“You want tuk-tuk? I take you! Where you go?”

Anyone going to Bangkok cannot walk a few feet without this being screamed at them by a very “helpful” tuk-tuk driver. It’s hard to reply anyway, since that involves opening your mouth into the swirling fog of exhaust fumes, but you quickly learn to be blunt. Or bargain. Hell, why walk all over town when some guy is willing to let you pay him to almost kill you and it only comes to about $2 for the privilege?

Yesterday, we watched as a truck carrying gas bottles came to a sudden stop, causing a gas bottle to pop open. The driver calmly climbed out, into the back of the truck, over the other 12 bottles and turned off the one that had suddenly spewed gas all over the place. He then climbed back in the truck and was on his merry way, presumably to repeat the performance in a few blocks.

We are having a lot of fun here so far, checking out the markets and doing some serious shopping. We have not really bought very much, but are having fun still. Getting snazzed up with some new tailor-made threads for the impending job interviews (eek!). It’s amazing, by the way, how many tuk-tuk drivers just happen to know where you can get a suit tailor-made really cheap…

Bangkok is the city of scam, and we have been targetted by many of them so far. We did our research though, and have not bought into deals “too good to be true”. The concept of buying sapphires for $2000 and selling them for $7000 might be appealing to some, but not to those of us who read the scam alerts…

Similarly, never pay what the price tag says. Why not? There are no tags! A beginner’s guide to shopping in Thailand goes along the lines of :

1. We walk near a stall. Perhaps even make the bold move of looking near it.
2. The person at the stall leaps up, with a broad “hello” to let us know they speak English, or at least their version of it.
3. We say “hello” back, or nod, and point at some item and ask how much.
4. They tell us a figure that knocks our socks off, and makes you laugh and put it back. If you happen to be really “lucky”, then they may offer us a second price “okay, okay, just for you!”. This price only knocks one sock off, since it is only about 10% lower than the original outrageous price.
5. They thrust a calculator at me and ask “how much you pay? How many you buy? Three? Six? Four hundred?”
6. I stare, a little bewildered. One minute ago, I did not even know of the existence of the small wooden elephant with a small wooden log in it’s trunk, and the next minute, I am being thrown into the melee of mass import restrictions.
7. Figuring I do not care, I offer a price about 25% of what the original price was.
8. The vendor looks horrified and counter offers with a price about 10% higher than my suggested figure which you expected would be laughed at.
9. Hmmm, now the item looks a little more attractive, but then I think “do I really want a little elephant with a log, especially if I have to buy them by the dozen?”
10. I decide it was a load of folly, and say it is okay, but I’m not interested in that many elephants.
11. They look very sad, and I leave the stall. They follow, with calculator in hand, showing a new number, half way between my figure and their counter offer.
12. By now, I feel guilty, since they are giving me the “if you do not buy this, my kids will starve” look. I hold firm, knowing I really do not want that many elephants, or in fact, any at all - it was just an innocent query, and keep walking, feeling guilty as hell for getting their hopes up a little.

We keep hearing that the tourism industry is being severely crimped by the lack of flights since many people around the world are now scared to fly, so we are not sure if the “kids will starve” look is real or not.

Seems pretty genuine to us in a few cases, but other vendors do not seem to be so upset about the deal. Hotels in Hong Kong were discounting heavily and were easily available despite it being in high season. Then again, prices in Hong Kong are ludicrously high anyway…

In other activities, there is a very cool thing just around the corner from us in the night market - a baby elephant. She is named Pyril (sure I did not spell that right!) and is 15 months old and very cute. The owner stands there and sells cucumbers and asparagus to tourists to feed her, and this is probably really wrong for the elephant, but it is so cool! It is so hard to resist, despite the fact you know that it really should not be in the city.

And besides, when it only costs $1AUD to feed a baby elephant - how often do you get that chance???

The most disturbing thing we have found here are the Osama bin Laden themed T-shirts. You can buy a T-shirt that shows a picture of the plane about to smash into the second tower of the World Trade Centre, along with the caption “Good Bye”. Not your choice? How about a picture of Osama facing Bush Jr with a little “VS” written in the middle? Or just Osama’s face? Any colour you want, it is there, for a mere $5-$10AUD. It’s just incredibly sickening to see, and we are not sure whether or not any American tourists have taken it upon themselves to beat up the vendors or not. We have not seen anyone wearing or buying them, but they are for sale within a few hundred metres at any time, if you want one. There are clearly two sides to every story, but we did not expect the T-shirt version of it.

Will be checking out more temples in the next few days and trying to fill our lungs with more exhaust fumes. Yummy.

A very special mention here to our good friend, Nuchanart, who is reading this with probably a great deal of horror to see Bangkok described thus. We know we are seeing the tourist version, and not the real side of the city, and there is nothing we can do about it. Neither of us pass really easily for Thai citizens…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001