Observations and Stories of my Travels
Yesterday I had a 'Bangkok' taxi experiences that welcomed me to the city. I was feeling rather proud of myself when I decided not to take a taxi from my hotel, and instead take the Skytrain the few stops it travelled towards my destination (WV office), and take a taxi from there the rest of the way. It seemed rather straight forward as the taxi had only to take an immediate right turn and then drive straight from there without any further turns. Piece of cake for a guy who spent 17 years in NYC, right?
I hailed a taxi, and immediately repeated several times the address I had rehearsed in my mind to the driver. He took off like a shot with a few grunts. But instead of taking an immediate turn onto the street I was pointing at, he started down BACK towards the hotel. I said NO, and repeated the address. He is driving a stick shift, avoiding motorcycles and turning to look at me as I lean forward handing him a piece of paper pointing to the address - plainly typed in English. After several more blocks heading back to the hotel, I realize my best bet is to call the WV office and have someone speak to him in Thai. So fortunately, I find an email on my Blackberry from a person in that office, and call the number, explain to them the situation (as we continue merrily back towards my hotel), and hand the phone to the driver (who appears to be in his early 20's). He talks a little while, and then laughs several times, hands the phone back to me with one hand, while he downshifts, brakes and swings the car around directly in front of traffic coming the opposite direction, waves thanks to the cars rapidly stopping, and accelerates quickly back towards where he picked me up in the first place.
Now he is asking me something and pointing at my blackberry phone, and I think he is saying 'how much'? (I am not sure if he wants to buy my phone from me, wants to imply that I'm not getting out of the car until I give him my blackberry, or is just impressed with the geewiz techno gizmo that he isn't familiar with. I decide it is the latter). I calculate the exchange rate in my head dollars to Thai Baht and give him a price that is based on what I think one pays on some special deals I've seen that reduce the price if you join a cell plan for 2 years - about $100, which I calculate (incorrectly) to 27,000 Baht. This is the exact opposite of what I'm trying to do - it inflates the price 10 times to $1000. Then he points to the camera I have around my neck, and asks me again 'how much'? Now I'm feeling a bit nervous, enough so that I am calculating how to make a quick escape, and looking at his ID on the dash, and thinking through the likelihood of him taking me somewhere to extract goods from a rich westerner like myself. ( I just watched 'The Bourne Ultimatum' and I'm quite sure that if Bourne can handle all the impossible situations he gets in while traveling in foreign cities, I can handle this) I lowball the price of the camera to $200 and calculate the exchange rate to Thai Baht correctly, but again lowballing the amount to 5000 Baht. He smiles and then frowns, and indicates he wants me to write it down on a piece of paper, fumbles in the dash for paper and pen, while stopping on a dime to avoid a traffic backup, downshifts, and takes off in another lane, while handing me the paper. Keep in mind we are in broad daylight in the middle of downtown Bangkok, surrounded by hundreds of cars and thousands of people. But I am wondering if he is up to no good. He suddenly swings to the left onto a street that appears to be a one way street GOING THE WRONG WAY. Across the road are solid cars facing us, and in the narrow lane on the left there is a stream of motorcylces coming towards us. He starts down this lane and I realize that I briefly forgot that they drive on the opposite side of the road - WHEW! Oh, and motorcycles drive wherever there is open space, it doesn't matter if it is going the wrong way on a street, on a sidewalk, whatever. They operate on the assumption that if God hadn't intended motorcycles to get there faster, He wouldn't have allowed them to have the 30 inches needed to pass between 2 buses side by side on the road.
Before long we are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, and he is pointing at an office tower and motionging for me to get out. Even though we are now on the right street (I think), I don't see any address, and I was told as a by the way by a friendly WV staff member that the bottom floor of the WV building ( we rent part of one floor in a 30 floor tower) is a bank. This building isn't it. I say no & point forward. He motions again, and this goes back and forth for several times, until I again pull out my blackb erry and call the same person in the WV office. She explains to his satisfaction, and I get to stay in the car, but we are still in bumper to bumper traffic, and he decides it is time for a refreshing snack.
After rolling down the curbside window (on the left, just for your mental picture), he calls out to a young lady with a cart that has a display of cut fruits and meats. After a brief exchange, he ends up with what looks like a section of cut pineaple, but I later learn is a native fruit. About 10 minutes later we arrive in front of the building, and I see a sign that clearly indicates it is the right building.
Now comes the most interesting part - the part where I once again assert my crafty New York background and worldy experience to not get taken to the cleaners, so to speak. The meter reads 71 Baht (almost 3 dollars rounding the translation rate down to about 25Baht to the dollar). This is cheap by my normal standards, but I am wondering what it 'should' be if he hadn't 'taken off down the wrong way' originally. But I look in my wallet and see that I only have either three 20 Baht bills, or a 1000 Baht bill. I hand him the 1000 Baht bill, and he puts his hand up to refuse it, while shaking his head 'no'. So I then offer the 60 Baht bills, figuring that the ride wouldn't be so much if he had gone the 'right way'. I explain my thoughts in English to him, which he doesn't understand. I sit there, not sure what to do, but feeling like the 60 Baht is the way I'm going to go, rather than go find change for the 1000. I nod to him, and say thank you, and get out of the car.
Reflections on the Journey
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm reading a book that Rachel recommended to me - 'Ida B'. In this story, Ida B's family has to sell part of the forested land that she dearly loves to developers so they can pay her mother's medical bills. Ida is very, very upset with this, and other changes taking place in her life outside of her control. She confronts the young girl her age and her little brother, and yells at them to get off her land, they aren't wanted here, etc... Later, she realizes that her mindset was seriously affecting her judgement about this confrontation, and that she had not be fair to do that.
After I got up to the World Vision office, I briefly relayed my story, which they were already partly aware of because it is a small office and word had gotten around from the person I called. When I finished my story (showing myself to actually be streetsmart enough to pay the driver more what he would have gotten if he had gone the right way), the Senior Manager asked me - how much did the meter say? I told him, and he said 'actually that is a fairly normal price'.
After reflecting on this entire experience, let me summarize more objectively what happened. Western man, possessing expensive blackberry and camera, gets in a Bangkok taxi, isn't prepared to communicate in Thai verbally or in writing, takes driver on a journey, then shortchanges him of what he is due for the service he provided. Unfortunately, I won't have the opportunity to apologize to him, like Ida B was able to do. I did give a large tip to the next taxi driver that I paid, but that won't change the impression I made on the first driver.
Well tomorrow is another day, or is it actually night... I'm still a little straddling two time zones 14 hours apart!
