I went with another ALT friend, Julie, and her boyfriend, Duane, who met us in Bangkok after flying in from Canada. Our trip turned out to be a typical ‘clueless tourists do Thailand’ holiday. We had originally planned to do a few days of volunteering to compensate for what was going to mainly be a beach holiday. But those plans fell through due to logistical reasons and the general (perhaps selfish) consensus that since we couldn’t spend more than two days volunteering it wouldn’t be worth it since we probably wouldn’t have much of an impact. So we decided to keep our save-the-world ambitions for another time and another trip.
We picked the perfect place to 'find ourselves' as tourists. Tourism makes a bigger contribution to the Thai economy than that of any other Asian country. And people working in this industry in Thailand certainly know how take advantage of tourists, in more ways than one! All three of us were aware of the Thailand’s various tourist scams, and we felt that we were adequately prepared to avoid and deflect any attempts to ensnare us. But despite our best efforts, we, like the naïve westerners we were, managed to get tuk-tuk-napped on our very first day in Bangkok.
Tuk tuks (named after the sound they make) are the infamous small ‘taxis’ that zip through traffic in cities all over Thailand. Riding in one is a pretty exhilarating experience. They aren’t quite cars, but aren’t motorbikes or scooters either… Wikipedia calls them ‘auto rickshaws’, which sounds like an apt description. Technically they’re tricycles (!), since the driver steers with handlebars, not a steering wheel.
Prices are usually set by bartering, not by meter. So we were kind of wary of tuk-tuks to begin with. After visiting the Grand Palace (huge, stunning and gold), we had planned to see the Reclining Buddha (also huge, stunning and gold). Of course this involved unfurling our huge map of Bangkok right on the corner of a busy intersection. We were too hot, too sweaty, and too naïve to bother trying to be any more discreet. Plus, by this stage we were getting comfortable with our tourist status and didn’t see the point in feigning street-smarts.
Within a few seconds we were approached by a very friendly, very smiley Thai man who spoke excellent English and asked where we were from and where we wanted to go. I was suspicious, but we told him anyway. He told us which direction the Reclining Buddha was in and then proceeded to inform us that we wouldn’t be able to see it until after 4pm that day since the monks were having a special ceremony for the King’s sister, who had just died. Instead, he advised, there were a number of other sights we could visit, including the Sitting Buddha and the Standing Buddha. Oh, and had we heard of ‘Voglee’? No, we hadn’t. Apparently it was a wonderful silk market and was on the way to one of the million other Buddha statues we ‘needed’ to see. He drew it on the map for us and then outlined a route which would allow us to see everything we wanted before 4pm. The man was so friendly that I found myself doubting my initial instinct that he was going to try to get money out of us. I wasn’t even suspicious when he claimed he was an ex-monk. And we all scurried away obediently when he told us, ‘Quick! Get in that tuk-tuk there on the corner! It will take you to the sights. A very low price for you! Don’t pay more than 40 bhat.’
To start off, the tuk-tuk driver took us straight to our desired destination, of course… to gain our trust. A couple of Buddha statues later, we returned to the tuk-tuk to find our driver waiting. ‘Sorry,I go to toilet now’, he said. We thought this a little strange since he had been waiting for us for around 20 minutes and had had plenty of time to relieve himself. But we stayed put anyway and waited for him in the tuk-tuk.
By and by, another friendly, smiley Thai man speaking excellent English greeted us from the car next to us. “Where you from?” he asked. (I have since become highly suspicious of anyone using this as their opening line!) After exchanging small talk about the weather and our trip plans, he asked us if we knew about ‘Voglee’. All we knew was that it was a silk shop, we said. This was his cue to talk it up: it was very cheap; only just opened to tourists; today was the last day of a massive sale; and oh yeah, he had been there with his mother just yesterday! Surprise, surprise, immediately upon completion of this spiel, our trusty driver returned from his 15-minute ‘toilet break’. “Take us to Voglee!” we chimed.
The second we pulled up to the building, it clicked: we were in the middle of one of Thailand’s finest scams. The silk market we had envisioned was actually a kind of seedy suit shop with a few hot and bothered European tourists milling around outside. A nervous Indian guy showed us to a room and made us look through some catalogues. We flicked through for a few minutes and then decided to just straight out say we weren’t interested. This was the turning point. After our escape from Voglee, we were ready to see more Buddhas and ONLY Buddhas. No more silk!
“Did you buy anything?” our driver asked. No. “Why you not buy something?” Because we didn’t want anything. We could tell our driver was frustrated. He seemed to be stewing about it, and looking at his expression in the rearview window I almost felt sorry for him, because he was looking incredibly stressed and anxious. Soon enough he stopped by the side of the road. “Now what?” we wondered. “I take you silk shop and jewellery shop. ” “Ah, no…” we protested. “Very nice, very cheap, special for you.” Then he came clean with us. If we spent just 8 minutes in the shop, he could get a free petrol token from the shop. But we had to pretend to be interested, ask questions, look at the pictures. Plus, our entire tuk-tuk ride / tour / scam would be free if we just went to these shops. We felt sorry for him and he WAS finally being honest, so we agreed. But only if he promised to take us to the Golden Mount straight afterwards. Well, we went to our second silk shop of the day and pretended to be interested, inquiring about the sizing, styles, and prices of the clothes they could make. We had a good laugh thinking about how this entire operation was a scam from every angle- everyone was playing a role, us included. The jewelry store was semi-enjoyable since they had some nice souvenirs and there were lots of pretty shiny things for us to look at. And in the end we did get dropped off at the Golden Mount… but so much for the rest of our tour. Our driver had deserted us! He was nowhere to be found. We weren’t particularly surprised, though, after all that had happened.
In the end, we didn’t even mind having been victims of the Great Tuk-Tuk Scam (which I’ve since found described on the internet, exactly like what we experienced). It was interesting to see how it operated and even more interesting to realize that skeptics like us could be roped into it. We were pretty clueless regarding what we wanted to do in Bangkok anyway, so it wasn’t like we missed out anything. And we got to see several sights for free… Except we never DID get to the Reclining Buddha!
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