Highway: Foreign tourist tries to pay Pattaya taxi fare with marijuana
Bangkok airport run to Pattaya ends in ganja scandal as cabbie left skint
A foreign tourist tried to pay his 2,000-baht taxi fare from Bangkok to Pattaya with a giant bag of marijuana, leaving the stunned cabbie out of pocket and steaming mad.
The bizarre incident unfolded in the early hours of today, July 15, when 54 year old veteran driver Prachuap, picked up the man at Suvarnabhumi International Airport for a trip to a hotel in Central Pattaya.
The passenger, speaking confidently, promised that his wife would cough up the fare upon arrival. But once they reached the hotel just after midnight, things quickly went up in smoke.
“The foreigner only had 900 baht,” Prachuap told police. “And the woman he claimed was his wife had just 50. I asked for the remaining 1,050 baht, but instead, he pulled out a massive bag of ganja and tried to offer that instead of cash.”
Shocked and insulted, the driver flatly refused the herbal payment and threatened to call the police. The tourist, unfazed, simply shrugged and walked off into the hotel lobby, leaving the driver standing alone in the street, unpaid and furious, Channel 7 reported.
“I’ve helped passengers without money before because I felt sorry for them,” Prachuap added. “But this time I felt completely taken for granted. People always talk about bad taxi drivers, but who’s protecting us from foreigners who pull stunts like this?”
He filed a formal complaint at Pattaya City Police Station around 1.30am, hoping officers will take action against the ganja-grubbing guest.
The case flips the script on Thailand’s taxi tales, where it’s usually the drivers accused of dodgy behaviour, like the driver last week who watched cartoons while taking a female passenger on a six-hour detour from Kanchanaburi to Pattaya before screaming “I can’t take it anymore!” and trying to throw her out of the car.
In a country where the line between comedy and chaos is often paper-thin, Prachuap’s story shows that not every rogue on the road is behind the wheel.
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