Taxi in Thailand, the service to whom?

Well, we all use taxi in time where we need to go somewhere without our own transportation. And of course taxi is a good option to take you from point A to B. Especially when you are drunk and you don't want to kill yourself, others and get in trouble with the police. It supposed to be a nice service for most cases. But, in Thailand the things work the opposite way.

In the normal way, we call the taxi and tell them where to go and simply the taxi get you to the desired destination at an expense that is measurable with standard metrics.   

In Thailand's way. Taxis get to choose their customers. Not you to choose where to go! They do not have a service mind unless you offer him extra money. They would reject you if your destination is not in their favors. And definitely they want farangs, or foreigners as they believed these farangs are easier to trick with an unfair game, and that they will get a lot of tips and that farangs would likely go to airports, and from their taxis would easily get another customer right away back and forth. Simply taxis want to optimize their own benefit at every possible ways. Their greedy algorithm is as follows:

1. Plan the circular path. He will travel along the path where he can get back to the origin. For example: Siam Paragon -> Central World -> Pratunam -> Pantip Plaza ->Phaya thai -> Siam -> Siam Paragon. 
2. Whenever the passenger call him, he will make a unwelcome look and deny you if your destination is not in his planed path. Their ways of denial are either by making a death face and drive away without saying anything (how rude!) or simply say "no" shortly and drive away. Some time they will look at you as if you had done something terribly wrong. In deed the taxi thought that you had waste his time as he is in search of a customer that would come on his planned path.
   
3. If possible, choose foreigners over local people for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph.
4. Get to the destination with attitude. Taxi might make comments regarding politics and want to get you in the conversation, this apply for Thai citizens of course. Sometime taxis listen to the radio channels belong to the extreme activists and protestors. In that case taxis would be quite aggressive. You can tell from the style of driving and his manner.
5. Drop you off anywhere near your destination. You would simply want to get out of this taxi and this torture.
6. Get the next customer along his planned path.

So try for yourself. Finding a taxi could be challenging, like finding your soulmate. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE WHAT I SAY, please go try calling them at the following places.

1. Taxi stand in front of Siam Paragon, here the taxi would be the one to choose his own passenger not you. 
2. RCA (Royal City Avenue, Rama IX), here most taxis would deny your offer. You have to ask where he wants to go and sometime you have to offer him more money!

The solution is to give them a lot of money. Money talks, bullshit walks. As Thais believe it is according to your karma, you are deserved to have this kind of "service" for your bad deeds in the past. Sometime you get a good taxi, that means you are lucky and so the karma paid off. 

Start do something good today. Next time your taxi might behave nice to you.