Chao Phraya Express

This is something that I wrote over a year ago during a trip to Bangkok. I just want to post it here as somewhere to keep it. It's longer than the postsI typically want to be making. It's an email I sent to friends from an internet cafe in Bangkok.

My ears are still ringing from my proximity to the engine on the river taxi I've just been riding for the last hour.

I headed out a few hours ago hoping to hang out in the area around the Koh San Road. The area famed for travelers and Leonardo di Caprio staying there. It's all budget accommodation food and bars. Thought I'd like it.
Being budget minded i decided to take the public river bus there. Being time minded I decided to take the express. I looked in the lonely planet for the stop to get off the boat and confidently bought my ticket. The Chao Phraya express is my vehicle. I board with confidence. My fellow commuters do likewise. Mine lasts a little too long. This boat costs only 10 baht. (25 cents, us or euro). Bargain! I'm standing there above the cabin between a commuter and a Buddhist monk (in Nike sandals by the way), the wind in our hair...well not in the monks, obviously. We make great time to the first couple of stops and I'm really enjoying myself. The sun sets weakly through the Bangkok smog and the night lights emerge as we power along the river. We go and go and go through the long river. "this is taking quite a while" I observe to just myself. I also remind myself what a wonderful adventurer I am as I keep one eye at each stop (port of call?) for the stop I'm looking for. I find myself doing this a lot. loads of times in fact. "This is taking much longer than expected" I observe once again. The buildings have started to thin out now and the sun has set some time ago. It's pretty dark. One side of the river has mainly trees and I notice planes taking off from behind us. The terrain is becoming like something from The Deerhunter. Actually that's unfair. There is a small town on the right hand side which pull up at. Everyone gets off. I think it best that I do as well. The last tourist got off about 30 minutes ago. We are literally at the end of the line. I wander a small distance away, looking dead casual. I'd hate for these total strangers to think for a moment I'm here by mistake. There are no other tourists. I'm as out of place as a pork chop at a bar mitzfa (sp). Strangly I can see nearby a large outdoor aerobics class going on. I managed to find a western rendering of this towns name and looked it up in the lonely planet. Except it wasn't there. Not in Lonely Planet!!! How f'ing far off the beaten track am I???? I fake this casualness for about 30 or 40 more seconds and then go back to the pier. But I don't panic, I'll just get the express back to the hotel where I got on it. Sure enough a boat pulls up. Between my broken English and the guy who is the conductor of the boat we realise, more to my dismay than his, that the last boat back has left long ago. Now is a good time for panic. As elsewhere in nature the vultures circle. I'm cut off from my herd, weak and vulnerable. "taxi" comes a voice from below me in a boat. "No, I'm fine" I lie.
Once again, I'd hate for anyone to think I got here by mistake. SF friends - imagine a Japanese tourist in Daly City pretending they're there for the sights. Irish friends, you see someone in Ballymun faking interest in the tower blocks. That's my position. I wander away as it dawns on me that should I get a taxi, it'll probably be more than my airfare from London to get back to my hotel. And there aren't any. I'm 60 minutes downriver by express boat, I don't know if that even converts into land time. I decide to go back and negotiate with the river taxi guy. "How much to the Shangri-La?" I ask in my least non-committal way. "700 baht". I'll give you 400. "No, 700". 500 I offer. "no, 700". "OK 700 it is, and that's my final offer". The guide book said these people liked to haggle or christs sakes. I take a deep breath and get in. The boat is long, about 18 feet and narrow...about the width of one me. It has the depth of about a tea tray. I'm exceptionally scared, yet optionless. I didn't mention that as we journeyed, what I now know was, out of the city you get all these small houses right along the banks of the river. They are sort of slums on sticks...with a river view. My driver heads off and takes me directly to the other side of the river, signaling with a torch into one of the houses. "So this is how I die"...is my first thought. My driver pulls alongside one of these tiny hovels and jumps out. We are tied to a makeshift dock and I'm sitting in the tea tray. "Crap" I think..."Seriously...Crap...this is bad". I'm sitting in a boat on the Chao Phraya river with a complete stranger, actually without a complete stranger, beside some kind of slum dwelling. I naturally think he's gone to get a flock of surgeons (I don't know the collective noun) who are going to rob me and then sell my body for the value of it's parts. I mean "my" parts.

I get out of the boat and up onto the tiny dock from where I look at my escape options. (don't panic reader, the existence of this record is proof that all ends well). I could swim across the river back where I came from (not really an option), or make a dash through the tiny alley of the other slums into god only knows what. Perhaps more worse criminals. So, in keeping with character I decide to stay where I am and be scared. Then, I see a figure come running though the alley in the darkness. I brace myself for combat, I'll go down fighting and scratching. Under his arm I notice that he's carrying something under his arm. A lifejacket...."for safety" he tells me and gestures for me to wear it. I've never changed my opinion on someone so much. From selling my body parts to being concerned for my safety, is quite the change. I like to think that I won him over with my charm from being an organ dealer to regular river taximan.

There's more.

We head off again. In the DARK...on a RIVER. It's terrifying. As you'll know I love danger and seek it out at every opportunity. Bungee jumping into pits of
crocodiles and base jumping from Killiney hill I'm always looking for tha next rush. The boat in the dark was great craic altogether. My driver had a torch, I not joking, which he used occasionally to illuminate us and to look for logs etc floating in the water. Occasionally. Sometimes he even used it to point out items of interest ot me on the shore. There were no other river taxis at this hour, just much larger traffic and general river debris. We were flying
along!!! Not long into the journey we stop again...to get gas, I'm told. He shouts something, which, with renewed paranoia, I presume means "organ delivery." After what seems like an age I see a backlit figure emerge from the alley carrying a pail. From my vantage point and with the back lighting I'm reminded of the maid from Tom and Jerry cartoons that we only ever saw up to the knee. this woman (?) came and emptied her pale into my captains plastic containers. Deal was done and we're off again into the darkness. I'm told that you shouldn't drink the tap water here. It doesn't take a massive leap in logic to think that's also going to be true of the river water. Any that splashes on me is treated as if it's acid. The rest of the journy passes as uneventfully as a 50 mile an hour boat ride in the dark can.
To be honest I was sorry when the journey ended.

Actually, to be honest I was glad to escape with my life.

This just goes to show you what can happen when you think you're too cool to look at your Lonely Planet map when you're riding the Chao Phraya Express.
Sorry to go on. Clearly nothing of any interest has happened to me for a very long time.

Greg

P.s. v. briefly ---- last night I saw a Thai Magician
in an Irish bar in Bangkok performing to the tune from
Benny Hill. Under normal circumstances this would have
got much much more detail. It pains me to leave it
out.