Can you smell a scam?
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2004
1
27
30
Trip End
Apr 08, 2005
Bangkok,
Thailand
Saturday, February 26, 2005
The bus dropped us off on Khao San Rd. at 4:30 in the morning. Without much to do at this time of day in a strange city, we decided to sit at a cafe and wait for sunrise. The air was still quite warm and Khao San Rd's 1/4 mile stretch still had signs of the previous nights activities. There were several vendors still selling food in the street, ladies and lady boys were still hustling, and a few tourists were still staggering around. The street basically doesn't sleep, it just slows down for a couple of hours before the morning rush
01 - Kho San Road
.We found a nice guest house by 8, had some breakfast and slept for a few hours before exploring our neighbourhood. After reading about Bangkok in the L.P. we still found it difficult to decide where to go and what to see first, so we basically just wandered. Khao San Rd. is interesting enough, but it wasn't long before we found ourselves a mile or two away poking around local areas. We found what we termed "Buddha Alley", which is a block or two of shops selling statues of Buddha, little care packages for new monks, and lots of supplies for monks. Having businesses and shops all offering the same service in the same geographic area, seems to be the way things are done here in S.E. Asia. Even in China we noticed it. Gino and I spent a couple of hours in Bejing looking at ridiculously low-priced power tools in "Home Depot Alley". He was drooling and moaning like Homer Simpson.....anyway....Walking around left us a bit dry, so we made our way back to Khao San Rd. for a drink and some people watching. Over drinks Gino held my hands, looked deep into my eyes, told me how much he loved me and mentioned he wanted to get a tattoo to cover the "other one". What did I think? Well, I was ready to do a dance in the street! We went to find a good tattoo parlour before dinner and decided on the first one we went to. It's inside a small plaza across from McDonald's. Very clean, very professional and has won an MTV award for something or other
02 - Meet Stampy!
. Anyway, we chatted with Jenny and she booked Gino for 8 that night. In the mean time, we went to find dinner. The tattoo was done in 2 hours by a guy named, Funk, and it looks gorgeous. We were all really pleased with it. Gino made Jenny and her sister giggle by making an elephant trumpeting sound and raising his arm to his face - like it was a trunk. Oh my.
Our first full day in Bangkok was a Sunday and we were heading down a street looking for breakfast, with no agenda, when we were stopped by an enthusiastic and very friendly man. He turned out to be a high school teacher and was happy to hear we were from Canada. He apparently has a relative working in Toronto who really likes it there. He asked what our plans were for the day and when we told him we didn't have any, we asked him for some suggestions. Well. He immediately led us to a circle intersection, wrote out a complete itinerary, and then flagged down a tuk-tuk for us. He told us that we were very lucky because this day was a government holiday and all the tuk-tuks would cost only 10 baht all day. Sweet. So, this guy he flagged down was going to take us all over the place for like 25 cents. I was so impressed with this teacher's sincerity and kindness that I asked if we could have our picture taken with him. He politely declined, stating it was his birthday and against his religion. We got in the tuk-tuk thinking it was a bit odd of an excuse, and didn't remember reading anything like it in the guide book, but shrugged it off as one of those things you learn as you go.
Our first stop was a clothing tailor. Our teacher friend said it was one of the best in the city, but that if we weren't interested we should just go in for 5 or 10 min, pretend to look around and then leave
03 - Field of Kites
. This way our tuk-tuk driver could get a voucher entitling him to government reimbursement for fuel at the end of the month. Apparently, the government holiday is geared toward promoting tourism in the city and the tuk-tuk drivers are instrumental in getting tourists around to the sites. So, we went in to look around and knew we wouldn't leave without at least something. Gino is a salesman's dream. If you were smooth enough, you really could sell him swamp land in Florida. We left with an order for two shirts and a navy pea coat.Our next stop was at a temple where the national kick boxing champion was fighting that morning only. This was the one day in the year that this temple was open to the public. We couldn't believe our luck, but we felt a little odd because we weren't dressed properly to be visiting temples. The tuk-tuk driver said not to worry, it wasn't a big deal. So we get there and there was nothing going on. Someone working on the grounds told us that there was an accident earlier in the morning and one of the fighters ended up in the hospital. Oh, well. No kick boxing for us this day. He directed us to go ahead and look at the temple anyway, and then visit the other one beside it. They were both very beautiful, but we didn't stay long. We were getting hungry. Time for lunch after our next stop at the T.A.T.
04 - Milk bread
Our next stop was at the T.A.T., also known as the Tourism Authority of Thailand. We had to go there to look into booking airline tickets to Phuket and accommodations. I had done some checking on the internet and had prices for AirAsia, but wanted to comparison shop at a travel agency. Our agent was very friendly and bubbly, talking about the government holiday and how she felt odd to be the only one in the office wearing her uniform, because she forgot she didn't have to wear it today. She was more than happy to give us some prices to Phuket and to California for our trip home. When it came to accommodation, however, she didn't seem to understand our budget needs. She thought $25.00 u.s. was a great price for a hotel(which it is), but we were thinking more like $10.00 or less. She said we'd never find a price like that and appeared a little annoyed with us. We ended the accommodation search quickly and asked for a total on the air line tickets. I had done a quick total in my head, but hers was double what I came up with. Oh, oh. We asked her to break down the cost by flight and it turned out that her tickets to Phuket were indeed double! Whoa. When I told her I had found tickets for half her price, she turned from our friendly T.A.T. agent into a raging monster. She started insulting us, and speaking to her coworkers about us in Thai. She refused to book the tickets to California for us and essentially chased us out of the office demanding to speak with our tuk-tuk driver
Mmmm....squid....
. Yikes!When we asked our tuk-tuk driver what that was all about, he just laughed and said she was upset over losing the commission from the tickets. We were concerned he wouldn't get reimbursed for his gas because of it, but he said not to worry. Next, we asked to stop for lunch, but our tuk-tuk driver suggested we squeeze in an unexpected temple visit before. He said it's very beautiful and that he'd be able to get a voucher for taking us there. We agreed. When we walked through the gates and up to the building, it was clearly closed. Someone sitting down nearby said that it was closed to the public right now because the monks were just about to worship. He asked us where we were from and all the usual questions we get from curious locals. His english was great and he had a nice disposition. He asked us about our travels thus far and how we like Thailand etc....Then he asked us what we were doing today and if we had been to the Expo Center yet. It wasn't on the itinerary and we had no idea what it was, so he told us all about it. It is a large jewelry outlet and apparently for one week a year the government allows tourists to buy up to a certain amount tax free. He said that lots of foreigners come over specifically to pick up the sapphire sets, because they are certified and some of the best in the world. Then they take them home and sell them to jewelers in their home countries. We couldn't believe it. Really?, we asked. Oh, yeah! he said. He said students will even come here to do that because they can make enough money by re-selling them, to cover their college tuition. Wow. That sounded really great, but I was hungry and started to walk away to indicate it was time for us to be going. Before I got too far, however, a French gentleman joined the conversation and suddenly we were talking again about where we were from and how long we were travelling etc...Turned out that he had just finished up his business in Bangkok and was ready to relax before heading home with several thousand dollars worth of sapphires. He said he would get more than double the price once he sold them at home. Hmmm.....Gino was grinning ear to ear and had dollar signs in his eyes and I was shaking my head. No, no, no, no, NO.
Back at the tuk-tuk, our driver asked if we would mind waiting a minute while he went to the bathroom. No problem. While we waited, a local gentleman came up to us looking a little concerned and asked us where our driver was and were we ok. That of course led to chit chat about where we were from, how long we were travelling etc... He looked at our itinerary and asked if we were going to the Expo Centre....When our driver came back I asked him about it and he said it was a very good place to go and a very good time to go since it was tax free this week. It seemed like quite a coincidence to me that there was so much talk of this jewelry. But then again, it was our first full day in Thailand and maybe this was just something we hadn't heard of before. Gino wanted to go check it out, but I wasn't so sure. We had lunch first and then went to the Expo centre.
I was digging my heels in more and more by the time we got to the Expo Centre. Gino looked around and I sat in the lounge waiting for him. Back in the tuk-tuk the driver was disappointed that we didn't buy anything, and I was annoyed with his disappointment. We wanted to get the weekend market, but our driver begged us to stop at one more temple for a gas voucher. We agreed, but once we got to the temple entrance, decided not to go in. As we were turning to leave we heard kittens mewing and followed their sound til we found them. They were on the stairs of an adjacent building, with their eyes still closed. One fell before Gino could get to it in time, and we put it back with the others. We felt awful about leaving them there, but there was nothing we could do. On our way off the grounds we passed a couple of travellers who asked us if we heard kittens. We pointed to where we had just left them and told them the story. These two well dressed gentlemen were from the States and we made small talk for about 15 min. Can you guess what the majority of the conversation consisted of? By the time they were done pitching the Expo Centre and feigning astonishment that we didn't buy anything, Gino was almost beside himself. And I have to admit that I was starting to doubt my instincts to stay away from the jewelry. On our way back to our ride, I asked Gino to think seriously about how unnatural the day had been played out. Once inside the tuk-tuk, however, the extremely elaborate and very well executed day-long plan to doop two Canadian tourists was fatally wounded - by our own driver. He asked us if we wanted to go back to the Expo Centre. DHOA! Bet he got fired. Gino nearly lost it. He turned red, started sweating and I could feel his pulse through the seat we shared. He had a few choice words for the driver and then told him to take us to the weekend market.
He was supposed to wait for us to do our shopping, but of course he didn't. In fact he didn't even drop us off at the weekend market. After walking around for about 20 min. we found ourselves on Khoa San Rd.!!! I couldn't stop laughing and all Gino wanted to do was hunt down that driver. What a day. We spent the night going over every detail of the day, trying to figure out who was involved. We think it all started with the friendly high school teacher...wow.
A note to travellers: if anyone speaks to you about jewelry, report it immediately to the tourist police. We noticed the Public Awareness poster with that advice at our guest house the next day.
We committed to going to Phuket after seeing advertisements recruiting volunteers for the tsunami clean up and relief effort. The locals there apparently really needed the tourist dollars to start coming back, and we felt good about the idea of relaxing on Phuket's beaches if we could contribute to the effort as both volunteers and tourists.
