So I just got one of those new iPhone things that seem to be all the rage. It really is the most amazing phone that I’ve ever used, really just an Apple computer that fits in your pocket. There are some interesting language learning tools for it that I have been playing with (look for a future post) and there is also this digital camera deal. I had pretty much sworn off using digital cameras as I got annoyed with the look of the photos, something about them just didn’t look as nice as film. I still feel that way, but with this one I’ve found that I like how the immediacy of it all allows me to experiment with composition and how it allows me to document strange things around me.

I shot the following two images on my way home, the second one just shows how horrible traffic can be after the rain … the first one shows the same thing, but it also gets at the unique rules of the road in BKK. On the lower-right side of the image, there is a motorcycle cutting through traffic going the wrong way … something that is pretty normal here. Right-of-way in BKK is generally determined by who is bigger and also who is alive. Cars give way to buses, motorcycles give way to cars, strange cart things gave way to motorcycles and people have to watch out for everything. Sidewalks are generally safe, but motorcycles often use the sidewalk as a shortcut when traffic is bad. Crosswalks and red lights are an indicator that things might be safe to cross, but there’s no guarantee … things here give way to the who-is-alive rule, if a car runs a red light, runs you over and keeps going, it doesn’t really matter if she ran the red light or not.

It is also really common for motorcycles to weave through traffic, often going the wrong way down the street … which explains why it is somewhat common for people to open car doors into bikes and to just see bad motorcycle accidents in general.

The strange with it all is that there is virtually no honking at all. In rare cases where a motorist needs to let you know something, he might honk but there is virtually none of the bored or vindictive honking that happens in USA (or the non-stop honking of India). It’s almost as it Thailand’s culture of manners and not intruding into people’s space tells them not to honk, but to feel free to them run red lights, cut people off and have an occasional hit-and-run … don’t try to make sense of it.