A few years ago I arrived at BKK airport  and instructed the taxi driver to the Dusit Thani Pattaya, he said in Bangkok? i said no, Pattaya.

 

We agreed on a price which i remember thinking was quite cheap but anyway got my head down for the Journey ahead.

 

Was then woken up by the driver outside the Dusit Thani in Bangkok, i said what we doing here we're supposed to be in Pattaya. He replied, you said No Pattaya!

 

Anyone else ended up someone where they weren't supposed to be?

 

 

No.

Well nothing like that.

If that really happened, that's hilarious.

Of course I've been taken for long ride detours by scam taxis.

Didn't you look at the signs pointing to Bangkok?

Well I did have one memorable disaster (before smart phones) in Bangkok.

 

I was with a visiting friend and there we had a destination in mind. The driver took us all over town for well over an hour and it turned out the place was basically walking distance from where we started. Believe it or not, in this case, I really believed that the driver was incompetent plus language barrier rather than a scammer. If he was a scammer he deserves an Oscar. 

i wanted to go to the Ban Chang bar strip, taxi driver took us to the elephant sanctuary, game over

I ended up at the Austrian Embassy in Bangkok after requesting my taxi driver l needed to go to the Australian Embassy.....mirrored the scene from Dumb & Dumber

It seems when you ask a local  a question in the LOS.  The most common response is I don’t know.  

Got in a taxi in Singapore , said to driver, want to go to Dhoby Ghaut ,

don't know he said , we are still driving down the road , and I am trying

different ways to pronounce it , nothing worked, 

 

So I said just drop me here at this MRT station , OK he said , I asked what's

the name of this station , Dhoby Ghaut .....he said , which sounded exactly

like what I had been saying to him... ????

 

regards worgeordie

Conversation with Bangkok taxi driver: -

 

"This is not the Finnish embassy!"

 

"Yes sir. See embassy, embassy, embassy. Now finish embassy"

 

Fetching my coat

16 hours ago, ed strong said:

Anyone else ended up someone where they weren't supposed to be?

First time at the market.

 

They had baby carrots not little beans. 

9 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

i wanted to go to the Ban Chang bar strip, taxi driver took us to the elephant sanctuary, game over

/Start bore

Chang ช้าง elephant, high tone, and Chang ฉาง granary, rising tone. Spelt differently and pronounced differently. You wanted the granary.

/End bore

I wanted to go to Ubon, but they wrote the plane ticket for Udon.

 

I was in Udon for two days before I noticed.

Not Thailand but one time I asked my delivery driver to be in bright and early. Well, he called me and told me he was in Brighton early and what he should do.

I told him to get back as soon as he could hahaaaa!

I had a taxi cab driver friend. A lady wanted to go to the Ambassador..  she was getting hysterical... he took her to the Embassy. 

Worth the agro for the story alone,555

On my first trip to Hanoi I told the driver to go to my hotel, while my battery was nearly dying, ended up at 1AM in the middle of nowhere at some random shop that turned out having the same name.

Ended up sleeping at some dodgy short time hotel near KTV bars.

Edited February 14, 20233 yr by ChaiyaTH

15 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Well nothing like that.

If that really happened, that's hilarious.

Of course I've been taken for long ride detours by scam taxis.

Didn't you look at the signs pointing to Bangkok?

Well I did have one memorable disaster (before smart phones) in Bangkok.

 

I was with a visiting friend and there we had a destination in mind. The driver took us all over town for well over an hour and it turned out the place was basically walking distance from where we started. Believe it or not, in this case, I really believed that the driver was incompetent plus language barrier rather than a scammer. If he was a scammer he deserves an Oscar. 

Hre's one:  work colleague I had spoken to phone an e.mail dozens of time in my company office in Los Angeles. Never flew before anywhere took a flight/hotel pckage on a booking site. Hotel ws in Suk soi 24 or similar.

 

Arrived at Swampy, passport and luggge all done he gets assigned to a taxi and gives driver a document with hotel name.

 

Driver speaks good English and chates. Halfway to the hotel driver says 'let me check the hotel details again, reads the document then says with geat concern 'no point going there there that hotel burnd down completely last night, but never mind I knw another hotel about 1 km away, good convenient location, I'll call them and make a booking for you. One minute later booking confirmed. 

 

Visiting naive colleague (never travelled anywhere in his life inside US or abroad) agrees. When there's 10 minutes from the hotel driver shows him the meter and dds 50abht and says 'can you pay me now baht or US$ because I'm worried I might have a problem because I'm not registered at the hotel. Colleague has baht pays immediatel.

 

Taxi drives just off the main road (still 100/150 metres to the front doors of the hotel) jumps out, grabs the bags and as soon as passenger out the driver races away.

 

Passenger walks to the front door, goes to the check-in reception and says "had a booking at xxx hotel but it burned down last night. Staff say 'yes, so sad etc.

 

Later the same day passenger notices the driver at the bell desk taking some money.

 

 

16 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Well nothing like that.

If that really happened, that's hilarious.

Of course I've been taken for long ride detours by scam taxis.

Didn't you look at the signs pointing to Bangkok?

Well I did have one memorable disaster (before smart phones) in Bangkok.

 

I was with a visiting friend and there we had a destination in mind. The driver took us all over town for well over an hour and it turned out the place was basically walking distance from where we started. Believe it or not, in this case, I really believed that the driver was incompetent plus language barrier rather than a scammer. If he was a scammer he deserves an Oscar. 

Indeed, sometimes it does feel that incompetence supersedes the possibility of scamming.

 

The funniest part was the subsequent conversation the driver had with his depot. I dont understand much Thai but the depot was not at all happy with the extra journey and i guess it took some explaining, as to why he was not on his way to the next job. Cant recall what happened with the money but im sure i topped up the fee for the driver to get to pattaya.

 

PS I dont normally stay at the Dusit, there was just a flash sale on Expedia.

 

 

Well, as short a time ago as yesterday, I "ended up" 40 kms from where I thought I was going! 

 

The night before my wife and I agreed we would go to a restaurant called "Chune" about 9 kms from the resort where we are staying. So yesterday we set off and although I knew basically how to get there, my wife got out her GPS and instructed me to go left out of Doi Saket in the opposite direction. I was sceptical of this decision in the form of being surprised. 

 

After more than one hour, we arrived at a restaurant called "Chuen" and simply thought it was a different spelling from "Chune". Actually it was quite nice so we had lunch there. During this time, I looked at the photos of Chune on the internet and they were quite different from where we were.

 

My wife made a mistake - a sort of clerical error, in which she got confused with the similarity of the words between seeing the Chune Web page and checking on the GPS the next day, how to get there and instead typed in the other one. Ha ha!

 

Today we went to Chune restaurant and had a great time. Yes, only 9 kms and about 15 minutes to get there. 

In the days before metered taxis, it could be interesting to agree a fare with the driver, when you could see that he had no idea where your destination was, and let him drive round pretending to know where he was going.  I saw lot of interesting places in Bangkok that way

Similarly, i would sometimes get a bus to the 'end of the route,' just to see where that was.  Easy when fares were 1.5 and 2.5 B.  

20 hours ago, ed strong said:

Anyone else ended up someone where they weren't supposed to be?

Ended up someone they weren't supposed to be?

I always thought I was supposed to be very rich and married to a model.  

I ended up broke and engaged to a model. 

My GF seems to not care that much about the money, so perhaps I did end up who I was supposed to be ????

35 minutes ago, Robin said:

In the days before metered taxis, it could be interesting to agree a fare with the driver, when you could see that he had no idea where your destination was, and let him drive round pretending to know where he was going.  I saw lot of interesting places in Bangkok that way

Similarly, i would sometimes get a bus to the 'end of the route,' just to see where that was.  Easy when fares were 1.5 and 2.5 B.  

Exactly what I did and it does not only work with the bus but as well with water taxis at a fraction of the price of a "Klong Tour".

4 hours ago, swm59nj said:

It seems when you ask a local  a question in the LOS.  The most common response is I don’t know.  

Yes, they can be honest and tell the truth!

5 hours ago, Mavrix said:

I ended up at the Austrian Embassy in Bangkok after requesting my taxi driver l needed to go to the Australian Embassy.....mirrored the scene from Dumb & Dumber

Which Australian embassy. There is an unofficial one in near Silom...

I remember the first time when I was in Bangkok, without mobile phones, GPS and all that, I selected in the travel guide a hotel in Sukhumvit Soi 1. I made sure that I knew the house number.

I told the taxi driver, and we arrived in Soi 1, and then I discovered that house numbers are random and useless in Bangkok (and I think all over Thailand).

After some talking the driver drove me to the Crown Hotel in Soi 6. Interesting times...

1 hour ago, ChrisKC said:

My wife made a mistake - a sort of clerical error, in which she got confused with the similarity of the words between seeing the Chune Web page and checking on the GPS the next day, how to get there and instead typed in the other one. Ha ha!

Never let your wife participate in navigation!

The 1 bus from central London past my stop in Bermondsey woke up on the outskirts of London 

Train from Euston, stopping at Crewe, my stop, rat legged on train with my Jock mates (Army), ended up in Glasgow. 

Like the tourists to England who told the taxi driver they wanted to go and see Tutankhamun.

 

He took them to Tooting Common.

19 hours ago, Robin said:

In the days before metered taxis, it could be interesting to agree a fare with the driver, when you could see that he had no idea where your destination was, and let him drive round pretending to know where he was going.  I saw lot of interesting places in Bangkok that way

Similarly, i would sometimes get a bus to the 'end of the route,' just to see where that was.  Easy when fares were 1.5 and 2.5 B.  

Seems you're assuming that drivers should know the city fairly well.

 

Well the reality is that a very large % of taxi drivers are from upcountry, most from Roi Et and have never been to Bkk before in their life. And Bkk passengers know this and expect to have to direct the driver where to go. And drivers expect to be directed.

 

Is there a trainig course to familiarize new drivers of various/many Bkk locations, landmarks, roads etc? NO. 90+ % of taxis are rented by the day from taxi rental companies who give no support whatever to drivers and fine drivers who damage the vehicle in any way or are late to return the taxi. Caught in a trffic jm is not accepted as a reason to be late, they still get fined. 

 

Part of this picture is that many Bkk passengers see taxi drivers as lower class people who should be directed/instructed on everything including taxi trips.

 

For years I often travelled in Bkk in taxis with a Thai female management consultant from my company. She told the taxi driver what to do continuously including changing lanes, speed up to get through a changing light and lots more. 

Edited February 15, 20233 yr by scorecard

Was visiting Jeddah, and my travel companion wanted to go to a particular restaurant in an hotel. Told taxi driver name of hotel and we drove around a bit. Despite asking some people he always ended up at a different hotel. Eventually gave up and returned to our hotel only to see the hotel we wanted down the street a ways!

 

Reminds me of first time I visited Chiang Mai when a Thailand newbie. I had read the Lonely Planet warnings that taxi driver would say "that place closed" to get customers to go to hotel where he got commission, so when I arrived and told taxi driver to go to place recommended in the book, and he said "that place closed" I insisted he take me there anyway. Got there paid fare and got out. As he drove away he must have been laughing like a drain as the place was indeed closed!