The Fast Lanes

It's surprising, really, that this is the first time I've sat down to blog about Bangkok traffic, considering that Bangkok is among the worst cities in the world for traffic jams.  Okay, maybe I did rant and rave about a particular taxi ride a while back, but that was more about him and the experience than about our hour long traffic jam.  Anyway, traffic here is bad. Really bad. Bad enough that people plan their lives around it- they arrive at work and school early to avoid it, or dive home late at night, or go totally out of their way to avoid the worst areas and routes. 

Today, I would like to tell you about riding the bus home, in the fast lanes. But first, I will have to explain this monstrosity of a road that I live off of.  I'd like you to picture for a moment, a smallish freeway, say US23.  Then, just outside of that, add Woodward, or for my Bs As readers, Centenario.  It's set up like "express lanes" and "local lanes" of US freeways.  (This is why missing your turn is so annoying, you can't just turn around and go the other way)  There are periodic 'exits' for you to go back and forth between the two. At 5:30, when I was coming home from downtown, the local lanes were gridlocked, like always.  The buses always drive in the local lanes because they, you know, need to stop at the stops to let people on and off.

Well, apparently my bus driver was not in the mood to sit in traffic.  As soon as we turned onto this main road, he got in the center fast lanes.  As we sped past the traffic jam, I was thinking that hopefully no one would need to get off before the next exit.  Except he didn't rejoin the locked up local lanes after the next exit.  We started to approach a very busy stop in front of the mall and I thoughts, okay, now he's going to exit so he can stop. Nope.  He just pulled onto  the narrow shoulder and let people off- people that now needed to cross a median and then several lanes of traffic.  I started getting really curious, and slightly nervous as we were approaching my stop- would I have to climb the median in my dress and then cross the busy road?  Someone else rang the bell to get off and the driver did the same thing- pulled to the shoulder.  At least this was a grassy median and not a 3 foot cement wall! 

There is an exit right at my stop, and after I rang the bell, much to my delight, he exited to the local lanes.  He didn't make my stop, of course, as he then had several lanes of traffic to cross before he could pull over to the side of the road, but at least he only overshot it by 200meters or so and I didn't have to do any climbing or crossing.  I was greatly relieved, and rather entertained by the whole thing. 

And, a completely unrelated side note: I left my ATM card in the machine today.  That's right.  After 15 years of ATM banking without ever needing to replace a card, I have needed a replacement card two times in a matter of three week. Now I have to go back to the bank yet again next week for a new one.  Brilliant.