Taxi Jam near GMM
I have told this story many times over the last few years, and many people have suggested that I write it down. So! by popular demand! here it is!
When I first moved to Bangkok, I stayed in a place called ‘Galleria Mansion’ at Huay Kwang intersection on Ratchada. This was a good place to be as Grammy was just up the road, in fact on the same road as the crow flies. In those days Grammy was in a building called CMIC Tower, on the opposite side of the street and about 100 yards from the current Grammy building GMM Tower,
I was working on the ‘Silly Fools’ Candyman album at that time so I left home at about 12pm and hailed a taxi.
If you have ever been to or had a Bangkok holiday you will know that you don’t need to wait more than about ten seconds before you see an available taxi, they are usually looking right at you as they drive along searching your face for an indication that you want them to stop. This is one of my pet hates actually, whenever I am trying to cross the road, taxis slow down and look at you but not slow enough to cross the street without running you over.
This particular taxi on this particular day was to be my destiny and the subject of this story.
The driver was quite smart and he had one of those fake wooden sports (small) steering wheels. You could tell that he took pride in his car; it was clean and full of nicely folded brochures for tourists of hotels, restaurants and even dodgy massage/karaoke places. Whatever takes your fancy, he had it in that car.
Unusually, he spoke pretty good English, yes, I said unusually, another charming quirk of Bangkok is that there is a ridiculous amount of taxi drivers that can’t speak or understand English, even the ones that pick you up from the airport.
I announced my destination to the driver and off we go. The conversation is about the Thai music scene, the driver realizing my job was in music based on the fact he was taking me to Grammy, mother of all music in Thailand, and we had established that I was a record producer.
He then told me he was not a singer; however he could sing just one song.
I just nodded and half smiled, not wishing to encourage him to do what he inevitably was about to subject me to.
‘It’s a Japanese song’ he said, ‘but I can’t actually speak Japanese’ he continued, then… without warning he burst into this weird, Frank Sinatra style Japanese song. Loud, no, very loud. He turned his body to me with his right arm resting on the steering wheel and presented this song to me. It is as if somebody else was driving the car. You can imagine how I felt, he didn’t even slow the car down, I really hate being ‘sung at’, oh shit! Here comes another verse, how long is this damn song? I tried butting in with comments like ‘Yeah! very good!’ and ‘Please watch where you are driving’ and finally ‘aaaah! Mummy!’
The ten minute journey seemed like a bloody lifetime. I paid the fare, jumped out of the taxi and ran into Grammy as I couldn’t wait to tell somebody what had just happened.
That evening, when I arrived home, I told my girlfriend (now my wife) all that had happened, and I am sure she believed me, but I think she felt that I had embellished the story a little to make it more colorful. Anyway, I was the only witness to this experience, so who cares?
About 4 years later and various moving of apartment, my wife and I were going shopping. I still hadn’t bought a car yet so we flagged down a taxi. We both sat in the back and told the driver to go to ‘Robinsons’ he spun around and said ‘Hey! Remember me? Yes, no, what? I turned to my wife and said ‘It’s the singing taxi driver’ and without further hesitation he burst into the same song and performed it in exactly the same manner.
So my wife got to see that I really was not exaggerating.
Of all the thousands of taxis in Bangkok, coupled with the fact that we had moved to another area, what are the chances of that happening? But it did. Has anybody seen him? The singing taxi driver? It would be fun if we could track him through other peoples experiences, write to me if this happened to you, or let me know stories about your Thailand holidays.
