waved at stallholders , they made good progress . So , I followed them and in almost every case they got me a bit further in the direction I wanted to go — towards Pak Tho .
But then the road suddenly became a dead end , blocked by massive support pillars for the roaring highway above . The locals all hung a sharp right , bounced across a narrow pavement , then shot off up a side street towards the next rat run . I followed .
Which was when the motorbike policeman , wearing natty jodphurs and long shiny boots , jumped out from behind a pillar and stopped me , pointing to a grubby road sign indicating No Right Turn . I argued that I had simply been following the locals , who continued to stream past us in hordes as the man of the law told me it was highly illegal , and would surely result in an immediate fine . I pleaded that it was a simple mistake .
Sniffing a bulging wallet , the constable intimated that because I had a big , expensive , and highly covetable bike that I had not yet let him sit on , I should compensate him in some way for not paying more attention to the road sign . He asked to check my licence ; I foolishly handed it to him . With a cry of triumph , he waved it at me and informed me the only way to get it back now was to pay an on-the-spot fine of about $ 25 .
He knew , as did I , that if I was stopped by any other police on the road , my lack of licence would weigh heavily on my wallet . He knew that most foreign riders would be desperate to get it back . He knew that most riders would also cave in and cough up , as he flashed teasing glimpses of my permit to ride . But he didn ’ t know a couple of things that I did .
First , as a seasoned local rider ( I ’ d been living in Singapore for several years ), I knew it made good sense
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