h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great subject for entry - not sure if it should be part of a wider "travel tips for SE Asia" type section however, as there are many pitfalls for the uninitiated, of which overpriced taxis are (usually) one of the non-life threatening.

Comments:
General principles - maybe you should also mention that apart from the language issue the price is also inversely proportional to how near you are to some of the more touristy areas - Thanon Khao San/Khao San Road, for instance. Plus the drivers do speak a bit of english - even if it's only "Manchester United!"

Aswell as the cars, there are also water taxis/buses which are much more pictureque to get around the city on - can't for the life of me remember where you get them from, but it may be worthwhile investigating them a bit more.

Two more pedantic comments - taxi's - plurals do not use an apostrophe.
I personally prefer it of you don't use caps for emphasis - caps denote shouting in most online conversations, and this isn't the ideal way to go about stressing something.

Glad you encourage people to tip - I think it's diabolical that after 6 months in Asia you see westerners getting all stressed about saving 1 baht/rupee/dong when they wouldn't even take the time to stop & pick it up if it was 5p dropped on the street at home.

Mel

Thanks, Mel - that was a great response!

I would gladly start the ball rolling on travel tips in South Asia, but I don't feel I have enough experience on rail, sea and air to write articles on those. There is a piece in the Guide about driving in Thailand - maybe I could link to that?

I will certainly put in additional comments about the tourist area/taxi price ratio, but I don't recall speaking to a single taxi driver who had much more conversation than "Machester United! David Beckham!", so I think it is safer encouraging people to take phrasebooks, rather than making them hopeful that they can rely on their taxi driver speaking good English!

Sadly, I didn't use water buses, and had only one trip in a water taxi - so probably am not the person to comment on these. I would love to investigate them further, if I ever manage to get my bank balance in the black again, I will.

Regarding the pedantic comments, you are quite right! I thought I'd eliminated my "taxi's" error, but see I missed a couple or three. Will change this. I will also do my best to work out how to make the text bold, rather that using caps. I don't like caps either, but wanted to emphasise the words.

Thanks for you excellent critique.

Judge