Jumping through hoops

It is Saturday night and I am beat. I work Tuesday through Saturday (most weeks). Saturday we teach almost twice as long as the weeknights. So I am always totally knackered by the time I am finished at 4 PM on Saturdays. So I am just sitting at home resting my feet, and thinking about maybe after while heading out to find something to eat.

It was however a rather productive week. I went and got my Thai motorcycle license this week. It involved jumping through a rather large number of hoops to get it done. You may wonder why it has taken me so long to get one, since I have lived here for over four years. Well, the short answer is that it isn't strictly necessary, since they will accept a foreign license. Most foreigners here don't bother getting a Thai one. Plus it involves the a fore mentioned hoop jumping and cost me about 70 dollars. But my Texas license will expire soon, so I decided go go ahead and do it. It also makes it much easier to the the Thai price for things instead of the tourist price. That can save you a considerable amount of money at places like national parks.

The hoops involved included getting a medical clearance from a doctor stating that I am healthy enough to drive, a trip to the consulate to get an affidavit of residency ($30), taking an eye test (color blindness), a reflexes test, An hour video on computer about the driving and insurance laws in Thailand (narrated by a British fellow with a very proper accent), then taking the written test. The written test was thirty questions, multiple choice. You had to get 24 of 30 correct. It is done on computer, and you have one hour to complete it. It took me about 15 minutes, and that long only because some of the illustrations were so poorly drawn that I wasn't sure what they were trying to illustrate. After that I had to take a driving test, which involved negotiating a course, while trying to turn at the right places and stop at the right places, and weave around some cones. After that, it was back inside to have my picture taken, pay my 150 baht, and wait for three minutes until my card popped out of the machine. Altogether it took about 3 hours, not including the trips to the doctor and the consulate.

One more thing I can mark off my to do list.