Monday, May 10, 2010

Thai Life.




I have been hearing stories lately of a stabbing at a local market. From what I understand of the indecent two food vendor had been bickering about a prime piece of space in front of the market in which to sell their goods. They were apparently very quite about the whole thing and many people I talked to had no idea that the two had been arguing at all. Until one day last week, tensions rose to the point where one of the two lost control and stabbed the other (as well as his son from what I hear). Incidents like this serve to remind me that it is not all sunshine and roses here all the time. Thailand, while being a wonderful place to live, is just like any place. It has its good and its bad points, its friendly and caring people and a certain number of people who just could not care less about being proper.

This is also a good reminder of what can happen on the roads here. Thai drivers are notoriously unpredictable and at the worst of times aggressive. As a motorcyclist, I am fairly vulnerable to the whims of drivers in cars. This incident also reminds me to be a polite driver myself. I have heard many stories here of motorcyclists or drivers in cars being accosted for wronging someone in one way or another. Before I left for holiday there was a news story of a German man being shot to death by boy in a car. As the story goes, something as simple as the motorcyclist cutting the driver off, resulted in the driver of the car knocking over the motorcycle at the next intersection, followed by the motorcyclist throwing his helmet at the boy. The end result was the German man being shot dead at the intersection. I'm not going to lay any fault here or make any judgments about the incident. I will only let it serve as a reminder to myself and others to take care on the roads and treat others with the respect and dignity oneself would like to be treated with.

No comments:

Post a Comment