The 450-Km, seven-hour drive northeast from Bangkok to Khon Kaen last night wasn't too bad. The three of us talked and laughed and snacked the whole way. Plus, we stopped at a random but very delicious Thai restaurant on the side of the road outside of Nakorn Ratchasima.
You might be saying to yourself, "But I thought the last post said that he was flying to Khon Kaen." And you would be right. Our Thai Airways tickets went unused last night as we missed the flight by just a few minutes. This was due mostly to the fact that we sat in our taxi for a full 10 minutes at the Mo Chit / Lad Prao intersection. Very annoying.
So after we got to the airport and after our begging and pleading to let us on the airplane fell on deaf ears, we rented a car from Avis for about 1600 baht (US$40) a day. We figured that was not too bad, split between three people. Of course losing out on the 2400 baht ($US60) air ticket wasn't good news, but by that point, we didn't have much choice.
Now that I think about it, however, I think that having a car will actually come in handy. It will give us a lot more freedom and we won't have to worry about flagging down taxis or trying to figure out where the songthaw (red truck taxis) go.
