Taxi Cubicle

Cabs are a "home away from home" for those who take on the job of driving taxis in this city. Cabbies spend as many as 70 or 80 hours per week in their cab, so it makes sense that they individualize their cars with photos and trinkets to create a comfortable, homey atmosphere. It's really no different than white collar workers in the corporate world who personalize their cubicles. The only difference is that these office spaces are on wheels.

Magical Triangle

It's not often that you see a triangular incantation cloth on the ceiling of a Bangkok taxi. They're usually square or rectangular like the ones surrounding the bright red one. Covered with mystical charts, sacred writing, and age-old symbols, these magical cloths help the driver to feel secure as they're believed to bring luck and protect the cabbie, the car, and the passengers from harm. And in this case, the driver is trying to invoke all things good for Thailand.

Tattoo Wizard

The other night I asked my taxi driver about the mask displayed on his dashboard and he told me that the face represents a Thai tattoo master named Ajarn Noo Kampai. The Ajarn, or teacher, is widely known for his sacred Thai and Khmer tattoos that are believed to protect the body (and mind) from harm. It turns out that my taxi driver knows the Ajarn and offered to take me to his house that night to witness his artful skills and accompanying shamanistic rituals. Even if I had had the time to experience the Ajarn working his magic that night, I probably wouldn't have signed up for the pain-inducing part. But maybe witnessing the rituals would have been enough to keep evil spirits away for a while.

Fruitless Taxi

Durian, the spiky-looking tropical fruit that originates from Southeast Asia, isn't welcome in certain public places. Hotels, airplanes, and even taxis sometimes have signs or stickers on their windows that inform customers to leave their fruit at the door because it has a strong unpleasant odor. There's an urban myth that claims that some people who consume durian in combination with alcoholic beverages die from a strange chemical reaction. So it's an especially good thing the sticker next to it forbids customers to drink in the cab.

Crystal Clear Buddha

There is something profound about a clear glass image of the Buddha. For one thing, it is evocative of the Buddhist practice of clearing the mind through meditation. And it also recalls the Buddha's achievement of nirvana, the transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self. In Western culture, we speak about glasses that are half full in relation to a person's optimistic outlook. In Buddhist philosophy, however, it's more desirable for the glass to be empty.

Mystery Bag

I asked the taxi driver if he could tell me what was in the bag and he answered, "you know, the usual religious stuff like amulets and good luck charms". At that point, the conversation changed to a different topic and I temporarily forgot about the sack bundled up around the rearview mirror. A few minutes later, I coughed a few times and the driver reached into his bag and pulled out a throat lozenge. As he offered it to me, I laughed and asked him if he had a bottle of water in there, too.

All Ears

Do you know why Buddha's ears are so big? In the case of the fat and happy Buddha, it has nothing to do with the fact that the rest of his physique is large. It's related to his rejection of material possessions. The earrings that he wore in his earlier years left them elongated, symbolizing the notion that his worldly goods once weighed him down physically and mentally. I wonder if his big ears also help him to hear the music in the taxi better.

Grrrl Driver

Before I jumped into the taxi today I noticed feminine-looking stickers with butterflies on the windows, so I shouldn't have been so surprised to see a female cabbie at the wheel when I got in. As I caught sight of her, I immediately started to remark that I haven't met many lady drivers in Bangkok, but before I could finish half of the sentence, she completed my words. After I thought about it, I realized that she must hear this same phrase all the time from passengers because there are very few women drivers in Bangkok. Maybe they don't last long at the job because they get sick of hearing customers drone on about how they never see girl drivers.

Ghost of Taxi Present

Some Bangkok cabbies create ghost-like reflections of famous Thai Buddhist monks on their car windows by placing photos on the dashboard and relying on the light and shiny surface of the windshield to produce the image. The drivers believe that the monks protect them from accidents and misfortune, but the effect is slightly eerie. As the moving world outside appears through the translucent image, it's as if the monk's spirit is with you at all times in the cab. The fact that the technique involves likenesses of monks makes it a shade less bone-chilling. I can think of much scarier apparitions that could appear in taxis.

Breathe in...

Deep breathing exercises are a good way to relax. The technique is used in yoga and meditation and can help release tension from the body and clear the mind. The other day, I tried to practice deep breathing in the taxi. But the cabbie was driving like a maniac and I ended up hyper-ventilating. And to make matters worse, every time I slowly inhaled, the toxic fumes inside the vehicle filled my lungs and made me cough uncontrollably.

Typographic Taxi

The taxi driver of this cab should have been a graphic designer. There's nothing wrong with his current occupation, but it's obvious that he enjoyed arranging type on the surface of his cab windows the same way designers organize text in their work. The randomly placed Thai letters on the windows have transcended their basic function of communicating words and have moved into the realm of design where the stickers have artfully created a patterned typographic arrangement.

Taxi Reads

What's a Bangkok cabbie to do when traffic lights turn red or when stuck in relentless traffic? One driver I met the other day spends his downtime reading. Judging from the tall stacks of books on the dashboard and in the rear window, he reads a lot. Most of the publications in his cab focus on the Buddha's teachings or philosophies of famous Thai monks. I asked him if he had a favorite book, and I was completely taken by surprise when he told me that he loves the "Harry Potter" book series translated into Thai.

Carabao

The veteran Thai rock band, Carabao, has been jamming for three and a half decades. Throughout their long career, their music has tackled issues related to Thai society and politics, and as a result, the band has an immense following of regular Thai people, including many Bangkok taxi drivers. It's common to hear their "songs of life" in cabs here and many taxis have stickers with the band's buffalo skull logo on their windows. Recently, Add Carabao, the lead singer, teamed up with Thaitanium, the Thai-American hip hop band, to produce a single on Thaitanium's new album, Still Resisting. The result is a surprisingly harmonious balance between Add's earthy voice and Thaitanium's vigorous rapping. Check out the music video below with some great footage of Bangkok.

Play Name

Thais usually have a nickname, or as it's known in Thai, a cheu len ชื่อเล่น which translates literally as "play name". The monikers are often cute and endearing, and similar to classic American nicknames like "Slim", "Butch", "Shorty", and "Red", the epithets often reference some unique characteristic of the person. The other day I took a taxi with a driver known as "Rabbit". After he told me his nickname, I kept imagining what he would look like with long, floppy ears and rabbit teeth.

Mantra for Thailand

After this past week, Thailand needs some group therapy. It will take time for Bangkokians affected by the political turmoil to heal. There's a special mantra that Hindus and worshippers of Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity, use in situations like this one. All you have to do is focus on the image of Ganesh and repeat the words "Aum Ganadhyakshaya Namah" a million times or so and then Bangkok will be healed.

Fueled Up

If you see an NGV sticker on a Bangkok cab it means that the taxi uses natural gas for vehicles. Introduced to Thailand by the Royal Thai Government, the cost of NGV is almost seventy percent less than traditional gasoline. One would think that everyone would convert their vehicles to this type of gas, but there are much fewer NGV filling stations than regular pumps making it less convenient to get fuel. And the installation of equipment for the use of NGV is expensive. Fortunately, some taxi companies pick up the bill, and other times the drivers see the benefit and realize that it will save them big money in the long run. If you're not sure whether a taxi uses NGV or not and if you don't see a sticker, take a look at the fuel gauge. If it's on empty and there's a red light on, it might mean that the cab uses natural gas because the gauge on the dashboard isn't attached to the NGV tank. Either that or you're going to have to take a walk soon.

The Dharma

"They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose. But those who lead others through nonviolent means, knowing right and wrong, may be called guardians of the dharma".

- Buddha

Old Photos

Apparently, Bangkok taxi drivers aren't required to renew their taxi licenses. Some of the portrait photos look like they're from the 70's or the 80's. In some cases, cabbies look completely different from the person in the picture displayed on the dashboard. The other day, I took a cab with a guy who looked like he hadn't aged a day since his photo was taken years ago. So I asked him how he stays so young-looking, and he laughed and told me he's only thirty. It turns out the guy in the twenty-five year old license photo is his father who shares the cab with him.

Taxi Poufs

Bangkok cabbies like to spice up their taxis by adding a set of shiny pleated pillows in the back window. The faux silk or satin poufs come in a variety of colors, and sometimes they're adorned with sequins and lace. It's surprising that so many macho Bangkok cabbies have these in their taxis. It seems like these pillows would be more at home in Liberace's living room or in Mae West's boudoir.

Taxi Phone Directory

What was that number again? Oh yeah, it's permanently scrawled on the back of the sun visor. Never mind that the taxi is rented. It's a convenient place to keep other people's contact information. And when there's no room left on the back of the visor, there's a huge ceiling to turn into a phone directory.

Fine Feathered Taxi

Some Bangkok cabbies don't fit the stereotype of a grubby unshaven character who stinks like somtum. Some are well-groomed with neatly pressed shirts and hair slicked to the side or formed into perfect spikes. And many cab drivers keep their taxis spic-and-span from top to bottom. Sometimes the vinyl upholstery is so shiny you can practically eat pad thai noodles off of it. The other day my driver obsessively cleaned off his dashboard with a feather duster every few minutes. Besides keeping the dash dust-free, it must be a way for him to kill time. Either that or he was a bird in a past life.

Taxi Stickers

Bangkok taxi drivers love stickers. Some decals remind customers to buckle up and some tell passengers that they can't smoke in the cab. I've even seen stickers that inform people in taxis to refrain from breaking wind. Other adhesive signs greet passengers with a friendly "Sawasdee Krup". And some stickers welcome aliens to Bangkok.

Bobble Bauble

There are certain quintessential accoutrements that appear in cars no matter where you are in the world. One classic collector's item that's been around since the 1950s is bobbleheads. Also known as nodders or wobblers, these tchotchkes with bouncing heads typically depict famous athletes, musicians, actors, or cartoon characters. Some of the most famous bobbleheads include representations of The Beatles, Elvis, and Baseball Hall of Famer, Willie Mays. While most Bangkok cabbies have statuettes of Buddha or Hindu gods or goddesses on the dashboard (with stable heads, I might add), this taxi driver prefers a bobblehead dog watching over his taxi. Next, this cabbie will probably replace his monk charm hanging from the rearview mirror with fuzzy dice.

Taxi Specimen

Bangkok taxis are so iconic that there's even one in a local museum. The Museum of Siam, housed in a beautiful 19th century building near the Chao Phraya River, features a cross-section of a cab as if it were a scientific specimen. The curators even included sample talismans on the dashboard and one of those wooden beaded seat covers. Fortunately, there's one thing the museum left out of the display: a dissected taxi driver.

Political Drive

If you want to talk politics in this town, take a taxi. Most cabbies here have an incredibly strong opinion about the current administration, the previous leader, and the present political situation. I can usually guess their political stance, and subsequently, I always make it a point to be in agreement with them about this topic. After all, I'm at their mercy riding in their cab.

Get Real

When I ask cabbies if I can take pictures in their taxis, I get a variety of reactions. Most of the time the taxi drivers are thrilled that a foreigner is interested in Thai talismans and culture and are kind enough to oblige. The cabbies are often proud of their collections of superstitious and religious objects, and many cabbies love to give particulars about the various charms. Some taxi drivers, however, are bewildered by my photo-taking and by my questions about the things in the cabs. The other day, the cabby asked me if I would like to buy the stuff in his taxi. He thought that it would be better if I have the real amulets, statuettes, and other tokens in my possession, rather than just photos of them.

Tropical Knits

Considering the tropical climate of Thailand, it's surprising that knitting has recently come into vogue in Bangkok. Lately, I've noticed more and more ladies knitting in buses and in public places. And several knitting shops have opened in upscale malls downtown. What are people going to do with all these big wooly sweaters and cable-knit scarves when the weather is flaming hot? I think that this taxi driver's wife from the Northeast of Thailand has the right idea when it comes to knitting. Rather than making her husband a fuzzy sweater that will make him sweat, she knit this quaint ruffled cozy to keep the vinyl-covered gear shift cool.

One

Appearing like the stone tablet with the Ten Commandments etched on it or like the Stele of Hammurabi from the Ancient Near East, one single amulet stands proud on the dashboard of this taxi. While some Bangkok cabbies love to dangle a dozen or so of these from their rear view mirror or neck, or stick collections of them on taxi ceilings, this driver believes that this individual amulet is all he needs to protect him and bring luck and fortune. You could almost feel its omnipotent power radiating from it in the cab.

Over the Rainbow

In Thailand, there's no such thing as too much color. Clothing, decorative items, as well as signage and advertising often employ a spectrum of hues. Even Bangkok taxi drivers love to get happy with color. But somehow it just doesn't seem right for 50 year old guys to be into plastic flowers in the colors of the rainbow.

Grand View

Having lived in Bangkok now for seven years, some places in this city no longer seem as novel or as exotic to me as they once did. An exception to that is The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. When I see its white washed walls and glittering gold temple structures, I still get goosebumps. This was one of the very first places I visited when I arrived here and no matter how many times I go back, I never grow tired of the place. Even riding past it in a taxi is exhilarating.

Tiger Sticker

If I were a Buddhist monk in Thailand, I would choose to live at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi Province. I would spend my days feeding the tigers and greeting all the tourists who pay to see the big cats. And I would sit on tigers in the half-lotus seated position, smiling and meditating like the monk on the sticker in this taxi.

Three Wise Chinese Guys

Be not afraid of going slowly. Only be afraid of standing still.

- Chinese Proverb