The air conditioner sounded like it was on amphetamines. It didn't do much for the midday heat. Staggering from my bed in the fourth floor flat, I only fully realised where I was when I saw the crazy traffic out on what the Thais optimistically call roads.
It was then the shakes started. Visions of my previous days attempts at actually riding a motorcycle in Bangkok had all the clarity and terror of my failed attempts at indifference to the fist sized cockroaches that insist on scuttling across the walls of this room. Snippets from the insanity bureau.
Trying to wipe the grin off my face, I figured how much better off I'd have been staying in deep freeze Britain, rather than becoming financially crippled by my involvement with a publishing project so strange and delinquent that I refuse to go into any further details. You understand, I'm in Bangkok strictly on business. It was only the realisation that Loose Lines was two blank pages that pushed me into the dubious act of hiring a motorcycle for the day.
Those who have never had the pleasure of visiting the City of Angels will be unaware of joys in store for them. Thai drivers make London cab psychopaths seem mild. The road surface defeats even the most softly sprung trail bike. All road regulations have been cancelled (if there were any in force in the first place). The horn is the most popular form of traffic control.
New motorcycles are very expensive, most people ride around on small two strokes that can trace their birth back a couple of decades. Who said old Jap iron doesn't last? Engines are often housed in cut down frames with a mixture of cycle parts from whatever happens to be available. When a replacement part is needed it is often produced in one of the many Thai workshops that litter the centre of the town. With average wages running at fifteen quid a week.and a naturally skilful people, these workshops can knock up anything from a silencer to a piston at prices that make heavily taxed imports obsolete. The largest bike I saw was a Yamaha XS650 - a bike completely unfitted to take on the madness of Thai traffic. There was also a sixties Honda CB450, the appearance of which I found reassuring as I owned one for three years. Every little piece of recognisable reality helps in a town where the craziness is sincere.
My first encounter with the traffic came as a mere pedestrian. Trying to cross a junction that made central London seem like a village square, I had to admire the skill with which vehicles actually managed to avoid hitting each other. Families on small motorcycles, overloaded buses, hurtling cattle trucks, speeding taxis, old Jap cars low on their springs, three wheel taxis that looked like they had escaped from a golf course, and just about everything else you'd care to name.
The noise, smell, dust and speed were intoxicating stuff. The only way to cross the road is to actually just walk into the traffic, hoping that the cars will slow down enough to make it safely to the other side of the road. Much to my surprise, this works, although the more psychotic try to blast you away with their horns.
Hiring a bike in Bangkok is fraught with danger. The usual con is to demand a huge deposit for a bike that conveniently falls apart after the first few miles. There's no insurance and few people bother with silly things like crash helmets. Buying anything in Bangkok involves s strenuous round of bargaining. The first offer was $50, but pointing out that I was not a rich American tourist or financially imprudent Australian reduced it to forty. I offered ten. That got me one of those wide but dubious Thai grins. I would have been quite happy to walk away if I couldn't get a good deal, the more I contemplated riding a motorcycle, the more I realised how much I disliked suicide. He eventually came down to twenty, while I offered fifteen. Walking away for a few yards saved me that final five dollars.
The bike had a Suzuki engine that looked like it night once have been housed in a mid seventies TS250. It was now in a homemade frame that reduced the seat height to about 25 inches. It started first kick, huge clouds of blue smoke and an engine that rattled like an out of control NSU Quickly. I'd only offered my passport as a guarantee that I'd bring the bike back at the end of the day, as I'd assumed I had one of the better bikes. Jumping an the seat revealed that the suspension was as taut as a fifty year old hooker . The front brake lever was mostly free play. Adjusting the TLS helped, but the cams looked like they could lock up the brake. I hoped the owner wasn't figuring to sell my passport after the bike had delivered a terminal blow to my life.
Dropping the clutch revealed that the engine had little power at low revs. Whacking open the throttle produced a neat wheelie down the relatively quiet sidestreet. As soon as the front wheel touched the ground, the bike wanted to veer off to the left. Backing off the throttle started to stall the engine. The only way to travel slowly was to scream along in first or second gear.
Great, I thought, the handling abilities of a Tiger Cub and the power band of a Kawasaki 500 triple. Applying both brakes at the approach of a main road didn't help reduce much speed; backing off the throttle and slamming into first gear cut the speed enough to lean the bike into a sudden gap in the traffic. Then things got really bad.
There were four lanes of traffic trying to criss cross each other in a mad melange. The heat was already burning a hole on the back.of my neck. The engine refused to run at all unless it was strung out on full throttle. A bus full of school kids thundered past and turned across my front wheel. The kids waved. I struggled with gears, brakes and handlebars, flicked the bike inside the bus. The engine spluttered, whacking open the throttle, heading for a hole in the traffic with front wheel a foot off the ground. I flicked up through the box, gaining speed, aiming the bike where there were gaps, and getting a head full of abusive horns when I forced holes in the traffic. The bike was devoid of any instruments so I had no idea how fast it was skimming the hot tarmac. Working on the principle that I had to keep ahead of the traffic to minimise the chances of attack from behind, for a short time I was in with the mindless momentum of the traffic.
Then the front wheel hit a huge pothole. The old forks didn't have a chance. I was kicked high off the seat and figured my spine had been cut in half, at the very least. The bike leapt in front of a lorry which swerved out of the way. I was in the middle of a road that went on for miles, there was no way I could stop and I didn't have any health insurance . The throttle was against the stop, the brakes couldn't be relied upon, the heat, grit and fear were making it difficult to focus and I was surrounded by manic grins out for revenge...
Bill Fowler
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