BMW Rally 2006

Youd think it was just another clever title but no...I truly went to the BMW Rally 2006 this weekend. Its just another thing that happened and I cant fully explain why.

Art sent me a text last week that said something to the effect of "car rally on saturday can you come? you should come i really want you to come". So Mr Egg & Ai-Mii were both going and I was like, "I guess if Im not sick there are worse things I could do with a Saturday".
Do you know what a car rally is? Because I dont. I was envisioning something like the boat show but for BMWs. A little trashy with like subwoofers and flashing headlights and things of that nature.
Art is a member of the BMW Society of Thailand and the proud owner of a Volvo (he gave the BMW to his sister but took it back for the rally), a fact I found to be endlessly amusing when he needed me to pick up the car from the lot where his sister was having it serviced. Driving it from the lot to Chonburi would have been funny if I hadnt been so terrified. I am by far the safest driver currently living in this country but those skills really only hurt me in the long run. Its like dealing with wild animals - if you show fear, they will eat you. Defensive driving was not working in my best interest and I was intimidated to say the least.

So Saturday at 5am dude picks me up at my house. Before we head out we have to eat some khao man gai and give offerings to the monks to ensure our safe journey. We arrived at the lot and waited around for about 3 hours before the rally "began". Im still not sure at this point how to tell the difference between a begun rally and a rally that has not yet commenced. We decorate the car with stickers and I check my email on his phone. I tried to talk to some of his friends and their girlfriends but no matter how many times I said "puut thai daai kha" they still looked at Art with eyes the size of saucers and told him that their English wasnt very good. It was frustrating for 8 in the morning.

Ok, so the rally starts. We get in the car and drive off the BMW Bangkok lot.
-Where are we going?
-The beach.
-Ok.

So we are going to a beach. I heard Petchaburi being thrown around and I have a rough idea of where that is. Soon we are heading out on the open road.
Once outside the city we pull up to where a woman in a red jacket is posted on the side of the road. I roll down my window. She hands me a map and says something in Thai, points a couple different directions, says goodluck and we drive away.
-What did she say, Art?
-I dont know.
-Super.

So I have this map with instructions and Art tells me that I have to "write down for the signs". I cant read the directions, or the map, and I have no idea what "signs" I am supposed to be looking for. After about five minutes of asking questions I just say fuck it & fall asleep. I wake up 30 minutes later and eat some food. We stop at about 2 other people in red jackets and I take the maps, nod my head, roll up the window and play with the radio or sleep.

At lunch time we pull up to the place where we eat lunch and I discover that we were supposed to be playing some sort of game. Art is telling everyone that he was too lazy to fill in the answers but Im pretty sure they all knew that his navigator is useless. So Im like, "now, we win." We get the new map and I make sure he explains the directions to me before we even get into the vehicle.
The signs I am supposed to look for are spray painted small blue letters and the instructions say exactly where they will be located (ex. on the pole @ 4.8km). When you find the letter you write it down and they tally the score based on how many you find. Even with me screaming about kilometers and drive slowly we still seemed to miss about four of the letters. It was somewhere between hilarious and totally mind numbing. I eventually fell asleep again.

Apparently, a rally is like a scavenger hunt. You get all these people who are part of this car club. They bring their BMWs and put stickers all over them and then drive down to Petchaburi and play this scavenger hunt/go to the wildlife reserve along the way. Theres also several Q&A sheets, which neither of us really knew any of the answers for because all the questions were either about BMWs or monkeys at the nature reserve. And the haole guy at the reserve spoke perfect Thai so I hated him and didnt want to walk with the group.

...Ok, in the interest of updating sometime this year Im posting this now.

The gist of the rest of the night was a big buffet dinner where they showed footage of the rally and played games, gave awards, etc. I was the sole female to participate in the beer drinking contest, which I think won me some friends. Although my team didnt win (Art's team won) I did get a free can of Singha. Kind of useless since I was all beer-ed out after the contest. I also did a straw drawing contest directly after that and it probably wasnt the best idea since I was being semi-beligerant to the hostess. I got all excited about pulling the shortest straw. Obviously, that means I lost but I didnt know it at the time. :(

We drove back the next day and went bowling in Bangkok with some people from the rally. It was really fun (cosmic bowling no less) but Im a fairly shitty bowler. I bought some fancy expensive eye cream at Boots to raise my spirits.