The following story is true - only the names have been changed to protect the fools and innocent characters involved

While I was staying at Sam’s Guesthouse in Kanchanaburi in Western Thailand, I had very enjoyable chat with the owner, Mr. Sam, about a variety of topics including communication problems between Farangs (oversea tourists) and the local Thai people. As any farang who has traveled to Thailand, you know how difficult it is for us to speak Thai with proper pronunciation and vice versa. If there is foreign language that Thai people have some facility with is English - that being said, Thai people have just as much have difficulty enunciating proper English (the international language of tourists worldwide), therein lies the communication problem.

Mr. Sam told me a story about a Finnish friend who flew to Thailand to visit him in Kanchanaburi. Located a good 2-hour drive west from Bangkok by car, Kan (short for Kanchanaburi) is a medium sized town that is famous as the site of the Bridge over River Kwai. Well, Sam’s friend from Finland (let’s call him Mr. Finn) arrived at the international airport in Bangkok and hired a taxi from the airport to take him to Kanchanaburi. So the taxi driver (let us call him Mr. P), trying to decipher where Mr. Finn wants to go and drives him to Chantaburi (rhymes with Kanchanaburi), about 2 ½ hours southeast of Bangkok.

Upon arriving in Chantaburi, Mr. Finn realizes something is amiss and that he’s not in Kanchanaburi and tries to convey this to the confused Mr. P. Problem is Mr. Finn only knows a couple of words of English and his Thai is nonexistent, so I can imagine that when he told Mr. P to take him to Kanchanaburi, he literally butchered the pronunciation. So the poor and confused Mr. P reverses direction, heads back to Bangkok and proceeds west to Kanchanaburi - however something is amiss again, as the 7 hours later, the taxi arrives in Sangkhlaburi (again rhymes with Kanchanaburi), which is about an additional three hours to the north from Kanchanaburi. In order to get to Sangkhlaburi, Mr. P, our cab driver in this true tale, had to pass thru Kanchanaburi, Mr. Finn’s desired destination. Again, Mr. Finn realizes that something is wrong and somehow he’s able to communicate to Mr. P that he’s taken him to the wrong town. Finally the driver finally understands where Mr. Finn wants to go, reverses directions and heads south, three hours later, Mr. Finn finally arrives at Sam’s Guesthouse in Kanchanaburi.

All told, upon arriving in Bangkok, what should have been an easy 2 - 2-½ hour journey from Bangkok’s international airport turns into a cross-country roundabout sightseeing tour which lasts about 13 hours. Mr. Finn, the good natured Scandinavian soul that he is, remarked to Mr. Sam, that he actually enjoyed the 13 hour taxi ride from Bangkok as it gave him chance to see the countryside. LOL 5555555!

Factoid: Kan is short for Kanchanaburi (pronounced like con), Sang is for Sangkhlaburi (pronounced like song) and Chan is short for Chantaburi (pronounced like John)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 8:12 am and is filed under Humor, Thailand, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.