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Published: January 6th 2014
There are many means of transport in Thailand. By aeroplane may be the safest, train the cheapest, public buses easy to use, public VIP buses comfortable and then there are still a lot – moto, organized tourist transports, Tuk Tuk and of course the one with the best money/speed ratio – the minibuses. They go from almost every bigger town and many small villages into all directions. They are fast, comfortable, got aircon (you may need trousers and a jacket) and will let you exit wherever you want on the way.
I had the chance of taking one (again after a while) to do my visa-run to Malaysia (get there and get a new Thai visa). When I came to the minivan pickup place, all I wanted was not to sit in front – in the front I was seated because of my long legs. Why would I not want to sit in the front? Because I did not want to see what happened in front of us and to our left and right. If you enter a minivan and are an optimist, you should have upgraded your health insurance, if you are a pessimist, you should have updated your
Toilet/food break
"10 minute then go go"last will.
Because minibuses go like crazy. They are always in a hurry and every single driver thinks he is Michael Schumacher. Now if you have been to Thailand, you might know that traffic laws/regulations are usually interpreted by the Thais rather as recommendations than as rules. You get used to that and with the bicycle I just followed the behaviour of the motos to blend into traffic. In a minibus however that gets a new dimension. I did not make pictures or movies because they never can show the real situation unless you are lucky with the movie scene or have an accident while filming.
So I will just summarize the “normal” driving behaviour of our minibus:
Red lights
Even some of the larger highways are disrupted by traffic lights. And usually it takes more than 60 seconds for the next green – inacceptable for the driver. So if there were no cars waiting in front of the red light, he just got slower, looked to left and right, used his horn and ran over the crossing. However if there were cars waiting, making the direct crossing impossible, he changed to the emergency lane, overtook
The Malayian border (Thai side)
Crossing and going back took me 4 minutes in total all the others and then crossed the red traffic light. If that was impossible (others waiting at the emergency lane or a big crossing with many cars crossing for example), he would just take the crossroad to the left, make a U-turn and go left again – voila, crossroad passed.
Overtaking…
Is possible everywhere – before hills, in curves, across double lines, zero visibility - all does not matter. If he could’nt because there were 4 lanes, and some obstacle in the middle to separate the two directions, then he would start using the horn and the lights to scare other cars away. If that did not work, he would drive up very close (about 1 m, no joke) and intensify horn and lights. It feels very weird, running 100 km/h 1m behind another car and not being the driver. If that would not work, he would just overtake on the wrong side and if that lane was blocked, he did open a third lane just in the middle of the two or take the emergency lane. Sometimes I felt like in one of these ridiculous Hollywood-style high speed car chases, where the criminal and the follower drive
the double speed and overtake left, right, left, right.
Speed
Highest: 140 km/h
Highest inside towns: 140 km/h
Highest through pouring rain, visibility 50 m: 140 km/h
I guess you got my point? My GPS navigation system predicted 4.5 hours for the 350km way back – but the driver had to reach the last ferry and did it in 2.5 hours…
Breaking is necessary only for potholes or speed bumpers.
Conclusion:
If you enjoy 5h rollercoaster rides, if you are an adrenaline junkie, if you love to play Mario Cart, then this is your means of travel. If not but you need to take a minibus anyway, just believe in the statistics, that it is highly unlikely that you are the one out of 10.000 dying in a minibus today, close your eyes and wait for the next stop.
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