Taxis never know where they're going

We needed to book travel to get to Ko Pha Ngan for new year, so after looking online and finding every single flight fully booked, we decided to head over to the travel agents on Khao San and see about booking a sleeper train. But first I had to go pick up some stuff from home. So we walked to the high street and finally found a taxi. “Wat Samorakorn,” I tell him (that's the name of the wat – temple – right near the house), and he mumbles something back. “Wat Samorkorn,” I say again, and he nods. And off we go. But of course nothing about taking a taxi is simple, especially since no taxi driver in Nonthaburi knows where Wat Samorakorn is (so I should have been suspicious the second he seemed to understand where we wanted without having to even show him Smile's written instructions).

It's about a 100 baht taxi ride from Casandra's place to mine, so when the meter hit 130 and I didn't recognise anything I started to get concerned. When it got to 160 I was about to ask him where he was going. And then we arrived – at Phutthamonthon. Which in no way sounds like Wat Samorakorn. We managed to make him understand that this wasn't where we wanted to be, and I handed over Smile's instructions. And he laughed (glad he thought it was funny. We were too busy being annoyed at the extra hundreds of baht that this unrequested detour was going to cost us) and headed back for Nonthaburi. Two stops for directions later and the meter was pushing 300 baht (I've never had a taxi journey cost over 200 before) and we were feeling very grumpy and Cas is extremely fed up with having to pay for taxi drivers' mistakes. We were within sight of the mall by then, so we got out of the car, handed the driver 100 baht (what the journey should have cost), and walked off. We were ready for a fight, but luckily he just took it.

And we went to Bangkok.