A Legal Sociopath - Part 2 - Genie

Alright. I promised my mother the second half of this post a long time ago, here it is!

The second day of getting my Thai driver's license was much smoother to begin. I knew where I was heading to and I knew who I was meeting up with. I confidently drove to the Land Transportation Office, parked, and headed toward the line I was destined to live in for the majority of the day.

The group of us going through the agency got in line and we waited patiently for the office to open. When they did open, there were large signs in Thai that weren't there the day before. Obviously I couldn't read them, so I turned to the LOVELY woman from the agency who's name I never did catch and asked her. She told me that the computer system that prints the physical licenses was broken and there was no ETA on it being fixed.

Cool.

Cool, cool, cool.

So we agreed that we would take turns standing in line (we had stellar spots) while the other people wandered and got coffee and breakfast. I got an iced mocha and a caramel latte and headed back to line. I asked the agency woman... she needs a name.

Sidebar: she needs a name. She needs a good Thai nickname. Amanda and I have settled on Bike.

Back to the story:

I asked Bike if she liked mochas or lattes and she wanted the mocha. I handed it to her and settled on a bench a few meters away and started writing a letter.

A full hour later and the machines were still broken. The line was still at a standstill. The Thai staff decided to switch the order of what was happening today and everyone was going to have to take the driving test BEFORE RECEIVING THEIR LICENSE.

I kid you not, they were going to print my license before I could prove I knew how to drive.

So we all got queue numbers for the order we were standing in line and headed outside to the driving course.

For the next hour, we stood quietly at the front of the course and listened intently as a man spoke in Thai. Ok. Fine. The guy who was standing next to me who also didn't speak Thai (he was actually much worse than me) and I were pretending to know what he was saying and giggling quietly in the back.

Finally, he asked for a volunteer to do the test first. The man in front of the two of us put up his hand and off he went.

The course was easy to start: 5 stop signs, some twisting roads, up a bridge with a stop at the top and the bottom, sections to use your turn signals, and SO MANY SPEED BUMPS. Then the hard part. There was a section where we had to weave between cones without putting our feet down and without going faster than 10km/hr. When you finished this, there was a 180 degree hairpin turn that led into the worst part: the balance beam.

The balance beam is a block of concrete that is six inches across and four inches high.

You drive up a lip and suddenly you're on a 15 meter long balance beam.

If you fall off, you fail.

Simple enough, right?

Well, it was for the first guy. It wasn't for the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth. It was getting much closer to my friend's and my turn. I went and got my bike (you have to rent one if you want to use one of the horrifically bad bikes from the LTO), strapped on my helmet, and drove through the test.

Thankfully, nine months of practice seems to have paid off. I got it on the first try.

If you passed on the first try, you're given a stack of paperwork and are told to wait in an area.

If you fail, you have to take the test again and all of us in the area just sit and stare at you until you've either passed or failed three times. It took about forty minutes from the time I passed until everyone had either passed or failed. Three people failed and they were told that they had to wait five business days before they could come back and try again.

Those of us who passed went back into the building. Bike was anxiously waiting for us and as soon as she saw both of us come in with stacks of paper, she grabbed two queue numbers and ran to the back of the line. By the time we wove our way through the crowds to the line, she was still EXACTLY WHERE SHE HAD BEEN BECAUSE THE MACHINES WERE STILL BROKEN.

We asked Bike if this was going to be fixed today or if we had to come back. She shrugged because honestly, we both knew she didn't know.

I went to find us more coffee and lunch.

The man I was taking my test with was named G. His name was much more confusing and he was Bhutan. He said his name once and then laughed and asked me to call him G. I laughed and told him that my coworkers called me either G or G-Spot because my name is Genie.

We got lunch (I got mystery meat on rice with fresh cucumber and carrots - it was delicious), grabbed coffee for ourselves and Bike, and headed back for the air conditioning. It was now about 2pm and the lines had finally started moving by the time we got back. We traded spots with Bike and chased her out the door to get lunch.

By the time she returned, we were next in line. We had our paperwork checked one last time (a Thai tradition) and got our licenses printed!

After that, we went our separate ways. I headed back to my apartment (which Amanda had cleaned and scrubbed in my absence!) and for the first time in Thailand, drove legally on the roads.

**

I won't lie. I've had my license now for about a month and it's been very freeing to know that I won't be fined for not having it. On top of that, it's also a valid form of ID here - so I no longer have to carry my passport along with me where ever I go.

All in all, it was a long and irritating process, but I'm very glad I did it.

**

Also, Mom, I love you, but I stayed up very late to write this and now I am very sleepy. OJ!