Why I don't blame this out of focus man for a one and a half hour taxi ride that covered 5.6 kilometres, slowing my progress out of the Lokanta hell between universes and making me late for happy hour at Jorge's taco cantina of infinite power and exquisiteness.

Pictured: A rogue traffic officer. His utter inability to manage 
Bangkok traffic is matched only by his defiant blurriness.

There are 456 hells according to the Theravada Buddhist cosmology. The upside? There are an infinite amount of universes in the Theravada cosmological outlook. Each universe has 456 hells. In conclusion, there are an infinite amounts of hells in the Theravada Buddhist cosmology.

So pack your bags: the hot is hot, the riverbeds are lined with knives and you're fucked.

Curiously enough, there is one hell - the Lokanta hell - that is actually located outside the universe(s) altogether. You have to climb up the sheer surface of a universe's exterior using nothing but your fingernails to get out of that one. In the Lokanta hell, one is infinitely hungry. The hunger obliterates your sanity with its finger-licking intensity.

What I am trying to say is that it was a Monday afternoon and I found myself in Lokanta hell. In a word plus two, I was hungry. When in the Lokanta hell, the only way to end your hunger is to eat a plate of Jorge's taquitos, right here. Check it up - it's all in the Traibumkatha.

Since I bite my nails like a subpar child, I decided to catch a taxi there.

Now I need you to look at this photo.

Pictured: The Luck Cat Inception paradox machine.

Before I hailed a pink taxi, I made the fatal mistake of taking this picture. This is the Luck Cat Inception paradox machine. It cursed my taxi ride. What the Luck Cat Inception paradox machine was doing in the Lokanta hell I have no idea. But by means of its very van-falling-backwards-off-a-bridge-for-45-minutes-with-Leonardo-DiCaprio-asleep-in-the-back-of-it animist voodoo, The Luck Cat Inception paradox machine made my five kilometre taxi ride take one and a half hours.

Some would say this accursed happening was due to the fact that it was 6 PM - smack-dab in the lockjaw of downtown Bangkok traffic. These people would also insist that my being hot, mildly intoxicated and too lazy to go to the nearby BTS skytrain station were also mitigating factors.

To these people - these myopic, deluded people - I will ask them one question. 

Did you LOOK at this picture?

Pictured: The Luck Cat Inception paradox machine. 

Now you might say 'you whinging asshole'. Correct. Yes, I was a man who had everything. Yes, I did just purchase from a very amicable Isaan man at MBK an umbrella hat and a Glock 18 semi-automatic pistol. Yes, I did not not pay the 7% VAT. 

But, please, hear me out. How many taxi rides have you taken where the taxi driver - let's call him Pasuk, because that's his name - managed to get twenty minutes sleep during the duration of your ride? 

Pictured: Pasuk's magical time machine. It eats time and pumps out smokin' Thai reverb pop. 

Not pictured: Pasuk asleep.

Why stop driving to sleep? Micro-sleep awareness is for jackanapes! You don't need Driver Revive stations in Bangkok. Crap coffee and green cordial are not essential motoring accessories here.

The ride was an extreme form of meditation. Valium and the International Herald Tribune played a part. I wanted to try on my umbrella hat while Pasuk was asleep, but I felt it was inappropriate behaviour. Instead, I cleared the chamber of my Glock 18 and inspected its complimentary clip.

Pictured: The Lord Buddha atop the dashboard, patience.

To look at the duration of the trip through the lens of Western empirical measurement, one would say that the trip took one and a half hours. This is not correct. At about the hour mark I asked Pasuk how long this trip would take. He said "Neung kalpa."


One aeon. 


Technically, a regular kalpa is about 16,798,000 years long. This is a very long time if you need to take a piss.

Pictured: One of the many terrifying visages one encounters on a kalpa length taxi ride out of a hell situated outside the universe(s). Note the bizarre, jazz-aerobics gyrations and accursed stare of the elongated suffering ghost that had somehow affixed itself to bus 40. 

The taxi ride cost 178 Baht. I arrived at Taco & Salsa.

Pictured: The sign on the roller at Taco & Salsa.

I stared at that for a while. The time was 7:35. It was not his fault. Something came up. He is ALWAYS open at 3pm. Trust me. I mean no slander. How could I?

I had a piss behind the guard post of a seven star hotel and bought a Leo longneck off a Thai women with leaking eyes who was oblivious to anything I could ever do or say.

It's too hot to finish this story.

Jorge opened the door. The food - as always - was exquisite. Jorge is a saint among braggarts and harlequins. Go there. Somehow.

Pictured: The skyline of Bangkok as seen from Jorge's restaurant.

On saturday night, freshly prepared all you can eat authentic Mexican fare costs 400 Baht. 

On a lighter note, Bangkok is a place where the veneer has been peeled back to reveal the innards of raw usury.

I recommend the shredded pork.