Back in Thailand

Finally made it back "home" after having spent too long in England due to delays in selling my house. It's really good to be back, it's a crazy but wonderful place as always. I just drove most of the way around Bangkok using the outer ring-road motorway. It isn't quite finished, as they are just now building an absolutely massive new bridge over the Chao Phraya river to link up and complete what will then be an "orbital" road. The bridge construction work is awesome, a staggering piece of civil engineering on a par with anything I've ever seen.

But it also provides a prime example of the crazy contrasts in Thailand between ultra-modern and old-fashioned approaches to things: The existing route through Bangkok which the new bridge will eventually replace is currently also under construction, with large sections of it either dug right up, or surface-planed, or just left as single-lane mud tracks full of pot-holes, causing utter traffic chaos such as I have never before witnessed, not even in Bangkok.

What an inspired piece of traffic planning, lol!!

I thought we were a bit screwy in England for doing similar things, but this is screwy on an epic scale. Still, it makes life much more interesting I suppose. Imagine how boring it would be if you could just drive everywhere you wanted to go with no massive hold-ups!! ;-)

I love Thailand, it's the best country on earth! I'm heading off for a beach holiday in the Koh Chang island chain for a while now, no doubt discovering more bonkers contrasts along the way.