The Road to Ban Phe

My taxi lurches, darts and crawls
Through the Bangkok morning rush hour
Amongst thousands of other worker ants
Hurrying slowly and painstakingly
To glass, over air conditioned offices
Where they will stare at screens
Move paper about
And shorten their lives with stress
And money worries, and sales targets.
With such relentless forward motion,
How can my destination be any different?

But then my driver does a sharp left
Down a little side soi
Past Chinese shop houses
Stuffed with wares
Their Chinese owners
Sitting reading Chinese newspapers
On cardboard boxes outside.
Another destination then.

Then another sharp left, a right
A U-turn. 
A quick dart to the opposite side of the junction.
Past a new condo which promises
'The exclusive luxury lifestyle of Mayfair'.
Past the 'Knightsbridge Condo - opening soon. Starting price 18 million baht.'
Surely not this destination?

Luckily my wallet does not contain
Enough cash to gain entry
Into such lofty prisons.
Instead it is Ekamai
Bangkok's Eastern Bus terminal.

Exactly 151 baht later, I am on my way
In a 1980's bus which boasts such luxuries as
A bilingual TV
Which thankfully is not working.

The  city soon gives way to industrial suberbs,
Then to green fields of tall sugar cane
To low rolling hills and prickly pineapple plantations.
And with such restful colours of nature to soothe my eyes,
I fall asleep.