Bangkok city circle tours

Thu 11 Nov 2010
Catching taxis in Bangkok can be a very effective means of getting around town. To catch a taxi in bangkok, includes a number of challenges that are sometimes difficult to overcome, but problems can be avoided if you take some steps.

In the end you might spend an hour getting somewhere, but it's only cost you four Aussie dollars.

Tips for catching taxis in bangkok.
- Know your destination specifically
- Try to have it written down in thai script
- Have a city map in both languages with  the location marked so you can show them.
- Try and get them to understand you needs and confirm the destination
- Be prepared to get out of the taxi on the other side of the road or highway to save on time. (there are lots of orchestrated u turns to deal with this need, but never where you need them)
- Monitor where they are going on your own map and be prepared to send them left or right.
- Carry a gps or iPhone with nab app to monitor your progress.

Its seems sometimes that they have no idea and lost, but in most cases it's clear that it's a ploy to run up the meter. Thinking about the psychology of it. These guys only get paid by the metre, so they got to keep moving. They will avoid traffic and go a long WAY to avoid it and at the same time run up the meter. It's not so much the two extra bucks that it's going to cost you but the extra time taken from your day going the long way!!

The worst experience was heading from a city hotel to the main train station. The driver seemed to have little choice but head off down a one way street, but as we followed his progress using motion x gps on my iPhone, this guy headed for the ring road and headed off to the east then south. It did look like he had a plan as we made our way around the ring road, but then he got off the ring road and began to double back toward in a north east direction that started to look like a upside down love heart.

When challenged for the fourth time he pulled up behind another cab and offered us to the other cab who took us directly. We were not charged us a fare and seemed ok, but using up time we thought precious for a train departure!!
In the end it turned out ok for us, but beware the extra ks you might end consuming in pursuit of your destination. :)