Tuk-Tuks and Chatachuk Markets

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2nd April 2005
Bangkok, Thailand.

Well I sorted out the glasses and all, am being ripped off but not in the mood to care. I went on my first tuk-tuk ride last night and it was freakin' brilliant!! I want to buy one and take it home! My driver, a fairly young guy, was absolutely maniacal, swerving in and out of traffic like we were on a motorbike, and overtaking almost all the other traffic on the freeways! It was a total thrill and I absolutely loved it.

Mind you, he did try to rip me off, but hey, you gotta eat, right? The way to get around it is to first take a metered taxi to your destniation and remember the fare. Then, later, you hail a tuk-tuk and know the right price to bargain him down to. My taxi to the MBK shopping centre (where I was searching for a bargain mobile phone, no luck, will stick with ebay), for instance, was about 70baht. But when the tuk-tuk driver approached me his offer was 250baht to Khao San Rd. Cheeky blighter!! I laughed and said, no, no, taxi only 70baht, and taxi has airconditioning. The trick is you can't let them think that you need them more than they need you or you'll be paying big time. And there's always another tuk-tuk driver around the corner (or three meters away). So we bargained down to 100baht and I thought, close enough, and off we went and it was, as I said, freakin brilliant. Mind you, it was late at night, no hot sun, slightly less traffic than during the day, and his tuk-tuk was pretty damned fast. But I loved it.

Today, though, I took another tuk-tuk from the Chatachuk Market to Siam Centre and it was awful and boring and very smelly. They driver was an older man (it was really funny, but from behind he looked remarkably like my elephant "Rambo", with his wide, sparsely bristled head, big cauliflower ears and dun-coloured shirt colour) and the tuk-tuk was just obviously not up to speed. We kept getting stuck in traffic and the fumes were awful. So, my advice to those considering it is: know what is a reasonable fare, try to get a younger driver (more rev in them) with a suped-up looking tuk-tuk, and let go and try to enjoy it. They really do know how to drive here in Thailand, it just doesn't look like it.

Oh, and with the taxis - I keep finding that I have to insist that they turn the meter on. You have to give them about half a minute to do it themselves before going, "hey, taxi-meter, taxi-meter". You really must insist, or they'll demand lord knows how much when you get there. Anyway, so I got in one the other day and told him where I'm going, and as I'm trying to insist on the meter, he says, "Khao San Road, 200 baht". Bull turkey! "No, no," I insisted, "taxi meter." So he had to and it turned out to be about 60 baht from where we started to Khao San. So even they'll try to rip you off. Just be aware that you can't really get any better than a metered taxi ride or a bus, but they're a hassle. Most anything cheaper has strings attached, like the touts.

So anyway, as I mentioned before, I went to the famous Chatuchak Weekend Markets today. It was very full-on, very crowded, and hundreds and hundreds of stalls selling cooked food, uncooked food, antiques, furnishings, souvenirs, fighting roosters, clothing.... the list was endless. The part which I both favoured and hated was the pet section, as I wasn't very interested in buying anything. There were puppies, kittens, bunnies, crickets(!), snakes, turtles, guinea pigs, fish, mice, squirrels(!), an enourmous iguana(?), exotic frogs and toads, a flying squirrell (a flying something), and a couple of things I didn't really recognise at all. My bothers would just adore some of the reptiles here.

At first it was fun, playing with the baby bunnies and staring wide-eyed at the giant iguana-type reptile thing, but then I realised that most of these creatures were miserable. The puppies were sooking en masse, many animals were all squashed on top of each other in little cages, most of the fluffier ones such as rabbits and pups were just lying there panting in the heat, and that poor flying rodent looked flat-out dead on the bottom of the cage. I stood there for about three minutes staring at it's one open eye, but couldn't discern a movement. I wanted to take pictures but many stalls had "no photo" signs, so I took what I could.

I came across a stall that hadn't opened yet (after 12, so they probably weren't going to), and there was a little puppy staring at me through the glass, and I stopped to commiserate and as I stood there I realised that there was a week's worth of droppings in the cage (Chatuchak is a weekend market) and that he probably hadn't seen a soul since the last weekend - I can't imagine the petshop owners going in every day just to check the animals, as it's all in a compound-type place and probably a hassle to get into during the week. Eveything went downhill for me from there. I had assumed that the animals spent weekdays at the seller's home or with a minder or something. I assume that that's what they do in Australia. The thought of that miserable puppy in that tiny cage for weeks until sold, with no grass or fresh air and days at a time without affection, broke my heart. I could be wrong, of course. But I lost any desire to stay after that. I wanted to buy them all and let them go in a big safe country estate. I wanted to see that tiny flying rodent look like it desired to live. I wanted to free everything but the snakes (you have no idea how many they cram into some of those tanks, it's super creepy, a big writhing mass of icky). But I couldn't, so I ran away. Sometimes I hate us.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Kewwwwwwwwwwl
Keep up the diary whenever you can, Aussie Emma. So interesting to read. Have sent an e-mail to you. The V from saltmine Libraryland - Vince