Mor chit madness

[lenno]

I thought I had my New Year’s resolutions sorted out until in the fading days of 2002 I did something so foolish – so monumentally foolish – it’s given me cause to wonder about my sanity. Yes, on the Saturday before New Year’s day, the first day of a five-day national holiday, I was persuaded by Thai friends to make an excursion into the depths of Isaan (I’ll explain the reasons next week).

It did cross my mind that Mor Chit might be unusually busy, which is why I left my departure until around 4pm. My reasoning was that by cleverly making an early evening departure on Saturday I would avoid the holiday crush. I was wrong.

The taxi driver who took me to Mor Chit was unusually affable, perhaps because he was from the same province I was headed for, prompting him not only to decide he wanted to go with me but that I would stay in his home and be provided with the company of one of his daughters. It felt churlish to have to turn down spontaneous generosity of this sort. And it also made me wonder – as I defused the offer with the excuse of another engagement – why I didn’t go upcountry more often.

That is, until we arrived at Mor Chit and were presented with the horrifying vision of what seemed to be half of Bangkok milling at its gates and camped out on the grassy surrounds.

I’m not sure why I pressed on at this point. Perhaps I had the idea that somehow as a foreigner I’d pull rank and get ahead of the masses. Perhaps it was sheer pig-headedness. Either way, I regretted it later. It took me 20 minutes of fighting my way through the crowds to find the ticket office for my destination, another 15 minutes queuing to buy a ticket, and once I’d bought it another four-and-a-half hours of waiting for the bus to depart.

I briefly contemplated heading back into Bangkok and having a beer somewhere. You can do a lot in four-and-a-half hours, after all. But for some reason I decided to stay at Mor Chit.

I could give guided tours to Mor Chit. I’ve explored it from top to bottom, wandered around the edges of it, marvelled at the Bt3-per-visit toilets, which must be making somebody extremely rich, and at what must be the busiest – and biggest – 7-11s in the Kingdom. I’ve eaten in the KFC, ventured into the Dunkin’ Donuts and the food halls, and sat on the grassy outskirts of the terminal drinking Beer Chang with the masses.

Actually, drinking Beer Chang was what I did mostly, and can report that it’s a numbingly effective way of passing four-and-a-half hours in a place that offers almost nothing in the way of entertaining diversions besides fast-food outlets, food halls and public toilets.

But even Mor Chit was heaven compared to the actual bus journey. How can I put it? Imagine – and I’m not suggesting you actually attempt this – taking a taxi from Emporium to MBK at around 7pm. Imagine if MBK was 400 kilometres away. After my New Year upcountry bus journey I have new respect for that oft-used Thai expression: rot tit. I’ve been too swift to use it in the past. Now I know it’s true meaning. It’s the road to Isaan on the eve of a five-day holiday.

About an hour into the journey, stalled in traffic somewhere near the international airport, I heard the driver telling somebody on his mobile to expect him at 7am. That’s when I realised that the party I thought I was going to would be over and I’d be lucky if I could even rouse anyone to come and collect me.

The hours passed slowly. I chatted for a while with the ageing transsexual seated next to me. I tried to sleep but it eluded me. And, then at 1.30am, something miraculous happened. We turned off the main road and were suddenly sailing down an empty side road, the kilometres flashing past. I didn’t even care if this meant my destination was such a God-forsaken hole that nobody else headed for Isaan was going there – at least we were going somewhere. We stopped in a town called Pak Chong, where the driver hammered on a shuttered-up shop-front, waited for 10 minutes, and then when it finally opened handed over all the bus tickets to somebody. Don’t ask me why. I was beyond caring, because 10 minutes later we were back on the highway, back in the Sukhumvit scrum that stretched all the way back to Bangkok.

I arrived at 6.20am, 14 hours after having left home on what I though was going to be a four or five-hour journey. The only highlight of the trip was a curious bus that we seemed to draw level with around once an hour. The interior pulsated with coloured lights, and the people milling about inside all seemed to be on drugs. I was envious of them. After all, if you’re going to be up all night in a traffic jam, you may as well have a good time doing it. It’s the only way I’d ever do it again I resolved on New Year’s eve – inching my way out into the depths of the Northeast on a wave of chemically induced euphoria.

Chris king

(from the Nation)

[tig28]

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