One of My Lucky Days

It has been raining a lot in Bangkok nowadays. Most of the days this month were started by grey skies and cloudy morning, and often, it happened for the whole day. Nevertheless, our activities wouldn't stop running, just like today. I planned to visit a friend at around 3 p.m., but few minutes before the clock stroke three, it rained heavily. I was thinking of canceling the visit, but then I decided to wait a bit with the hope that the rain would stop. At the end, we left the apartment around 3.40 p.m or so. I walked until the end of the alley, crossed the bridge and got off the stairs to find out that there were two other people ahead of me who were also in the taxi queue. Two taxis passed by us but as usual, they refused as soon as you told them where to go...so, there we were, under the rain shower, hoping to get a taxi as soon as possible. After some time, one taxi came but he seemed to ignore the sign from the two ladies as he kept driving, and out of the blue, he stopped right in front of me instead. I looked at the driver in surprise and so did the other lady. I got onto the taxi with curious feeling, why on earth he would take me but not other ladies? Later, I got the answer as he started the conversation and said that he has a three-year-old son at home..so no wonder he took us as I was with my son, too...parents' solidarity it is.

Since I have experienced refusal from many taxi drivers although they saw me carrying a baby, I would call it one of my lucky days..just like the other day when I was in a hurry to attend my appointment with the dentist and could not get neither taxi nor motor taxi/shiro (another type of public transport similar to tuk tuk), I finally found a vacant shiro whose driver agreed to take me after seeing my insistence.

Yep, taking public transports in Bangkok can be very tricky and on many occasions, you'll end up getting upset with the taxi drivers for not taking you to your destination while wondering what the reason is. At this situation, I often miss Jakarta where I won't experience any refusal to get onto the taxi by at least five to seven drivers at one time..pheww...