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We are British. We do not get scammed. Actually, we could spot a scam a mile off…right? It would seem the main reason most of us Brits don't get scammed is pretty much down to a lack of people (i.e. everyone) trying to scam us (i.e. ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY).
The problem with so called 'scams' in Thailand is that it is not obvious at all. You are not approached by a fat guy in a suit and told you need double glazing for your conservatory (when you don't even have one). The people are so natural and friendly; full of smiles, kindness and their pockets heavy with the Baht of many a wandering traveller.
Ok, so some scams you can spot straight away. When a tuk-tuk driver offers you a ride for 40 Baht per person, ok 20 Baht per person, how about free??? It's a sign you need to walk away. When you have a map and an exact route to your destination and you're told 'Wrong way, Grand Palace that way, I take you there' you know it's rubbish. But the true scams…you've gotta hand to em' are pretty dam seamless.
SCAM 1
Darren and I decided to visit the main sights of Bangkok, including The Grand Palace and The Reclining Buddha. We had been told by our previous taxi driver that it was a 15 minute walk and that we did not need transport to get there, our hostel owner confirmed this. So, with a map in our hands and a spring in our step we set out on our voyage. As I've explained we were stopped a couple of times within minutes of leaving our hostel, asked where we were going 'The Grand Palace' and told 'The Grand Palace no open in morning, National Buddha Day, you go afternoon, 2pm'…yep ok, let's move on.
Now, Thai's are renowned for wanting to chat, most of the time they just really want to practice their English so don't be surprised if you're approached. As we wandered blissfully naïve down the road a tiny, smiley Thai lady who was walking in the same direction caught my attention by saying 'Hello, you have the beautiful skin' (flattery my dear will get you everywhere)! After some general chit-chat she asked us 'Where are you going?' I replied 'The Grand Palace'. 'Grand Palace, you no go to in morning, National Buddha Day, you go after 2pm' (Oops, maybe that guy wasn't lying). 'You have map?' she was so charming and explained that as today was a national day of the Buddha, we could get very cheap transport as we are tourists and that due to a Government promotion; tuk-tuk drivers displaying the yellow flag (Thai Government symbol) would take us to The Lucky Buddha, The Golden Mountain and a third temple with a 45m Buddha for 40 Baht (under £1). She warned us to be careful as not all tuk-tuks would give us this promotion and instead would charge 200 Baht. She circled the temples on our map and wrote down some other locations on it for future reference including a local tourist information centre. We chatted for a while, she taught us some Thai and told us about Thai culture (she hoped she wasn't bothering us etc. etc.). It was then that she noticed a tuk-tuk (conveniently) sitting in a near layby, and what do you know…it had one of those yellow flags.
'Oh government tuk-tuk, shall I call over for you, make sure you only pay 40 Baht'. She calls over the tuk-tuk asks him to take us to the three temples for 40 Baht but adds to take us to the tourist information first….hmmm something's going on here but b***** it lets jump in.
With my suspicions aroused, I ask Darren to tell the driver that we ddin't want to go to the Tourist
Information but instead to take us directly to the first temple. The driver says that the temples are all at lunch so he will take us to the Tourist Info. We insist that we don't want to go and that he should take us directly to the first temple, if they are at lunch we will wait. Five minutes later we arrived at the tourist information centre. Wonderful!
We refused to go in and demanded that he take us to our first destination, this was when he told us that he needed a coupon and if we went in the Tourist Info. he would get one, we still refused! He then took our map, pointed at a mark the 'sweet little Thai lady' had 'randomly' written on our map and said 'Now we go here', 'We don't want to go there', 'Why you no want help me, I need coupon, we go here'. That was it, blood boiling point reached. 'WE ARE IN BANGKOK FOR THREE DAYS, WE DO NOT HAVE TIME TO TRAVEL ACROSS IT JUST TO GET YOU A BLOODY PETROL COUPON!!!!' Needless to say we gave him the 40 Baht and our disgruntled tuk-tuk driver was on his way.
It turned out we paid way under the odds for the length of journey we got and we were right near The Golden Mountain which we intended on visiting anyway…RESULT! The scammees won this round!!!
This is the sort of thing you get over, put down to lack of experience and discuss how it will NEVER happen again because you're just not that stupid! We arrived at The Golden Mountain, climbed the 400+ steps and proceeded to ….
SCAM 2
As we were leaving The Golden Mountain a Thai man with an official badge asked us if we'd seen The Big Buddha. He worked for the temple and as we were right there we decided to go in. He took some pictures of us with the Buddha and explained that he ran that particular temple. He asked how we got to The Golden Mountain, we told him 'tuk-tuk'. 'Oh-no' he says 'Tuk-tuk very, very bad, they scam, tell you they take you 3 temples but instead take you to tourist information, then jewellery stalls, markets, all for commission'. Oh my gosh, yes, that is what JUST happened, if only we could have spoken to this marvellous man earlier.
We had a little chat, he showed us pictures of his family on a recent river cruise from Wat Arun and the floating markets, it looked amazing. He asked…yep you guessed it…if we had a map and marked out the cheapest place to get the boat tour from, it would cost us 3000 Baht. There were other nearby 'touristy' ports but they would charge us 10,000 Baht. We thought it looked really cool and decided 'Why not eh?' so he took us to the onsite tuk-tuk driver and asked him to take us to the boat but we should only pay…yep right again…40 Baht! A pattern seems to be forming here, right?
We got in the tuk-tuk, looked at each other, realised what was happening AGAIN spent the rest of our journey laughing. When we arrived at the boat, we paid the tuk-tuk driver and walked away with the boat owner shouting in the background 'Hey where are you going?' 'You go boat tour', he was ready and waiting for us when we arrived!
Again, we got a really cheap ride and were minutes away from The Reclining Buddha, which is where we wanted to go in the first place but if we hadn't put our foot down at the moments that we did we would have a lot less cash than we do now. If you are in Bangkok and you KNOW where you WANT to go, don't let a tuk-tuk driver INFLUENCE your decisions, it's usually a sign that they stand to gain something by changing your mind. Just like they say at home…if it seems too good to be true it often is!
- comments
Richard jolley Well I never at least you know now. Anyway good job you could laugh about it .hope you got our congratulations on your anniversary .dont seem like two years.