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Decorated Driving

 

My first driving in Asia experience was interesting but not too exciting. Some lady in the airport commandeered me to go with her taxi company. They had an actual booth in the airport so i assumed that it was kind of legit. she took me to this other lady, who i paid and she took me to another guy downstairs. he took me to another lady, and then the same guy took me outside to the taxi driver. the whole thing cost me 900 baht.

The best way that i can explain driving in Thailand is “driving with decorations”.

The roads have all these white lines painted all over them, some are dotted and some are solid. you can kind of just drift back and forward over the lines whenever you want without turning on a signal and stuff. there are also a lot of different flashing lights with things that say “80” and stuff but they must not have anything to do with the speed limit cause no one seems to notice when they start blinking like crazy. also lots of cars just seem to hangout on the side of the highway and just chill.

My taxi driver took me down a bunch of backstreets and sketchy lanes to what was supposedly the place i was going to stay that night. I didn't think it was the right place but he was convinced it was.

I walk into the “Phanakorn Nonlean” cause they guy said it the same way that it should be pronounced with the address i game him. I am staying at the “Feung Nakorn” and when i went to the desk the two girls helped me figured out i was at the wrong place. about a 30 min walk away. i decided to take another taxi to the write place with new directions i got from the girls at the first place. The second taxi driver didn't have a clue where he was going even though i gave him a map. he didn't speak any English either (directions were in Thai) and he stopped 5 times to ask people where to go. non of them seemed to know where it was but still gave us directions all over the place. so what should have probably been a 5-10 min cab ride turned into about an hour. finally we made it and it ended up costing me 200 baht (about $7)

when i got to my room the 3 other guys were already asleep and i felt bad for waking them up but i was on a top bunk and i had to climb up there. i ended up passing out with all of my clothes but somehow even being that tired i woke up 4 times during the night.

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