bus day

Today was an impromptu bus day. Bus day is pretty self-explanatory; you spend all day riding buses around a city. Michael and I did this once when we studied in Edinburgh. There, you could buy an all-day bus pass for £2 or so.

Here in Bangkok, there are three known species of buses.

Exhibit A: The 12 baht bus. These look like charter buses, and they have air conditioning.

Exhibit B: The seven baht bus. No A/C, so the windows are always down. Why anyone takes these buses, I'm not sure.

Exhibit C: The free bus.

The only distinguishing characteristic between the free bus and the seven baht bus is a wide blue decal with white lettering that stretches across the top of the front windshield. Free buses are more or less crammed with passengers, depending, of course, on the time of day and where the bus is in its route. There's no A/C, so the best seats are the ones next to windows, where you'll feel a nice breeze while the bus is moving.

Mariela and I took a free bus on part of our trek to church this morning. Last week, we walked the entire way and it took us about an hour. Using the bus meant that we got there in half the time, though we still had to walk for the last 20 minutes of the way. We thought going home the way we came would be easy; we'd just walk to the opposite side of the street and catch a free bus back. How naive we were!

We waited at the bus stop for 20 minutes before sighting a free bus. It didn't stop, though, because it wasn't in the right lane. The next one came about five minutes later. We jumped on, because we were hot and ready to be moving. There are several buses that drive down our apartment's street, but we soon learned that this bus wasn't one of them. It turned left right after we boarded, but we were too tired to get off and wait for another bus. We decided to ride the entire route and see a new part of the city.

It was a long ride, but lots of fun. I think we saw the Grand Palace. It looked fancy, anyway. We'll go back another day to take pictures.


Bubble gum pink taxis - another mode of transportation. You have to make sure the cab drive turns the meter on, though, or he'll try to rip you off by overcharging you. This almost happened to us once, but we jumped out of the cab before he could pull onto the road.


If you're feeling especially adventurous, you can travel
by tuk-tuk. We did this on our second night in Bangkok after that cab driver refused to use the meter. I think we still got ripped off, but we got ripped off a little less than if we had used the cab. And we had a new (if terrifying) experience!