Thailand: I have a motorbike and almost never use it

I was told when I moved here that I would need to get my hands on a motorbike to get around. I followed the leader and went ahead and did that but now, for the most part, it just sits in my garage and there are some really good reasons for this.

As I mentioned before the roads here can seem a bit deadly at times since there are two kinds of drivers in this country for the most part: People who have no idea where they are, where they are going, or what is around them and then on the other side we have people that are apparently very late for everything and drive as fast as their car can possibly go as they bob and weave through traffic.

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The good news is that there isn't much of an investment involved when you do get a motorbike since at any given time there are dozens of people selling them 2nd hand. The chances of you getting a "lemon" are almost none because these are very simplistic machines and the mechanics can fix anything on them. I've seen some motorbikes that friends of mine have that are more than 20 years old and aside from them being a bit slower due to grandfather time, they work just fine. No matter where you are in this country you are never very far from a motorbikes repair shop and the generally-speaking old men that work there have dedicated their entire lives to knowing everything there is to know about a motorbike. I have never had a bill from a mechanic that was more than say $15.

Now that I have gotten that out of the way we can talk about how I almost never use my motorbike. I will on occasion putter on down to the local supermarket to pick up a few items or maybe to meet a friend at a restaurant but since I don't drink and drive, I never really commit on this adventures because the last thing I want to do is leave my bike parked somewhere overnight and then return the next day and it just isn't there.

I have a bicycle and I also have a phone and the 2nd thing is the most important.

We have an Uber-like service here called "Grab" and it is essentially the same thing. Rumor has it that Uber and Grab were both in the country for a while but Grab bought out Uber and now they are essentially the only player in the game.

I can get a Grab to my school for a little over a dollar. I can get a Grab taxi to the center of town for around three dollars. Why on Earth would I ever drive my own vehicle to these places when at the end of it all I am putting myself at risk of accident - the streets are very dangerous here - and am not really even saving any money to begin with?

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Grab is truly your good friend when you are in Thailand and I presume other neighboring countries as well. The prices are kept low to the point where I can't see how the drivers are making any money. This bodes poorly for them but works out very nicely for me. Even though I live 12km from the city center I have never had to wait more than say 5-10 minutes for one to arrive in my subdivision and drive me, wordlessly to the destination that I selected beforehand.

It's air conditioned and I leave all the danger up to someone else. So I don't really understand why people are puttering about on their own transport to whatever place they are going to. In the past several years I have MAYBE put 1000 km on my scooter and a lot of the time I go out and it has been sitting unused for so long that the tires have run flat. This is annoying because if I drive on half-filled tire I run the risk of destroying the innertube. I suppose this is just one more reason to leave it in the garage.

So if you ever find yourself moving to Thailand or somewhere else where you are told "you have to get a motorbike" realize that after several years of living here, I disagree. I bought one, and it mostly just sits somewhere gathering dust while I stand in the shade waiting for my driver to turn up.