Your humble narrator is writing this in a traffic jam in Bangkok. The capital of Thailand is famous for its massive gridlocks. Tourists flock from all over the world to experience them. Thai traffic jams are definitely one of the wonders of the modern world.

It’s actually rather fun. I have been assigned a luxury limousine and a uniformed chauffeur by someone who mistakenly thought I was the sort of person who needs such things for what the guidebook said would be a 45-minute journey. But I’d been installed in the car and waved off before I could tell him that I was a world expert at waiting for buses.

To pass the time, I stared through the windows of the cars around me. No one was stressed out or angry or honking at the lack of movement. People were asleep or watching television or having baths. Many drivers had equipped their cars with everything they need to live independently for days, or maybe months. Vehicles had snack cabinets, toilets, fridges, music systems, showers, swimming pools, basement table-tennis rooms, lap-dancing clubs, 18-hole golf courses, and so on.

I turned to look at the pavement and a question formed in my mind. Why don’t people just walk? The pedestrians, the cyclists, a statue, and an old lady who was taking about one step an hour were moving faster than we were. I asked the chauffeur: "Why doesn’t everyone just walk?"

He looked at me quizzically. "Poor people walk. Rich people drive," he said. The conversation proceeded as follows. ME: "But the poor people are getting to where they are going faster than the rich people." HIM: "Yes sir." ME: "And the poor people pay nothing for their journeys while the rich pay a fortune."HIM: "Yes sir." ME: "And poor people get free exercise while the rich hasten their long, painful, cholesterol-induced deaths." HIM: "Yes sir." ME: "Rich people are stupid." HIM: "Yes sir." ME: "Are you calling me stupid?" HIM: "Yes sir." I shut up. There’s no answer to that.

A little while later (it felt like about 18 months) we arrived at our destination. I got out of the limo and said to my host: "I see the financial downturn hasn’t affected the traffic jams."

"True," he replied. "But we’ve had a bit of bad news on that front." He told me that Bangkok could no longer claim to have the world’s largest traffic jams. On June 10 this year, the residents of Sao Paulo, a city in Brazil, found themselves in the biggest traffic jam in history, a queue of vehicles stretching 293 kilometers. Even today, some people are STILL believed to be in that queue, waiting to get home. Mathematicians fear that the queue will never disappear, as many drivers have now forgotten where they live.

But Bangkok is fighting back by getting more cars on the road every day, he said, hoping to beat Sao Paolo by creating a permanent gridlock spanning the whole of Southeast Asia. I asked: "I can understand you wanting to keep your title. But how do you get to your office in the mornings?" He smiled. "I’m not stupid," he said. "I walk."