My Thailand Diary

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Traffic …

Mar 10th, 2006 by Lillian

Yesterday I was driving out of a mubahn (settlement) and a motorbike ALMOST hit me. I was at an intersection and couldn’t see if any traffic was coming. I stopped the car and drove out really slowly. Then suddenly, as fast as ” Dash from the Fabulous Four movie”, there was a motorbike 1 mm away from my car. . One of the security guards !
My heart missed a beat and then I rolled down the window and asked him in English if he was OK. Stupid me, totally forgot to speak Thai. He looked at me with one of those ” where the hell did you come from” looks, turned his bike and drove away.
I was so shaken. In this country its always the foreigners fault if someone gets hurt in a traffic accident. I would have had to pay his hospital fee etc etc. But I don’t want to get into that. He wasn’t hurt and I remembered why I pray for special protection while I drive.

Posted in Everyday Life in Thailand, Chiang Mai | 4 Comments

4 Responses to “Traffic …”

on 10 Mar 2006 at 4:08 pm1Elemmaciltur

*phew* thank goodness nothing happened.

I was trying to figure out what you wanted to say with ‘Mubahn’…I was in a Deutsch-Loop and thought you were trying to say U-Bahn. But then again, tubes don’t exist in Chiang Mai. *LOL* But then it just clicked.

BTW, have you heard my greeting to you in my vidcast from yesterday? ( http://numenna.blogspot.com/2006/03/first-pair-of-kolenya-and-curry-night.html )
on 15 Mar 2006 at 6:40 pm2Sidney

I don’t drive here in the Philippines. It is far too dangerous. Not only could it cost me a fortune but I might end up in jail for a few days… not really something I wish to experience.
A driver earns Php 5,500/monthly ( about USD 110). Something I am more than happy to pay…
on 05 Jun 2006 at 9:21 am3Poramase Ratanabirabongse

Thanks God, nobody hurt. One thing that I wish foreigners to understand how Thai people feel with foreigners is that we don’t want to bother with foreigners in case like this. Since most of us cannot understand English, we won’t mess with foreigners if the situation is not serious. Even though we get a little injured, we won’t mind and will keep going. However, you must keep away from people walking on the street who look wierd. We cannot tell which one will commit a crime to foreigners. I’m much more worried about this topic. Everytime there’s news about killing foreigners, I felt so bad. I’m a lawyer. If possible, I want the Government to rule about raising penalty for the wrong doing to foreigners. (I don’t know whether I can use the right English to make you understand. However, please try hard to.) Thailand and Thais are beautiful. Though some “Farangs”, foreigners, got bad luck and/or bad impression from Thailand, I still love to travel around in Thailand where places to visit are still uncountable.

Poramase
on 03 Nov 2006 at 2:19 pm4Krasin P.

You will certainly be yelled at should this happened in the USA, UK or Australia. Do expect even ruder reactions from the Americans, British or Australians if you were an Asian expat in a similar situation asking them if they are OK, in your native Asiatic language.