Thai motorcycle taxis – The ExhaustNotes Blog

By Joe Berk

Another day, another Bangkok blog, and another famous Thai locale…Soi Cowboy. Soi means street in Thai, so Soi Cowboy is Cowboy Street. It played a role in the movie Hangover II. It’s amazing how many famous spots there are in this amazing town. The guys in orange vests you see in the big photo above are motorcycle taxi dudes. They take folks (mostly women) around Bangkok on the back of their bikes carving paths through traffic as if it wasn’t there. It’s an amazing thing to see.

Soi Cowboy is a street that is pretty dead during the day. When the sun sets, though, Soi Cowboy comes alive. There are street vendors selling food from their carts. The clubs come to life. And the B-girls start doing their thing. As an older married guy, it all seems pretty silly. Sue was mortified. But it is what it is, and I’m going to show you just a little bit of it here.

One of the many food carts on the street in front of the clubs on Soi Cowboy.

Another food cart. I had the Nikon on its “auto ISO” setting, which basically means it runs the ISO up as high as it thinks it needs to be to get a good shot. Some of these photos were at ISO 12,800.

More Thai food. I didn’t work up enough courage to try eating off these street vendors, but I’ll bet the food was good.

The clubs are bars with entertainment. Most of the entertainers are young Thai women. Most of the entertainees are older western guys. It’s pretty sad, actually, and I imagine it’s a pretty rough life for the girls.