A day without a car
October 25, 2005
My car had a major dripping problem over the weekend, a long weekend, that I couldn’t send it to the service center until today. After I handed it over to the technician, I went off aiming to go to K-Bank where I left the bond-investing intent document since September. To get there, I planned to take a bus so I walked to the bus stop (in the wrong direction, if I walked the other way, I’d reached the bus stop in 2 minutes) but I wasn’t sure what bus number I could take so I waited for a while checking the route printed on each bus when it passed by. At the end I hopped on #56, I think I got off at the right stop even though I needed to walk another 5 minutes to reach the bank.
At the bank I found out they still keep the sets of document for future bond-release, so I told them to continue. I left K-bank and walked another 5 minutes to B-Bank to deposit some cash I withdrew from K-Bank (I don’t have ATM card for K-Bank but my salary was paid to that account, hence the manual transfer). After B- Bank, I thought of going to check out the food at Siriraj pier, and a shuttle motor-tricycle happened to pass by for me to hop on, the ride cost me 5 Baht.
At the pier around 10am, I was tempted by the broad selections of yummy-looking food, which the hawkers just brought out in the morning. I wanted to get all of them only I couldn’t carry much with my hands occupied by my laptop bag. So, I only managed to buy 1 pack of Kanhom-piak-poon, 1 pack of fishcakes-green curry, 1 pack of pork pa-nang (these 2 for my mom’s food stock, but I’m afraid that they got spoiled in the plastic bags since I kept them there for 8 hours now) 3 pieces-set of E-sarn sausages. And 3 grilled bananas. Not that much, is it?
After shopping, I walked from the pier to the junction, it was Siriraj-Amarin Junction but I mistook it as Pran-Nok junction so I walked to a wrong direction to get the bus. After a while and several #57 buses past, I decided to get on one of them which carried a sign “Bang-Khun-Non”. Only when the bus went straight and I saw the ArunAmarin bridge then I realized I was waiting at the wrong stop! Anyway , Since the bus heading to a familiar direction and passing Pata Pinklao I was pretty relaxed and thought that it was my lucky day! Well, I was proven wrong again.. the bus went straight at the intersection where I hoped it’d going left. It went on and on passing the shortcut I knew can bringing us to Bang-khun-non and finally stopped at a rundown bus terminal that I had to transfer to another bus that took that shortcut to bang-khun-non. At the end of that shortcut, the service center was on the left hand side while the bus was heading to the right. I’d got to drop off before the bus turned and walked to the left, there was no bus stop until another 800metres but when I reached there I saw the center was only 500-700metres away so I continued walking.
I waited there another long while but until noon there was not much progress, I tried to read the Game Theory textbook I brought along but dozed off in a short while. I was toying with the idea to go hanging somewhere else but the journey adventure in the morning tamed me to stay put. The car was released some time after 6 o’clock and my sister came over, she discovered the price I agreed to pay and made a fuss over it. She proceed to talk to the guy to give us a better price. By the time everything is agreed and settled it’s way past7 and we were the last customer before they close the shop.
I was just commenting to my sister that the gear changing felt smoother while I was making the first right turn on our way from the service center when the car slowed down despite my will and weight on the gas pedal. The car finally stopped itself in the middle of the street in front of a crowded market, the traffic police gathered in and helped us move the car to the side. We called the mechanic my sister happened to get his number regarding the price negotiation earlier, they had to make their way back to where we were to find out that the drive shaft got detached. It started to shower and we had to work under the rain for almost an hour before we could send the poor mechanic to the bus stop near our place.
The next morning I was on my way to Bang-Na to pick up my colleague and head to Amata when the service called to bring my car back for another check up, I declined in the first place but they insisted and even offered to come pick up the car from where ever I was, that made me worried enough to call off my work and return to the garage.
They released the car again about lunch time, I was about to get on the highway but notice the tank was almost empty so I took normal road til I found a gas station. Somewhere along that route, I made a few uncanny turns and still lucky enough to get away until the last one when I wanted to turn right but found myself in the u-turn lane and decided to keep on with my intention. This time the traffic police stopped me and almost gave me the tickets, all the frustrations these few days sum up and I teared down, somehow that was the lifeline as it made the officer sympathize me.
Anyway, after I got away from getting the ticket, I continued to make my way to Amata city. Along the highway I heard a crack sound but couldn’t see where it came from. I made a stop at convenient store near the office and finally notice a crack line in the middle of my windshield.
My car had a major dripping problem over the weekend, a long weekend, that I couldn’t send it to the service center until today. After I handed it over to the technician, I went off aiming to go to K-Bank where I left the bond-investing intent document since September. To get there, I planned to take a bus so I walked to the bus stop (in the wrong direction, if I walked the other way, I’d reached the bus stop in 2 minutes) but I wasn’t sure what bus number I could take so I waited for a while checking the route printed on each bus when it passed by. At the end I hopped on #56, I think I got off at the right stop even though I needed to walk another 5 minutes to reach the bank.
At the bank I found out they still keep the sets of document for future bond-release, so I told them to continue. I left K-bank and walked another 5 minutes to B-Bank to deposit some cash I withdrew from K-Bank (I don’t have ATM card for K-Bank but my salary was paid to that account, hence the manual transfer). After B- Bank, I thought of going to check out the food at Siriraj pier, and a shuttle motor-tricycle happened to pass by for me to hop on, the ride cost me 5 Baht.
At the pier around 10am, I was tempted by the broad selections of yummy-looking food, which the hawkers just brought out in the morning. I wanted to get all of them only I couldn’t carry much with my hands occupied by my laptop bag. So, I only managed to buy 1 pack of Kanhom-piak-poon, 1 pack of fishcakes-green curry, 1 pack of pork pa-nang (these 2 for my mom’s food stock, but I’m afraid that they got spoiled in the plastic bags since I kept them there for 8 hours now) 3 pieces-set of E-sarn sausages. And 3 grilled bananas. Not that much, is it?
After shopping, I walked from the pier to the junction, it was Siriraj-Amarin Junction but I mistook it as Pran-Nok junction so I walked to a wrong direction to get the bus. After a while and several #57 buses past, I decided to get on one of them which carried a sign “Bang-Khun-Non”. Only when the bus went straight and I saw the ArunAmarin bridge then I realized I was waiting at the wrong stop! Anyway , Since the bus heading to a familiar direction and passing Pata Pinklao I was pretty relaxed and thought that it was my lucky day! Well, I was proven wrong again.. the bus went straight at the intersection where I hoped it’d going left. It went on and on passing the shortcut I knew can bringing us to Bang-khun-non and finally stopped at a rundown bus terminal that I had to transfer to another bus that took that shortcut to bang-khun-non. At the end of that shortcut, the service center was on the left hand side while the bus was heading to the right. I’d got to drop off before the bus turned and walked to the left, there was no bus stop until another 800metres but when I reached there I saw the center was only 500-700metres away so I continued walking.
I waited there another long while but until noon there was not much progress, I tried to read the Game Theory textbook I brought along but dozed off in a short while. I was toying with the idea to go hanging somewhere else but the journey adventure in the morning tamed me to stay put. The car was released some time after 6 o’clock and my sister came over, she discovered the price I agreed to pay and made a fuss over it. She proceed to talk to the guy to give us a better price. By the time everything is agreed and settled it’s way past7 and we were the last customer before they close the shop.
I was just commenting to my sister that the gear changing felt smoother while I was making the first right turn on our way from the service center when the car slowed down despite my will and weight on the gas pedal. The car finally stopped itself in the middle of the street in front of a crowded market, the traffic police gathered in and helped us move the car to the side. We called the mechanic my sister happened to get his number regarding the price negotiation earlier, they had to make their way back to where we were to find out that the drive shaft got detached. It started to shower and we had to work under the rain for almost an hour before we could send the poor mechanic to the bus stop near our place.
The next morning I was on my way to Bang-Na to pick up my colleague and head to Amata when the service called to bring my car back for another check up, I declined in the first place but they insisted and even offered to come pick up the car from where ever I was, that made me worried enough to call off my work and return to the garage.
They released the car again about lunch time, I was about to get on the highway but notice the tank was almost empty so I took normal road til I found a gas station. Somewhere along that route, I made a few uncanny turns and still lucky enough to get away until the last one when I wanted to turn right but found myself in the u-turn lane and decided to keep on with my intention. This time the traffic police stopped me and almost gave me the tickets, all the frustrations these few days sum up and I teared down, somehow that was the lifeline as it made the officer sympathize me.
Anyway, after I got away from getting the ticket, I continued to make my way to Amata city. Along the highway I heard a crack sound but couldn’t see where it came from. I made a stop at convenient store near the office and finally notice a crack line in the middle of my windshield.
That kind of freaked me out. Seemed the whole series of events was a message from a higher power to me: Don't go to work!
posted by linktwice @ 7:18 AM
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