The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Pavement

Being a pedestrian in Thailand is a dangerous occupation. Not only do you have to stay alert to mopeds speeding down the pavement - apparently they have the right to go anywhere they please, including the wrong way down the highway - you actually have to keep a constant eye out for the pavement itself disappearing. I've seen many a tourist walk along, looking around them at the sights and not at their feet - rooky mistake - when suddenly the ground falls away from beneath them and they're treading air before dropping a foot onto the road (the pavements are very high here!). I did just that (more than once, I am embarrassed to say) on our first day here and very quickly learnt to keep my eyes down, scanning the ground for any obstacles. For some inexplicable reason, the pavements here often just come to an end, reappearing fifty yards or so up the road.

Sometimes you will actually come across a group of labourers fixing a part of the pavement but that is even worse. Unlike in the UK, where they would put cones out to protect pedestrians from oncoming vehicles, you just have to walk in the road and hope for the best here. And as there are normally a good number of them all working on one tiny bit of the pavement, you have to walk quite a way into the road to avoid them. What on earth happens to these pavements that they need so much work? It is a question that will probably never be answered.

Other times the pavement will be perfectly intact but a hawker has set up his stall across a good portion of it, again requiring you to walk into the road to get around him. This is a bit of a pain although not too much trouble for The Husband and I but for mums and dads with pushchairs it is a nightmare. I went to Singapore with the mother of a (at the time) twenty month old and I think the thing she most enjoyed about the trip was the flat, pothole-free, never-ending pavements (OK, maybe she liked the shopping, eating, drinking and dancing more but she did really love the pavements!). Singapore does have excellent pavements though. Sadly, yes, I do now judge a country by the state of its pavements.