The Bangkok Scam
"We drive you everywhere you want. 3 hours, 4 hours, 5.... OK," a Tuk-Tuk driver said as he unfurled a map. He pointed to four or five temples and asked where we wanted to go. "I take you for 60 bat [$1.25], OK?"
It sounded too good to be true so we asked more questions.
"We take you to the Thai Center. You go in, look around, no have to buy anything, we get coupon for free gas."
"We don't have to buy anything? We can just browse for a minute, walk in and walk out?"
"That is fine."
We confirmed with the tourist sitting near us that this wasn't too good be true. So we hopped on and spent three hours looking at three or four temples. One of them, built on top of a hill, gave an amazing view of the Bangkok skyline. In the distance a few skyscrapers clung together. All around us were the Hershey-kiss styled Wak temples reaching into the sky. There are over 300 such temples in Bangkok. From their my first impression was confirmed: Bangkok really isn't that big of a city. At least not by the Chinese standards I'm used to. It was also flush with culture, especially if religion is used as a relative index. My fear that the rest of Asia looks like China is luckily falling apart.
We got dumped off at at the Asia center, really just two stores. The first was full of fluent Indians trying to sell expensive suits. I only last two or three minutes before bolting out.
"No no no! You must spend 10 or 15 minutes inside!" He grabbed me by the arm and led me into a jewelry store. I figured I could spend ten minutes there working off my taxi fair by looking at shiney objects.
Inside there were six workers in kiosks doing nothing. At the far end of the store in a display case was a box of rocks next to another box with the polished counterparts. I spent a good six minutes staring at the box of rocks before Lyndsey had to bolt.
Our driver didn't get his coupon but still took us to another temple.
"We try again. We to TAT now."
TAT worked out much better. It was a travel agency. They had wonderful maps and were more than happy to answer all of our questions about transit options and activities in different towns. We were almost sold on a $25 three day hiking and camping trek through a national park outside Chiang Mai.
The driver got his coupon and dropped us off at the big mall [so I could buy another memory card for my camera {2gb, $17}]. He left us there though because he wanted to catch the Thailand - Singapore soccer game. He only wanted 20 bat for three hours of travel. 50 cents. 50 cents and fifteen minutes, anyway.
