Thursday morning and afternoon were very uneventful. We hung out at our hotel for a while in the morning and then made our way to the airport. We were flying from Cebu City to Manila and then to Bangkok. Jessie and I were both excited to start a new adventure in Thailand.
After a long time spent on planes and in terminals, Jessie and I finally arrived in Bangkok around 12:30am. I knew we would have to take a taxi to get to our hotel so I went to the information desk and asked how much a 30 minute taxi would cost. I was told anywhere between 200-300 bhat.
I knew our hotel was about 25minutes away from the airport and so when the airport taxi told Jessie and I that it would be 650bhat, we decided to take a regular taxi.
We went to the 4th floor exit and found the spot where the regular taxis were located and a man approached us. I showed him a paper with our hotel information and he nodded that he knew where it was. I asked him how much it would cost but he just muttered in Thai, so I assumed he spoke no English. He was already loading our luggage into the cab, so Jessie and I just went in.
As we began to drive I asked him to start the meter, but he said he couldn’t yet. Then I realized that he spoke English so I asked him how much it would cost to get to the hotel. He only responded by saying a gruff “later!”. It was then that I realized he didn’t know where he was going. He shoved a flashlight in my lap and yelled at me to read the Thai address. When I wasn’t able to read it properly (because it was Thai), he yelled at me.
By this time, I was beginning to get nervous. I asked him again to turn on the meter and then he yelled at me and said “No meter! 1,500 bhat!!”. Now, this was an outrageous amount of money for a cab that should only cost 300. Not to mention that Jessie and I didn’t even have that much money with us.
I firmly responded by saying no, that’s way too much. This was when the driver when insane. He started yelling at me with such fierce anger that it scared me. He then swung to the inside curb of the highway and demanded that we get out (with our luggage on a 7-lane highway). I told him that we would not get out on a highway because it’s dangerous but that I would pay him to drop us off on a side road and we’d find another cab.
With this, he reached across me, swung my door open and got right up into my face and raged “Get out!!!!!”. I was so scared, I was shaking. Jessie remained in the cab while I grabbed our luggage and we were soon stranded on the side of a highway with all of our luggage at 2am. It hit me then how scared I was, we didn’t know this country, and we had just met a man who yelled at me in a way that no one has ever done before. This was a horrible way to start off our Thai adventure.
Stranded, alone and on the side of the highway, Jessie and I were off to a bad start. I put my arm up to try to find another taxi and immediately a silver SUV pulls up beside us. A man rolled down his window and asked us if we were OK. This was when I began to bawl. I was crying so hard that Jessie had to intervene and tell the man our situation. He immediately got out of the car, loaded up our luggage and told us that he’d help us find another taxi. He kindly told us, “Don’t cry! Don’t cry! It will be okay. I will get you a good taxi.”
I calmed down in the car and learned that he was a taxi driver also, but this was his day off. He told us that it’s very rare that drivers act this way and that we’re just incredibly unlucky. He brought us to an area with cab drivers and found one to take us to our hotel for a fair price. He also spent time with the driver going through exactly how to get to the hotel so he wouldn’t get lost. This man went out of his way to turn our horrible situation into something better. I will always remember him… he was our angel named Mr. Hum! I honestly do think that God was watching out for us, because this man showed up literally 10 seconds after the taxi driver drove away… we were taken care of.
By the time we arrived to the hotel it was almost 2:30am. Jessie and I had a really stressful night but we were both so frazzled by the events earlier that neither of us slept well. Unfortunately, we had a cooking class booked for the next morning at 8am, so we didn’t get much sleep. The thing to remember is that when you’re already at the bottom, the only way to go is up. I tried to remind myself that Thailand had to get better than this.
*** Since the previous events occurred, I have learned that Thailand is a wonderful place with amazing and kind people. Our first impression was very unfortunate, but not at all accurate in describing the country as a whole***
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