You can travel in a car, Uber, Grab and taxis allow you that convenience if you really need to go by car. It’s not about rich and poor. Having lived in SG and in HK, the public transport systems are really good, but I never felt the need for a car, indeed in HK the cost of parking alone is way higher than to use public transport. I have friends that live in the smaller villages that cannot survive without a car, but all they use it for is to drive to a convenient public transport hub.

I’m a petrol head, I love cars and now I’m living somewhere that has almost no public transport, so I now have a car again and I enjoy the freedom and fun that I love about car ownership. But it doesn’t change my opinion about using public transport where it is the better option.

I lived in Singapore without a car, there is no need to own a car. I used public transport and ride sharing without ever feeling that having a car would have improved my experience. In Hong Kong it was the same, and I lived in the Northern Territories, however in Sydney we had a car even though public transport was great, because its a big fucking country. Now in Penang, Malaysia there is no usable public transport, so a car is absolutely essential.

These shopping malls in BKK have metal detectors on their entrances, I have set off the detectors many times with cameras and other equipment but never once been stopped. I was in this mall a few months ago and none of the entrances with metal detectors were manned.