My general impressions after two days and two nights:

They like big streets. I mean bike like at least 4 lanes in each direction. Which is kinds of nice becuase there is lots of room to move. The problem is that the left two lanes (the drive in the left here) are occupied by blood seeking busses and passenger seeking taxis. One is out to get you and the other actively denies your existence. The right lanes are taken by those who are simply trying to get from A to B. And contrary to thousands of years of Thai culture moving at a slow, relaxed pace, when they get in a vehicle just getting somewhere requires as much speed as possible. It is odd that though they are generally content to sit in traffic foir extended periods without getting angry, drivers are violently jealous of their right to go fast whenever there is more than 10m of clear road ahead of them.

Last night Ball and I were riding down one such large road, near the outside lane. A taxi flew past me on the right and attempted to merge left into the space then occupied by Ball. The taxi honked twice, Ball slowed a bit and the taxi zipped left in the rapidly closing space between Ball and the car waiting at the light in front of him, nearly killing Ball and hitting the car. The taxi's urgent purpose? To wait at the stop light in a position 15m in front of where he would have been had he maintained his lane. We rode past him and were gone before the light changed. I told Ball that in the US, the taxi may have gotten a u-lock through the wondow for a maneuver such as that. He just shrugged. There's no point in getting angry. Thats how they drive. The cab driver wasn't angry that Ball was there, he simply felt that Ball should move.

I rode down a large road alone yesterday and lost count of the number of times I was nearly killed.

This city is not for the faint of heart. But for everyone else it's a ball. Just keep your head up, learn how to check behind yourself without taking your eyes off the road in front of you, and adopt a fatatalityistic outlook on life. Not fatalistic like "we're all going to die", but fatalityistic like "I'm going to be killed at some point and there's nothing I can do to prevent it".

And as for the Tuk tuk/taxi incedent, it's much more fun then the tuk tuk is a bike and the taxi is a city bus.

In general, I've always thought that riding in traffic is more like a dance than a fight. You have to learn the way your partner moves and move with them. Well, riding in Bangkok traffic is more like that Brazilian fighting/dancing thing that looks really pretty and smooth, but whose underlying essence is still to kill as quickly and completly as possible.

All that said, stay tuned for Thailand's First Alleycat "Bangkok Draft". April 19th.