You Get Coupon for Me?

It all started with a woman on the street who saw Stacey's knee brace.

We started down the road toward the Royal Palace, myself in the lead and Stacey right behind. I noticed Stacey talking to a woman who was walking next to us and thought Wow. She certainly has to tell everyone about that brace. You could say it had come up before as a topic of conversation. She walked with us for a while, asking where we were from and where we are going. When she heard that we were planning on going to the Royal Palace today, she immediately grew concerned:

Thai woman: "No, noooo, Royal Palace closed until 2pm. Today big Buddha holiday!"
Stacey: "It's a holiday?"
Me: (thinking this sounds fishy)\
Thai woman: "Big Buddha holiday. Here--I show you." (she takes map) "All this area around palace, they are doing celebration. If you go before 2pm, you don't see very much. But up here (pointing), today is all free! Government sponsors for tourists on holiday! Normally 500 baht, 100 baht, but today--all free!"
Stacey: "Oh, wow."
Me: "Yeah, that sounds good. Let's go to those places instead, then."
Thai woman: "You take government tuk tuk. See? With yellow flags. Government pays for his gas today, so very cheap. 20 baht, 20 baht."

Now--let me interject here. We had just finished reading in the guide book that the so-called "10-baht tuk tuks" were scams, but this woman was clearly very excited about the government holiday and helping us see Bangkok for little to nothing. We decided that she was probably just earnest and honest.

Here's the page that talks about the scams.

Thai woman: "Here! You see? I help you."
(she waved down a tuk-tuk with the yellow government flag)
Thai woman: "Let me see map? You speak Thai?"
Me: "No."
Thai woman: "Okay--I talk to him for you."

She took the map and spoke to the driver, pointing out all of the places we had talked about; the marble Buddha, the Black Buddha, several Wats, and the Golden Mount.

Thai woman: "Okay--he take you to all these and then you pay, 20 baht, 20 baht."

Sounded simple.

Now, here's the thing. Somewhere in all this, she had mentioned something about a Thai Factory, where there were reputedly very cheap designer, tailored clothes that were on special sale today. We didn't think much of it. Didn't seem important.

We set off in the tuk-tuk, which was a harrowing experience in itself. Though Thailand has traffic lights, tuk-tuks, motorcylces, vespas, and bicycles/pedestrians ignore them altogether and cars/trucks seem to regard them as mere warnings, not hardfast rules or laws. Also, we did not see a single traffic cop the whole day (though we didn't see any accidents, either).

Our first driver--terrifying, but not as bad as Driver #2.

We stopped at our first Wat (temple), got out, and went into the temple.

Driver: "I wait for you here."
Stacey: "Okay."

This became the pattern for two more Wats, which supposedly were some of the ones that nice lady had circled on our map. Thing was, by the third one, I began (well, Stacey voiced it first, actually) to suspect that these Wats were not actually the ones circled on our map, but just a string of random places. It's not easy to keep up with the Thai street signs, but the more we drove around, the better I got.

Driver: (stopping in front of Thai Factory Outlet, which looks like a designer tailor shop) "Okay, you go in, look around, get coupon for me."
Me: "Um, okay."
Stacey: "Okay."

We went into the store and were ushered to a couch with a table covered in garment magazines and brochures. The designer came over and began asking us about what we like, where are we from, how long are we in Bangkok. We looked through the books to be polite, but then declined and said thank you and left. We got back in the tuk-tuk, asking to be taken to the marble Buddha. \

Driver: "Here. I wait for you."

These became famous last words by the end of the day, because not only did we not see the marble Buddha anywhere, but we came out of the temple to find that the driver had vanished. At least he left us somewhere big on a busy street instead of in one of the temples back behind a bunch of twisting alleys.

Me: "Did he leave us?"
Stacey: "Um, yeah."
Me: "Maybe he's coming back."
Stacey: "I don't think so. I don't get it. He didn't even get paid."
Me: "Well, at least we got to see all that stuff for free."
Stacey: "I don't even know what we saw."
Me: "Whatever. It was cool. And we got to meet that guy." (referring to a guy in one of the temples who told us all about the statues and the temples there. He has a brother who owns a restaurant in California.)
Stacey: "Okay, let's just start walking toward the Golden Mountain."

We walked about a quarter mile down the main street, and decided that we were just about dying of thirst, so we stopped in one of the restaurants to grab some drinks.

Me: "Yes! I'll have the Thai tea with milk."
Stacey: "Doesn't the ice make you sick?"\
Me: "What?"
Stacey: "The ice. Isn't that what makes us sick?"
Me: "It's hot as balls. I'm getting ice in my drink."
Stacey: "Okay, I just think that's what made you so sick last time."
Me: "If you want to survive on lukewarm water, that's fine, but I'm getting as much freaking ice as they can shove into the glass."

We both ended up getting drinks with ice, though Stacey drank her lemonade as fast as possible, saying "Drink it before the ice can melt!" Chose not to remind her that the shakes we had at dinner had blended ice as well as tap water in them....

Back on the street, we met yet another well-meaning Thai man, who fell into step beside us, asking (of course) about Stacey's knee brace, where are we from, etc. etc. When we told him what we want to do, he, too, reminded us of the holiday and the "cheap" tuk-tuks, and then helped us secure another driver to cart us around.

This driver was even more of a daredevil than the first, but he was also a lot more personable, talking to us a little bit. I actually believed him when he said he was going to wait for us. He took us to the actual marble Buddha Wat, but it was closed for midday, so we didn't see the marble Buddha. Then, began the charade.

Our new driver (you can see me in the left mirror and Stacey in the right)

Driver: "We go to Thai clothing Factory. Very good clothes, cheap, cheap. You look five minutes, they give me gas coupon."
Stacey: "No, we've already been."
Driver: "You already buy clothes?"
Me: "Well, no, we didn't buy them..."
Driver: "You just look, five minutes, help me."
Me: (to Stacey) "Do you want to just go real quick?"
Stacey: "Well, this is going to be all kinds of awkward."

We pulled up to the clothing outlet, relieved to find that it was a different one than the one we went to just an hour before. We stayed less than five minutes and got back in the tuk-tuk. This time, I had a plan. I was determined not to be ditched.

Me; "I'm going to give him 20 baht when we get to the next place and tell him that I'll give him 20 more when we get to the Black Buddha."
Stacey: "What? No! Don't pay him or he won't have any reason to stay."
Me: "No, this is going to work, because I'm going to promise him MORE money if he stays."

Me: (to driver) "Here's 20 baht. You stay, I give you 20 more baht when we get to Black Buddha."
Driver: "Okay, I wait for you here."
Me: "Okay."

We went inside, and when we came out, I was triumphant to find that the driver, true to his word, was right where we left him. We were so close to our final destination, which we would never reach.

We decided inside this temple that instead of seeing the Black Buddha, we'd rather go to the Dusit Palace Park. Stacey had reached her limit on driving around the city, and I was a bit tired of the exhaust fumes as well. When we got into the tuk-tuk, the driver started conniving so well that I just had no defense. Stacey was pissed, but resigned.

Driver: (started tugging on his ear) "Souvenir shop. I take you souvenir shop."
Stacey: "No."
Me: "What?"
Stacey: "No. No."
Me: "Wait. We already went to the clothing place."
Driver: "No, I take you souvenir shop--they buy me a whole tank of gas."
Stacey: "No. What is happening right now?"
Me: "But...we don't need any souvenirs."
Driver: "I take you there, and then I take you where you want to go. You don't pay me. No fee, no fee."
Me: "Okay...fine."
Stacey: (shaking her head) "No."

We set off down the road again, just laughing in the backseat. What the hell was happening? We read the guidebook, read the section that warns specifically about these very scams, but this guy...I just felt bad for him (because I am a sucker). (stacey made me add that last part). He was taking us all these places, and we were going to pay him the equivalent of 66 cents. I wanted to help the guy out. I am a sucker.

We went into the "souvenir shop" a.k.a. overpriced jewelry store, where I was coerced into buying a wooden bookmark. (again: sucker).

This was the point that I realized, looking at the map, that we were nowhere close to where we were supposed to be going, and Stacey pointed out that we were back at the corner where he initially picked us up. He pulled over next to a huge temple complex.

We are not where we are supposed to be.

Driver: "Black Buddha. I wait for you here."
Me: "No, this is here. Black Buddha is up here (I pointed to the map)."
Driver: "No, Black Buddha. You go see Black Buddha."
Me: (pointing at the street signs right on the corner) "No, see? This is this street, and that is here, on the map."
Driver: "Black Buddha. I wait here, you see Black Buddha."
Me: (growing frustrated) "No, look. We are here, and Black Buddha is not here."

The man just kept pointing at the place where the Black Buddha was on the map, insisting that we were there, even though the street signs clearly said otherwise. We decided to just stop arguing with him and go inside anyway. It looked cool.\

Me: "What do you think our chances are that he's going to be there when we come out?"
Stacey: "Huh. Are you kidding? None."
Me: "I'm so hot. This dress feels like a sweatbox."

I had unwittingly chosen a polyester-blend dress, which was great for when I was at home, in air-conditioning, but for walking around, not so much. We were both disgusting and decided to take a metered taxi home, where we went in search of food at a cafe near our street and then came home and showered. Incidentally, the cafe was pretty awesome and was playing 21 Jump Street with Thai subtitles on a giant TV right next to us. The funny part was that the cafe was actually pretty upscale-looking and had this ridiculous movie playing on a giant screen.

Brain Freeze!

Enter post-food-coma-and-shower nap time. We slept for hours, then woke up and ventured out into the monsoon that apparently happens every night. Found yet another great food place, and now are back at the hotel. It was a pretty good first day. Can't wait to get to Chiang Mai, though, and escape some of the pollution that's in Bangkok. Not as nice of a place to walk around here as in Chiang Mai. I do have to say, though, that our hostess at this guesthouse is pretty awesome. She's so nice. And it seems like she never gets to sleep, with people (like us) arriving late at night.

Until tomorrow.