Why? Why couldn’t I just get to the airport easily and
securely without needing to hope and pray that my mother wouldn’t find me in a
hospital.
I decided to take a taxi to the airport today – the first
time for me to do that (usually I just take the BTS skytrain). When I went to
the reception of my hostel to book a taxi to the nearest BTS station she looked
at me quizzically and asked, ‘You like BTS?’ What she really meant to say was,
‘You like torturing yourself?’ I did have 3 bags with me, one of which was a
very heavy suitcase. I decided to spoil myself and take the taxi. She said the
journey was 45 to 60 minutes on the Express Way
and would cost me 300-400 baht. Might as well spend the last bits of Baht I
have, thought I.
I was worried Taximan would be late so I asked her to call
the taxi an hour earlier than I needed. My worries about his tardiness turned
out to be ill-founded (as he turned up 10 minutes early). What I really should
have been worrying about was making it to the airport alive.
Taximan seemed nice enough. I tried not to judge him for his
ponytail but apart from that he kindly helped me with my heavy bag into the
trunk of the car. He was a little younger than I like my Taximen to be, which
meant he might be prone to speeding, or take a different sort of interest in
me, but I brushed my doubts under the carpet.
He seemed OK manoeuvring the car around the small roads
surrounding the hostel, it was only when we got to wider roads did I start to
notice a potential problem. The car kept accelerating and decelerating
suddenly, and I felt like I was a toy being shaken by a five-year-old boy. But
it was only when we got to the motorway that my problems really began.
Taximan started driving so fast that I began to feel really
sick. I wish I’d looked at the speedometer, but take my word for it, it was
scary. Now some drivers drive fast but they appear in control, my uncles Hossam
and Aiman being among them. What caught my eye was how Taximan’s head kept
drooping. ‘Shit’, I thought, ‘he’s falling asleep’.
I turned round 90 degrees to face him, to verify what my
peripheral vision was yelling at me, and hi head was in fact drooping forwards
suddenly, then he’d pull it back up slowly. This was going on whilst he was
driving VERY VERY fast. The possibility that he might be on drugs flashed
across my consciousness. I asked him to ‘please slow down’ three times, but he
either didn’t hear me or he didn’t understand me or he just plainly ignored me.
’40 baht’, he said suddenly.
‘OK’, I said mechanically. It was at this point in the story
that I was convinced he was going to kidnap me and take me to his army of
droopy-headed Taximen. I didn’t want to argue with him and tell him that the
hostel receptionist had told me I would only need to pay 20 baht service
charge, which is what I thought he was referring to.
But I couldn’t take it any longer. ‘Ahhhhhhhh’, I groaned,
‘I forgot my passport, my passport. Ahhhhhhhhh’. This was my response.
Immediately he stopped the car. Thank god. I pretended to frantically search my
bag, whilst mumbling jibberish, and it really was jibberish. I think the aim of
this was to ascertain whether he was taking drugs or not. I looked at him
straight in the eyes, trying to see whether his eyes were alert and focussed or
droopy like his head. I found them to be quite alert. ‘OK’, I thought to
myself, ‘maybe things will be alright after all’. I had a good mind to walk out
of the taxi in the middle of the motorway, but I didn’t know whether I’d find
another lift to the airport and besides, the area was very darky and slightly
seedy.
It turned out the 40 baht was for the toll gate that we were
just in front of. I relaxed a little. But not for long. Immediately he started
speeding like crazy again. My stomach lurched, I thought I was going to spew.
Then I noticed he was doing something else which made me feel very, very
uncomfortable. He wasn’t holding the steering wheel. Instead he would lightly
touch the top of it with one wrist, then lazily take that wrist off and put it
in his lap. For a few seconds nothing was touching the steering wheel, and then
he’d lazily put his other wrist on the top of the steering wheel. This, at VERY
high speeds.
I panicked again. I didn’t know what to do. I took my phone
out and pretended to call my mum. I vented to her in very loud, angry Arabic
that I was in a taxi with a crazy Taximan and that I was going to die. I
thought my shouting would scare him or something, wake him up and get him to
grab the wheel like he meant it, but alas he did not react.
Strategy number 2: pretend I’m crazy. I started making
rising noises that lasted 4-5 seconds, a bit like a revving car. I did this for
a good few minutes staring blankly in front of me. Maybe if he thinks I’m crazy
he’ll slow down. The possibility that he was going to kidnap me hadn’t
completely disappeared either so I wanted him to make sure that if he did have
any intention of kidnapping me, he would in fact be kidnapping a Crazy.
This phase segued into an acceptance phase. If the Universe
wants me to go now, in this way, then so be it. Maybe my contribution on this
Earth has ended and it’s time for me to go. These thoughts helped some way in
easing my stress and for the next few minutes I just stared out in front of me.
I tried to make conversation with him, for the duel purpose
of checking whether he was on drugs, as well as keeping him awake. He spoke
very loudly, not too dissimilarly from the drunk men that fall out of pubs in
the UK, so I
was not comforted.
A few more minutes of terror and I decided to resume my
random, noises. This time I stayed silent for a while then burst out with a
certain noise. He didn’t bat an eyelid. I think what made it easy for me to do
was the knowledge that he would probably just put it down to ‘cultural
differences’ and he wouldn’t attempt to report me to any mental health
authorities. As if he’d dare! Him and his drug-taking, head-drooping ways.
I couldn’t believe. We finally reached the airport. The
preceding minutes were quite tense though, as he started to stare at me for
longer and longer periods of time. A journey that should have taken 45-60
minutes took us 23 minutes. I might have saved time and money on that journey,
but my stress levels were sky-high, so my health definitely paid for the
difference.
I got out of the taxi and paid him his money. 2 smiley girls
had just gotten out of the airport and were looking for a taxi. They went to
him. My only thought is that I should have warned them. I sat on my suitcase on
the tarmac, my green umbrella holding my head up. I just couldn’t believe I was
still alive. My body was shaking slightly but I got myself up and into the
airport.
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