Commute

Monday morning. My commute takes me 30 minutes. Lift down from 4th floor, minibus picks up the girls, Sawatdi Krap to the guards, on with the iPod (today it’s Reload) and turn right onto Soi Ngamduplee. This is fairly authentic Thailand as opposed to downtown where I’m heading. Walk 200m along narrow, broken, occasionally non-existent pavement. I’m faster than the gridlocked cars. Cut through the Chinese restaurant’s car park and onto the wider, though no less disintegrating, pavement of Thanon Rama IV. Another 200m and I reach Lumphini MRT underground station. The MRT is amazing. It opened in 2004 and currently only has 18 stations, but is well-designed, well-used, clean, safe, cheap and efficient.

One stop and 30p later I resurface in Silom outside the Dusit Thani hotel and then up and onto a pedestrian footbridge which runs above the busy Thanon Silom. Here I change to the Skytrain (BTS) which has been going a bit longer (1999). Annoyingly you still need two separate tickets. The Silom line was extended recently so the trains are more crowded. I squeeze in and turn the volume down a tad. The train runs high above a broad avenue alongside Lumphini Park before pulling into Ratchadamri station. On the left is the exclusive 100-year-old Royal Bangkok Sports Club with its racecourse and golf course – bizarrely right smack in the middle of the city.

The train then takes a sharp left along and above Thanon Rama I between the modern mega shopping malls on the right and the low-level warren of arcades that is Siam ‘Square’ on the left. It’s a lively, studenty place, home to hundreds of small, independent boutiques and cafes, plus three old cinemas. The British Council is on the edge of this next to Chulalongkorn University. But before work, I have my daily caffe latte at Starbucks while reading the Bangkok Post or, if I’m particularly early, a few pages of my book. It’s perhaps unfashionable to like Starbucks but I like its atmosphere, the friendly staff who all know me by name, the armchairs, even (currently) the music. Caffeine downed, I'm ready for the office…