dolly prostitution complex in Surabaya, Indonesia it looks like SE Asia as a sex tourist destination is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Soon the only place left in the world where you can go for cheap sex will be the rural south of the USA. And face it, a toothless hummer at any price is never a good deal.

The face of hi-so Bangkokians suddenly confronted by happiness.

Of course it’s not just about sex, because even illicit sex is about money when done right. The NCPO is busy stamping out the tradition of tea money wherever its exists. From raiding bootleg DVD shops in Pattaya, to suppressing human trafficking gangs who prey on foreign migrant workers by forcing a mass exodus of illegal Cambodian immigrants, to installing billboards in Bangkok that preach against corruption using the unThai-like tag line “People who cheat must go to jail”, to eradicating illegal beauty clinics that use social media to advertise their services online, to the junta’s crackdown on the premiums charged for lottery tickets bearing the luckiest numbers on them, to putting an end to the taxi mafia’s rule of terror in Phuket, to a crackdown on drugs wherein narcotics officials are no longer allowed to boast about the quantity of drugs seized and instead are being forced to focus on busting the drug peddler kingpins, to stopping Bangkok taxi drivers and motocy taxis from gouging fares, to bringing an end to the time-honored holiday tradition of the jet ski scam in Pattaya, happy bank accounts in Thailand are quickly becoming extinct.

Sure the junta forced Thailand’s television monopoly to broadcast all 64 World Cup matches for free. But at the same time it is cracking down on football gambling, both online and offline, as well as SMS lucky draws. And how can you enjoy a World Cup match if there’s no chance you’ll win a few hundred baht on the outcome? If this keeps up happy Thais are gonna replace that three finger salute they borrowed from The Hunger Games with a one fingered salute that everyone in the world understands.

Maybe putting an end to the more popular scams tourists face daily in Thailand sounds like a good idea, but for old hands knowing enough to not fall for one of those con games makes repeat visitors happy. Because it’s not that misery loves company but that the misfortunes of others will always put a smile on your face. “The Grand Palace was closed?” we scoff with a slight smile on our faces . . . nothing says happiness like the feeling of being superior. But now all of that is about to change. And it’s not just the pleasure of watching others being scammed that is doomed. The warm fuzzies you get from being confronted by a scam – those unique greetings of rip-offs that tell you that you are firmly back on Thai soil once again – are meeting their bloody end too.

The junta is using its full force to ensure you can enjoy your Happy Meal happily in Thailand.

The NCPO’s latest victim of happiness is the taxi mafia at Suvarnabhumi. Major General Nirundorn Samutsakorn of the 11th Military Circle says the NCPO will be computerizing taxi operations at the airport to improve the country’s image and to prevent problems such as passengers left stranded on the road, over-charging of fares, and drivers acting improperly. Under the new system, which will be implemented by the end of the month, airport taxis and drivers would be required to register in a computer system and cab queues would be managed by a card system. All drivers would have to accept the passengers and destinations they get, which will depend on the luck of the draw. “It is expected that the mafia system will disappear, as there will be no need for someone to screen passengers for the taxis,” he said.

In the past, drivers who wanted to score the better paying long-distance fares to outlying regions, like Pattaya, had to pay the mafia to direct passengers their way. And even those taking short haul fares into the city paid to be given premium passengers instead of those who could barely afford to be scammed. Like backpackers. With the NCPO’s latest plan to make Thais happy, drivers will no longer have the mafia to trust in but will be forced to trust in the gods instead. And the military, as one of those gods, wants to put an end to the airport taxi fixed fare scam too.

Where once your not smiling taxi driver greeted you with a “Sawatdee ka,” and “500 baht, okay?” the smiling drivers of tomorrow will have to get their happiness from the meter. And that means no more playing dumb to see how far down the road you can get the driver to take you before you turn down his offer and force him to use the meter. Those happy times are no more thanks to the NCPO. With the new taxi regulations at the airport, you might as well be landing at Changi Airport. But wait! There’s more happiness!

See? The Bringing happiness back to Thai people program is working!

Those travelers in the know have always been happy about avoiding the 50 baht airport surcharge added to your fare at the official taxi queue by grabbing a cab outside of the fourth floor departures gates. Even the recent installation of barriers to prevent passengers from exiting at that floor did little to stop the practice of grabbing a cheap fare into town. Under the NCPO’s new airport system this practice will no longer be illegal. Maj Gen Nirundorn said there would be no more mafia chasing taxis away on the fourth floor. Under the new system, taxis will be allowed to pick up passengers immediately after a drop off, but will not be allowed to park and wait for a fare. So now, not only will first-time visitors get the advantage of what once required years of visits to benefit from, but it’ll take you hours after landing before you can go native and find a law to ignore.

And therein lies the rub. General Prayuth and his National Council for Peace and Order think they know the will of the Thai people. They believe free music concerts, free hair cuts, and free movie tickets to see The Legend of King Naresuan Part V is what will make the Thai people happy. And despite his comment that “Thai people, like me, have probably not been happy for nine years, but since May 22, there is happiness,” the measures being taken are not spreading smiles in the Land of Smiles. Because no one profits when you wipe out corruption. No one makes a fistful of baht when you put an end to scams. No one is going to be happy when you cut off a major source of their income. And their way of life. And those of us who have traveled to Thailand for decades, who know and love the country for what it is, are not gonna be happy when you change the very things that made us fall in love with the kingdom in the first place.

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Bonus Shot: Born To Be Wild

09 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia

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Cambodia, Photography, Transportation

No longer being a kid (by age if not maturity level) I have to admit I’m a bit jealous. The little ones today have got it pretty good. I grew up with black and white television, now kids can stream their favorite television shows to their cellphone. I had cheap metal toy guns to play with, revolvers at best that if you were lucky would include a working hammer so you could insert a cap to make a noise when you fired it. Today they have realistic looking fully automatic assault weapons that actually fire projectiles. It must be a bitch to be an Indian these days.

When I was a young ‘un, we didn’t have video games. Or the internet. Or, for the more studious, even calculators. And when puberty was in sight, the momentous event was when someone stole their older brother’s copy of Playboy and you got to see a photo of naked tit. Not that that did much for me back then either. Today, as soon as a kid figures out how to unblock parental guidance filters (that’d be around the age of six) the internet will provide him with more naked bodies than he ever dreamed existed. And for the little gay boys to be, that means dick instead of female mammaries.

On the downside, even though a good bike cost less than twenty-five bucks back then, we were free to ride our little hearts out without looking like special needs children. Helmets and pads were only worn by football players back then. Now if you let your kid ride his bike without full protective gear Social Services will come down on you like a ton of bricks. And forget about disciplining you kid with a good whack to his butt . . . that’s jail time today. In my youth if you misbehaved your school teacher could, and would, slap some smarts into your silly little head.

Technological advances have made being a kid today pure joy. Advances in customs and laws, not so much. I guess helmet laws, for example, are a good thing but there’s an argument for fate and the natural culling of the herd too. Whether on a bicycle or motorcycle, requiring all riders to wear crash helmets undoubtedly saves a lot of lives, but many of those people are those whose only contribution to society would be as organ donors anyway. So when I see the littlest riders sans helmet zipping down the roadway, a fairly common sight in SE Asia, I don’t react in horror like some do but instead think how cute the kid looks and appreciate how much fun he’s having. I think kids need to be allowed to be kids. Even when that means they’ll never make it to being an adult. But then that may be why the gods made sure I’ll never have one of my own.

Nonetheless, a cute kid on a motorcycle always makes for a good photo op. I spotted this little tyke parked along the street in Siem Reap. No telling where his parents were, but he didn’t seem to care. And he’d mastered looking cool on a motocy to boot; he’s got the born to be wild look down pat. Which is pretty hard to pull off, even at that age, when you are on a Honda.

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Bonus Shot: Traveling In Cattle Class

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cambodia, Photography, Transportation

In response to my post yesterday, 7 Shots: Beasts Of Burden, a reader sent in this shot from his recent trip through Cambodia of a truck that went with horizontal instead of the typical vertical load. Looks like since American fast food chains haven’t made much of an in-road into the Cambodian market yet, the locales haven’t quite nailed down the idea of drive-thrus.

Thanks Wen!

7 Shots: Beasts Of Burden

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Bangkokbois in 7 Shots

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Tags

Photography, Transportation

One of my holiday traditions each year when I lived in Hawaii was going to the local Xmas tree lot to pick up my 10-12′ noble fir in my 911. Just watching the salesperson’s face when he carried the tree out to my car was worth the over-inflated price you pay for a touch of the mainland during the winter holiday season in Hawaii. My Porsche was a Targa, so with the top off there was plenty of room for the tree. And the shade it cast on the ride home was a nice bonus too. On those few times when I needed to haul something more substantial, finding someone with a truck to borrow was never a problem. There are benefits to having lots of lesbians in your circle of friends.

In SE Asia, that car may have drawn some attention, that it was being used as a beast of burden, not so much. In the U.S. the roads are filled with soccer moms driving SUVs that will never be taken off the road and will never tote a larger haul of cargo than their 2.5 precious little darlings. In SE Asia, that’s what a moped is for. And there’s room for Dad too. In the U.S. we have horses that can’t do their job without wearing a nose strip to help them breathe. In SE Asia a lot of the horsepower being used for transporting goods is still of the human variety. In America we have those who refuse to eat beef because they are proud of their Vegan life-style. In SE Asia families don’t eat beef because there just ain’t that much meat on the family’s cow and if there was . . . well then who would haul the cart into town?

In most municipalities in the U.S. it is against the law to ride a bicycle without wearing a safety helmet (that cost $100). In SE Asia it’s a crime against humanity to ride a bicycle that isn’t laden with several cases of beer, a gross of fresh eggs, or the day’s laundry for those weird farang who bicycle around town wearing crash helmets. In the U.S., long-haul buses have baggage limits. In SE Asia the only limit to what you can take with you on a bus is the amount of room left up top. Provided your bags don’t smother the chickens.

During football season in Northern California whenever the Raiders are playing at home, there is a traffic jam of gleaming, American made trucks all headed for the game and tailgate parties. If there is anything in their beds, it’s a cooler, or possibly a barbeque grill. I can’t remember ever seeing a truck in SE Asia that wasn’t loaded with merchandise, farm goods, or people. And loaded in SE Asia means over-loaded in a way the defies gravity. Those Raider Nation trucks do tend to have a load in back on the way home: a fan or two who drank too much and passed out. End of the day loads in SE Asia are usually human cargo too. ‘Cuz nothing is more comfortable than catching 40 winks in a bed of a truck filled with a dozen of your closest strangers.

I’m not American bashing. ‘Cuz I too was raised to believe you are what you drive. And whatever you choose to drive will never end up on your family’s dinner table in the U.S. And since we have real gas stations and not someone selling 1 liter bottles of petrol alongside the road there’s no good reason to not drive a gas guzzler either. We just have a different perspective on what transpo means. So if a vendor in the U.S. can’t afford a truck to take his goods to market, he hires a taxi for the ride.

That makes it easy when traveling in a country where they consider transpo a more basic function of daily life – instead of the status symbol that it is – to delight in the odd sight of a farmer with three dead pigs stretched across the back of his motocy caroming down the road, or three generations of a family all perched on top of a rickety bicycle that would have been considered ancient in the 1950s back home. Because they too tell you a lot about that person. But then it’s not about what they can afford, or can afford to act like they can afford, but what they value in life.

Admittedly, part of the value in my holiday tradition was the photo in the local paper of the haole in his little car driving his big Xmas tree home that ran every November. But then I never considered my 911 to be a beast of burden, nor a viable form for transporting goods. ‘Cuz if that had been my purpose, I would have just chartered a plane to have a fresh tree flown in every year.

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