KNIGHTS ON THE CHESSBOARD OF BANGKOK TRAFFIC

Offices of the Kenan Institute Asia, Queen Sirikit Convention Center, Bangkok (November 21, 2006). I know I shouldn’t be doing it.

I know how dangerous they are.

Heck, my program coordinator Kim missed our reception at the U.S. ambassador’s residence because her cab collided with one of them.

But sometimes you’re running short of time. Or the traffic’s stalled. Or you’re soaking in the blazing heat and there isn’t a hint of a breeze to be found.

And you start going through the mental exercise.

“How far do I have to go? How hot is it? How late am I going to be? How bad is the traffic? What kind of roads are we going to be on? How much is it going to cost? How much do you trust the driver?”

And, of course, the ultimate question.

“Do you feel lucky?” Well? Do you?

Assuming you can afford to take other modes of transportation, whether you choose to ride the motorcycle taxis in Bangkok probably, at some level, says something about your personality – how you view risk, how you view life, and how you embrace the ephemeral Thai concept of sanuk.

“Sanuk” is a Thai word for “fun.”

I’m no expert on language, and my knowledge of Thai and my ability to speak Thai phrases registers a little less than a micron above “nonexistent.”

But from what I can tell, sanuk is a concept deeply imbedded in the Thai way of life.

And riding the motorcycle taxis is nothing, if not sanuk.

I know all the shop girls and office clerks riding on the backs of these quicksilver little menaces are probably perched there because they're the cheapest mode of transportation available.

But even if economic necessity has put them there, riding sidesaddle, no helmet, one hand on their skirts and the other clutching the back of the seat, I doubt they would deny for a minute the sanuk of it all.

Bangkok traffic is a mysterious and organic force – a test of will and patience that challenges all problem-solving skills.

Why you sit on an exit ramp leading down to a main drag like Sukhomvit for half an hour, only to reach the street itself to find traffic moving normally is beyond my powers of comprehension.

Why an entire soi turns into a parking lot for twenty-five minutes only to clear as suddenly as it stalled, is one of those things you just don’t think about – at least if you want to maintain some semblance of jai yen (“cool heart” in Thai -- Google it for details).

When the gods created Bangkok traffic, they had a wicked sense of humor. And the motorcycle taxis, and the Hobson’s choice they offer, are perhaps the best proof.

At the beginning and end of every soi, you will find them. A cluster of motorbikes and drivers in their orange vests. They linger under the BTS and MRT stations and in front of major offices, attractions and shopping centers.

For the equivalent in baht of between a quarter and a dollar or so, one of these chrome and steel steeds can take you where you need to go – fast.

As with knights on a chessboard, players facing them in the traffic game are powerless to block their progress. And when gridlock strikes, their true value in the traffic equation comes to light.

They race down major throughfares between the lines of stalled cars. They flirt with oncoming traffic every time a lane temporarily opens up allowing them to pass. They zip the wrong way down one-way streets, leaping onto sidewalks, snaking through back alleys.

On big streets like Sukhomvit or Ratchadapisek, they move through traffic jams like water between cracks, seeking equilibrium.

I think the fact that motorcycle taxis work at all (without killing everyone who gets on them) reveals a feature of Bangkok’s traffic often overlooked by those who gripe about its admittedly abominable nature.

For all the chaos, for all the gridlock, there really is a system at work. I’m not sure I know exactly what it is, but I think it may have something to do with the mutual tolerance the drivers of all the various forms of transportation that contribute to the problem seem to demonstrate for one another,

The taxis, the motorcycles, the tuk-tuks, the buses, the bicycles, the trucks.

For all the congestion going on, there seems to be, at least from what I have seen, an astonishing amount of yielding going on.

I can’t say it’s “yielding the right of way,” because it is practically impossible to figure out exactly what that is in any given traffic jam around here,

But the drivers seem to be remarkably tolerant of one another. In situations where Americans would start swearing, going for weapons (or at least wishing for them), and generating “road rage” stories for the six o-clock news, Thais allow drivers from other lanes to merge, to turn off of stalled side streets, to enter slowly moving sois. And they put up with the “creative problem-solving” the motorcycle taxis demonstrate every time the traffic flow jams up.

So yeah, I confess it. When time is short and life feels cheap, I have been known to climb onto the back of the motorcycle taxis.

Kay has even learned to ride side saddle in the demure fashion of Bangkok’s young ladies.

I know we shouldn’t do it.

I know it’s dangerous.

But so is life, if you put it in perspective.

And what should life be, if not sanuk?