8.21.09 Temple day and lots of scams

We ate at a charming restaurant with lots of flowers that was walking distance from our hostel. It was good food, pretty cheap. Really good basil chicken and red curry.

We saw temples all day. We went to a temple including a standing Buddha and the Golden Mountain temple which overlooks the city. We also went to a temple and watched some monks chant. It had a large sitting Buddha but we couldn’t take a picture because we didn’t want to interrupt their chanting. They were beautiful and made good use of the color gold. We took a tuk-tuk most of the day, which is a crappy little motorcycle with a passenger carrier in the back. We also bought matching pin stripe suits at a nice tailor establishment.

We had dinner at the hostel which was surprisingly good and made our way to Khao San Road for some drinks. We hung out with some people from Chicago and realized that this city is full of scam artists involved in ridiculously intricate webs of deceit.

In fact, we were the targets of two large scale scams which involved elaborate rings of people posted in various stations throughout the city, trying to get us to buy random things (jewelry, tourist packages, etc.) “Random” people who had come up to us pretending to be helpful with directions had in fact been in cahoots with our tuk-tuk driver and various fraudulent establishments.

The first guy walked out of the grand palace temple, and told us we couldn’t go in because we were not wearing appropriate attire – this much was true; we assumed he was an employee because he walked out of the temple and told us where to borrow free appropriate clothes. Then he said it was closed until 2, so we should come back, but in the mean time he directed us to take a tuk-tuk to see some other sights around the city. These sights were nice, but were also filled with random attempts to direct us to expensive rip-offs. One was supposed to be a government tourism “authority”, which is actually a real place, but they just ripped off the name and no one seems to care about trademark infringement or fraud here. It was actually just a travel agency, but we neglected to purchase and found out later online that the packages they sell are overpriced, fraudulent, and misrepresent what they are selling.

Then upon getting back to where we started, we were standing in the park and a “nice” guy asked what we were looking for and then directed us to some other places around the city. Then called a tuk-tuk driver over and “negotiated” for us a cheaper price. Also he told us how we were lucky because a suit exporter named Voglee was open to non-thais for only this week due to some govt decree.

At our next temple destination the tuk-tuk driver left to go to the bathroom and a guy sitting next to us smoking a cigarette started making small talk and then asked where we were going and what we had seen. When we mentioned that we might go to Voglee, he confirmed that it was a must see.

Later that night when discussing with other Americans and after searching online, we discovered that every one of these people were all working together, including the random guy smoking a cigarette. And their tuk-tuk drivers also “had to go the bathroom.”

Here’s some advice for Bangkok – don’t trust anyone. Don’t listen to anyone who is offering advice or trying to be nice. Everyone is trying to cheat you, screw you or take your money. No one is nice. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE. They are all in on it. Ever seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It’s just like that. Just when you think you are meeting a normal person, you are wrong. EVERY ONE OF THEM IS IN ON IT. They are not just trying to sell you a product; they are full of lies and crafty schemes. People who have been ripped off have reported this to the police, who do nothing and don’t care.W

We stayed at a hotel and their cabbies were always trying to offer rides without turning on the meter and to sell us more “Tourist authority” bullshit. It never ends. It makes you want to hide out in a hotel all day because everyone on the street is always trying to con you. But then again, the hotel is in on it too.