Dear Chiangmai Mail;
I’ve been living in Thailand for quite a few years and
I’ve seen my share of weird things. The weirdest thing I’ve ever
experienced here were the taxis. Almost everybody knows how taxis work. You
wave to them to pick you up or you call them or something like that. But
here in Thailand you can actually find taxis which don’t want to drive you
someplace.
A few weeks ago I was standing in front of Central Kad
Suan Kaew at 9 in the evening and I needed a ride home. Now since I’m a
foreigner taking one of those red buses in the night isn’t very smart
because they just rip you off as much as possible. So since those were out
of the question (the tuk-tuks are even worse…) I naturally decided to call
a taxi. Luckily I had a few numbers from taxi drivers with me, so I called
one.
The first one said he is off duty. When I asked him why
his card says "from 6 a.m. ‘til midnight" he answered "No
speak English". OK, so I try the next one. Coffee break. Next one is
busy until 2 a.m.
After a few more calls one finally says he’ll pick me
up in 10 minutes. Great, I can finally go home. Wrong. After waiting an hour
(it was already 10.30 by that time) I call him again and he tells me he went
home. I really admire him having the guts to tell me he won’t pick me up
after letting me wait for one hour under the impression he was coming.
So finally I ended up paying a lot of money to a red bus
to bring me home after putting up with all the taxi drivers who didn’t
fulfill their duty as taxi drivers.
The town of Chiang Mai is making such a big deal out of
their ‘taxi’ fleet, but a bunch of bums who don’t do their work
shouldn’t be called ‘taxi drivers’. Some English skills would also
help.
Joseph Williams
