Keep on Truckin’

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This will be a slightly different Bangkok Blog entry, somewhat based on the famous 1970’s Eddie Kendrick song –Keep on Truckin’. I always liked that song.  And weirdly enough as I was walking along the road on Friday on my way to the hospital to get some work done, I saw a couple of trucks that immediately, for some bizarre cognitively perverse reason, got me singing the song in my head.

But as the trucks were stopped in the horrible traffic I decided to stop as well and thought: What if there was a story about how these trucks came to look the way they looked. And since I am writing this on my Sunday morning, I have a bit of time to be more creative than during the work week.

Here’s the story titled   “Keep on Truckin’ so You’ll Never Walk Alone”:

Nobody told Somchai that when he bought his Isuzu FXZ 360, he was making a lifestyle choice.

It started innocently enough. A little chrome here. A fog light there. But somewhere between the 15th and 16th decorative horn bolted to the roof rack, Somchai crossed a line that no man had crossed before and kept driving straight through it at 10 km/hr in Bangkok traffic.

“How many horns do you need?” his wife asked one morning.
“Yes,” said Somchai.

The truck now featured approximately forty-seven chrome horns arranged across the roof like a very aggressive pipe organ. Nobody knew if they all worked. Nobody was brave enough to find out. Residents three provinces away slept uneasily.

Then came the dolls. Six little white figurines with red hats, lined up on the windscreen like a tiny audience watching Bangkok’s worst traffic unfold before them. What were they? Gnomes? Astronauts? Michelin men? A motorcycle taxi gang in retirement? Somchai called them his lucky charms. His passengers called them unsettling.

The paint job arrived on a Tuesday and left everyone speechless – a violent explosion of hot pink, magenta, and chrome swirling patterns that made nearby drivers question their prescription glasses. Traffic actually moved faster around Somchai, not out of respect, but because people instinctively fled.

Red tassels dangled from the bumper like the truck was perpetually celebrating something. It was. Its own existence.

A western tourist once photographed the truck on Sukhumvit Road and uploaded it with the caption: “Found Bangkok’s final form.” It got 40,000 likes.

Somchai saw the post and immediately ordered two more horns.

But there’s more.

The back of the truck told a different story entirely. While the front screamed “LOOK AT ME,” the cargo bed had aged into something more distinguished — battered black panels with faded pink flourishes, a winged tiger crest, and the word “DNA” stamped in the corner like a luxury brand that had seen some things. It looked like a Rolling Stones tour bus that had hauled gravel for twenty years and developed character. The scratches weren’t damage. They were biography.

But Somchai was not alone on this Bangkok street.  Just behind, a second Isuzu FXZ prowled the asphalt — painted Liverpool red, floor to ceiling, front to back, with the Liver Bird emblazoned proudly on the side and the words “YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE” painted in letters large enough to be read from the Skytrain.

The driver’s name was Niran. He had never been to Liverpool. He had never watched a full 90 minutes without falling asleep. But in 1998 his cousin showed him a highlight reel and something clicked, and now his entire 12-ton truck was a monument to a football club 9,000 kilometres away.

The yellow taxi trapped beside him at the red light did not share his enthusiasm.

“You’ll never walk alone,” Niran hummed contentedly.
“You’ll never move alone,” muttered the taxi driver, gesturing at the gridlock stretching to the horizon.

When Somchai’s pink chrome cathedral and Niran’s red football shrine finally pulled up beside each other on Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok traffic stopped – not because of the lights, but because every pedestrian, taxi driver, and street vendor simply needed a moment to take it all in.
A tourist photographed both trucks together and uploaded it with the caption: “Found Bangkok’s entire personality in one intersection.”

It got 400,000 likes.

Somchai immediately ordered two more horns. Niran repainted his bumper in a slightly more aggressive shade of red.

Neither man had any regrets.

I need to do some work now, so this story needs to end. This is likely a relief for Bangkok Blog readers.

Oh, and since you probably have some time, here’s a live version of Keep on Truckin’. It’s a great tune.

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But wait, here’s a wonderful rendition of You’ll ever walk alone. It’s worth a listen.

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And oh, just in case you need more truckin’ info, here’s a Thai language YouTube video of a lovely Isuzu FXZ 360 all decked out.

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Keep on Truckin’