Today I woke up super early to go to the Immigration office and get my re-entry permit for when I go to Utah at the end of the month. I forced myself out of bed at 7, got all ready and wide awake and then looked outside and it was pouring rain. It was too early to take the free Tuk-Tuk from my apartment to the subway, so I decided I just wouldn’t go today and tried to go back to sleep. Of course I couldn’t. Finally at 9:30 it had stopped raining and I figured that since I had all my crap ready to go I should just go and get it over with. The only problem was that I knew I’d be getting there after most of the earlies and would have to wait. But I decided to try my luck since the last time I went for this particular purpose I was literally the only person in there and was out in like 5 minutes. It was like a graveyard. So I crossed my fingers and headed out.

When I got to the end of the subway line I still had a 10 minute cab ride to the immigration center. The last time I went there the guy ended up driving me to another building way past the actual place, and then when the security told him where he actually needed to go he got me there. He was cool, didn’t charge me the extra dollar it had ended up costing on the meter. So I was a bit nervous as I started looking out for oncoming taxis.

I had my map in hand and finally flagged down a cab. The first guy just shook his head and drove off. The second guy took forever looking at the map and the address and then finally said he knew where it was. That should have been my first warning to just get another taxi. But stupidly, I trusted him, and got in and we were off. My second clue was when he veered right instead of left at a big interchange. I told him he wasn’t going the right way but he said he was going that way because there was less traffic. I was unconvinced, but there wasn’t really anywhere to make him stop and let me out.

Finally we ended up in a strange part of town where I knew we were not headed in the right direction at all. I told him he was going the wrong way again and he was like “It’s not right here??” We stopped at the building he THOUGHT we should be at and asked the security about where we were going; and I showed them the map and they did some long explanation to him in Thai. We drove off and he said ok ok he knew where it was; but I didn’t trust him and I wasn’t going to let him have any more of my money. The meter was already up to 4 bucks. So we got to a semi-major road and I told him to stop, gave him his money and got out. I wanted to get somebody who could look at the map for less than a minute and know where we were supposed to go.

The next cab driver looked at the map and said he knew where it was, and i trusted him. We had to take the EXPRESSWAY back to get on the right path, another 2 bucks. So the whole trip ended up costing me 10 bucks instead of 3. But we did get there and I thanked the taxi driver and told him I was sorry for yelling at him when we were getting onto the expressway.

Now I was really mad at the original driver. I wanted to track him down and beat his skinny little face in.

Unfortunately, I had only just ARRIVED at the immigration office, and who knew what awaited me inside. I went in and got my number and sure enough, there were 20 people ahead of me in the queue. But actually the queue was going pretty fast so I think I only spent about 30 minutes inside. Now I got my permit to come back to Thailand. Before I left the immigration office, I asked the girl at the help desk to write in CLEAR THAI some instructions on my map for all taxi drivers that I can show them from now on. If anyone takes me where I don’t want to go he’s either getting stiffed or beat up, or both.

Now I had to get another taxi back to the subway… Luckily everyone knows where the subway station is so we drove right there this time.

p.s. This is not the first time a taxi driver has screwed me by not going where I told him or taking me on a longer unnecessary route. I’m sick of it.