The Honest Taxi Driver

I want to recollection a tale about a taxi ride today.

Today I had to meet one of my associates at IT Mall at Ratchada and I was in a rush, so I decided to hop on a taxi from Ramkamhaeng Road. I told the taxi driver that I wanted to go to Lotus Ratchada - since most taxi drivers assume them to be the same place. On the way there, the taxi driver drove in a rather strange way. Instead of going the usual RamaIX road, the taxi went through the short cut at Wat Theplila instead. Though it was strange, the route is another short cut that we could take so I didn't really mind. However after doing to the route, it happened that the taxi driver suddenly went in the opposite direction, in which I was surprised and quickly asked which way he was driving.

He replied me he was going to Lotus Ram Intra - which was a little up the road.

Its seems that he was confused about the destination. I was alittle mad at first considering that I know a few unscroupulous taxi drivers will intentionally go the wrong way in order to get a higher fee.

Anyway, after reaching the destination, the fee of the taxi came up to 111 baht, which was alittle more expensive that usual. I was planning just to pay up and forget about the whole incident - but before I managed to pay, the taxi driver told me that he would ask only for 100 baht instead of the cost in the meter.

This is the first time I ever had a taxi driver that seem apologetic for going in the wrong direction, so I decided to give him 120 baht instead. The amount was more than what I was expected to pay, but I think that it was well worth to reward those who are honest as its rather hard to find these breed of people these days.