Getting scammed in Bangkok.
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2008
1
21
41
Trip End
Aug 2009
Bangkok,
Thailand
Thursday, January 29, 2009
We touch down and get a cab to the travellers favourite, the Khoa San Road. We look for a cheap hostel and settle on a new Travelodge-type place. It's clean and air-conditioned. The heat and humidity is a big shock after the coolness of the north.
We head straight out and visit several markets and get a free ride in a water-taxi along the river. In the evening we head for China Town and some cheap food. We fail, and end up having expensive food at a roadside stall. Suzi finds out that even in Thailand crab is dear!
The next day we get scammed good and proper!
In the morning we head for the Royal Palace and the Emmerald Buddha. While walking there two separate people tell us that it is closed until the afternoon
What you lookin' at?
. As we near the Palace we are headed off by someone who looks like staff and told that it's closed until 2pm. He then bundles us into a tuk-tuk and off we are head. We visit the Golden Mount with its views of the city and see the tallest standing Buddha. We then are taken to a tailors and a jewellery shop. We're sure that we've read about this scam somewhere before! But we must be too travel wise by now to be taken in by this... We tell the tuk-tuk driver to take us back to the now hopefully open Palace. He tells us that he gets free fuel if he takes tourists to these shops. We say ok and let him fill up. We get back to the Palace and lo-and-behold it's open! Has been all day!
The Emmerald Buddha is closed for the visit of the Princess, who is due within a few hours of us. What is it with us and places being closed? We walk around the Temple and the Palace. The whole place is ornate, every building and statue deserving of a photograph. Dave doesn't let them down.
We spend a few hours wandering around, taking it all in.
We then head to the Reclining Buddha, all 46 metres of him, at What Pho. The size of the statue isn't done justice in photos. He is massive.
That evening we head to watch Muay Thai boxing at the Lumphini Stadium
The praying didn't stop us getting scammed.
. It isn't a cheap night out either, ringside tickets are 40 quid each. We watch the bouts, getting more and more into it. The main event of the night is the best fight, and afterwards we have our picture taken with the Champ. It's a brutal sport, the sights and sounds up close remind you of the punishment these guys take every night. The evening is rounded off with the kids fights, boys in their early teens kicking the hell out of each other. We leave and order a tuk-tuk to take us to Ping-Pong Alley, the notorious redlight district of Bangkok. It should be a short ride of no more than a few minutes. It also should only take one driver to get us there.
You can see where this is heading can't you? However, we didn't!
After quite a while, and both the blokes in the front saying how handsome Dave is and asking how old he is, we hit the motorway. Suzi notices a taxi driver beeping and waving furiously at us, shouting for us to get out the tuk-tuk. His passengers open the window and start shouting at us. Suzi shouts for the driver to stop, which he seems reluctant to do. We pull up in a dark alley, miles from where we should be. Both the drivers plead innocence, but luckily both of us are angry people. They must think better of mugging us and try to get us back into the tuk-tuk. They obviously have somewhere for us to be taken to and God-knows what to happen to us. We head for the main road and eventually they drive off giving us a tirrade of abuse. We have lost the urge to play table-tennis with a Lady of the Night and get a taxi back to the hostel.
Bangkok. A city gridlocked with traffic where everyone wants to rip you off
One long Buddha!
!The next day we get the train to Malaysia. It'll be our home for the next 22 hours.
It doesn't start well when we get the only carriage where the air-conditioning isn't working! It's okay though, the train company gave us one pound twenty back for that inconvenience!!
The trip passes quite quickly, soon we are having dinner and then the beds are pulled out and made for us. We sleep okay and in the morning arrive at the Malaysian border. It's all quietly efficient and we pass through without any problems. Why can't every border be like that?
