# Bangkok Bicycle Adventures, Part II



## gino (Jul 20, 2009)

One cannot have a proper adventure unless willing to go where you aren’t supposed to go. It’s in the rule book somewhere, if one is disposed to read the rules, which one is not disposed to do when setting out on an adventure. 

Siam Paragon (สยามพาราก้อน) is on Rama I, which is the western stretch of Sukhumvit. It’s a six-lane road with center islands which house verticle supports for the BTS skytrain. Bangkok has converted it into mostly a one-way street by reversing the direction of two of the traffic lanes, leaving one lane in the opposite direction. To discourage motorists from overcrowding the one eastbound lane barricades prevent cars from turning left onto Rama I, but I can slip between the barricades on my bicycle. 

Yesterday I stopped on the street while cars exited the Siam Paragon parking lot when I felt some pressure on my calf. I looked down and see a hand. This guy on a motor scooter had pulled up next to my bike and bent down and squeezed my calf. 

I looked at the guy, a sixty-ish Thai with leathery skin and a corpulent lady on the back of his bike. He gives me a big grin and a thumbs up sign. I don’t know if he was complementing me for the muscle tone in my calves or congratulating me for trying to get back into shape by riding a bicycle. 

What’s the Thai for, “If you put your hand on me again, you’re not getting it back.”? 

Something kind of the same but different happened a couple of months ago. I was leaned over with my hand on a table, talking to somebody, when a kid poked the vein in the back of my hand, then turned to the person I was talking to and said, in an amazed voice, “Big.”


----------

