Seymour Cumming:

I’m off to the temple to have my motorbike re-blessed by the monk. It must be cursed with an evil spirit, damn thing crashed on me the other day. Massive loss of face. I burnt a ‘bike tattoo’ on me left leg, me two mates, who were on the back, are pretty bruised up and my girlfriend, who I was on the phone to at the time, thinks I hung up on her. Now how’s that for bad luck! The bike is pretty scratched up but never mind that, I have lost face, I’ll be the laughing stock next time we go drag racing.

It wasn’t my fault that we crashed really. See, this big noodle in his posh Volvo pulled out in front of me, which is kinda dangerous ‘cause it’s difficult for people to steer their bike when they have a hand on their phone. Plus, the idiot didn’t notice that I had taken my helmet off after we passed the roadblock at Nimenhemin intersection. Bloody inconsiderate geezer could’ve damaged my brain.

So, I’m taking the bike back for a re-blessing so it will be ‘lucky’ in time for the drag racing next weekend. At the last drag the police showed up and confiscated a few of the guys bikes ‘cause I guess one guy died after the brakes failed on his bike. I’d hate to get unlucky and lose my bike like that. 

Also, I’d taken off the mirrors, because mirrors just aren’t cool and the bike goes faster I reckon, but I didn’t notice the big old Merc behind me, and of course here in Thailand an orange light means speed up, so if you suddenly break it’s letting the side down because there’ll be a guy ten cars back flooring it to follow the rest of the traffic through the red light. Anyway, I stopped, which was pretty uncool because at least five of the drivers behind me were also flooring it and chatting on their mobile same time. Oops. Well, what a mess that was. It took hours to sort out, with 1000 baht notes changing hands loads of times, and arguments over on-the-spot cash payouts to take care of whatever insurance bribe was necessary. The locals can be rather efficient at resolving situations which have massive potential for litigation.

I was pretty lucky no one noticed my headlight wasn’t working, ‘cause there’s an ‘insurance fee’ for that as well. The men were arguing among themselves and there was a lot of loud “krap, krap, kraping” going on, I don’t really understand Thai much but when Thais start ‘krapping’ on each other like this, you know they are being formal but serious, kind of like an argument in a men’s club where people keep starting their sentences; ‘with all due respect…’

The thing is, here in Thailand, no one ever gets road rage, which is just as well. More people died in accidents over Songkran than SARS and Iraq War combined. Never mind the temple blessing. Bloody hell, I’m safer in Baghdad than Bangkok.

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming sees things a little differently in life. He has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, ‘shock jock’ and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer’s Weekly, Nyet!, Porn Unlimited, Chessworld and  Cross-stitching Magazine.

He’s been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he’s written the author’s biog, and not progressed much beyond that.

Seymour Cumming archive is here...