I'd been away from blogging for sometime mainly because I was away from the Kingdom. For some time, I was in Thailand. I'd been there on many occasions in the past, but this was my first time since arriving in Saudi Arabia. This made me appreciate the driving habits of Thais more deeply. They are courteous to each other, and to pedestrians. They stop at zebra-crossings to let pedestrians pass. Honking of horns is a rarity.
The public transport system is also very good in Bangkok. There is an extensive network of bus routes. You can find taxis anywhere, and in the central part of the city you can use BTS (SkyTrain) or MRT. There are also boats carrying passengers along the canals, and limited train services. They are testing a newly installed train line from the city centre to the new airport.
In spite of this, there are lots of cars on the roads and traffic jams are increasing, though they are nowhere near the levels seen here decades ago. The infrastructure for surface transport--the multiple levels of elevated roadways, the overpasses, multi-storied car parks, etc.--have created a very unpleasant (visually) urban landscape. It shows that cars should ideally have a very minor role in plans for urban transportation, particularly in big cities.
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