Monday, December 10, 2007

Thrills, Chills and No Spills

Ramkhamhaeng has twenty-one campuses, and I found out today that if one of the Ajans wants to drive to one, they don't waste any time doing it.

BKK to Lomsak, Petchabun (that's Jason S's old stomping grounds), five hours including a long lunch stop at a gai-yang place, a real OG moo-bahn gai-yang place, that's the chickens from the yard, the big ones with the tough, usually tough meat, this stuff was pretty good.

This guy drove like I drove my taxi in the 70's, like anybody drove a VW Beetle, either full throttle, to the floor, or brakes jammed up tight. The car was a pretty nice Volvo, natural gas no less, fast anyway, who knew? What passing technique this guy has! On the main road, with a couple of lanes to work with, we passed everybody, we passed other vehicles like a skier passes slalom gates, left and right. My favorite was the smaller, two lane blacktop roads, where he would flash his lights and pull out to pass even if there was a car passing someone in the opposite direction at the same time. Get outta Denver, baby. That's four abreast on a two lane road with small shoulders and a combined, "collision" speed of about 100 mph, as close as you can get to two solid objects occupying the same space at the same time. Hey, we're law professors, we don't know from no laws of physics.

After lunch all three passengers were sleeping and he really poured it on, singing and whistling along to a Karaoke video, you read that right, semi-naked women on a video screen in the console.

We made it, I knew we would. This guy does it all the time, there are no marks on his car. You have to learn to trust your fellow man.

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