Scammit!
Yes, it happened.
Emily and I decided to pay a visit to the Old Town and soon after we had begun walking towards our first destination we were chatted up by a local Thai man and before we knew it we were duped.
Let me explain.
Emily and I wanted to spend a simple half day traveling to a new part of Bangkok to see a temple or two and eat some good food. Sounds easy right? We had previously taken the khlong boats one other time and we figured we’d avoid traffic and take the boat to the Old Town. It took over an hour by boat, but we paid about a dollar each for what would cost much more by taxi.
We hadn’t eaten lunch yet that day because we wanted our first place we visited to be Raan Jay Fai. This place was featured in Netflix’s Street Food Asia. Remember the lady in the goggles? Yeah. That one. Unfortunately, we never made it to that restaurant. That is an adventure for another day.
We stepped off the khlong and crossed the road. As we were crossing a short man was walking next to us. When he noticed we were walking next to him, he made the comment that we were both so tall and asked where we were from. Coming from the Midwest, it is hard not to be friendly to strangers. We were happy to share that we just moved to Bangkok and that Emily was a teacher.
Emily’s face says it all.
He told us that the building across the street was the school he worked at (it was not) as he was a teacher as well (he was not). He wanted to know what we had planned for our day and we briefly told him we did not have much planned. He was so excited to give us recommendations and seemed genuinely helpful (at the time). He mentioned that it was a Buddhist holiday (which was not true, the holiday was the two days prior) and that certain things were happening this weekend that don’t usually happen. He went on to say that tuk-tuks were only 30 baht on Buddhist holidays (we now know tuk-tuks are never that cheap) and that he would help us find one. He made our itinerary where we would be eating “the best Thai food in the world” inside a special temple, visiting certain zoos, and more.
Everything moved so fast that we were definitely questioning the legitimacy of what was going on. He told us to watch out for a specific type of tuk-tuk for the special deal. One magically (eyeroll) showed up and after our guy negotiated with the driver. Before we knew it we were off. The driver told us he would wait at each place for us and take us around to all the places.
We thought we were going to a temple to try “the best Thai food in Thailand,” but we ended up in a neighborhood where we saw our first street beggars and found ourselves at a less than mediocre restaurant next to the khlong. It was not an attractive sight nor did it have an attractive smell. We knew then that something was seriously up. We were not at a temple and google maps gave this restaurant 2.1 stars. The food was overpriced and I can honestly say it was the first and hopefully last awful meal I’ll have in Thailand. Random people came to ask us for money and when we said no, they looked at our food, the tuk-tuk, and laughed as they continued their walk.
We were clearly not at a temple.
While we were sitting waiting for our food we finally had a chance to think about what had just gone down in the previous half hour. After reflecting on all the questionable things that the man and tuk-tuk driver said to us and the unsightly restaurant we were sitting at, we realized we had been swindled. At first, we did not know how we were going to get ourselves out of this situation.
Our next thought was to call Sunny, our Thai language teacher, for some tips. After recounting the day’s events she immediately told us that we were in fact scammed. She said that if we continued that we would be out 1000s of baht by the end of the day. She asked if she could come scoop us up and continue our day scam-free. YES PLEASE.
We stalled until she arrived via moto. We paid our overpriced bill and Sunny spoke with the tuk-tuk driver who was still waiting for us after all this time. You could tell he knew the jig was up but he wanted to be paid for the time he drove us, which was fair. We ended up paying him 60 baht (about $2).
Sunny proceeded to tell us that she felt as if this was somewhat her fault. We were very confused. She then explained that the next Thai lesson we were supposed to have was about transportation and scams in Thailand. Since we did not get that lesson, we had no idea how obvious all the signs of a scam were. She sent us this link: https://www.tielandtothailand.com/avoiding-tuk-tuk-taxi-scams-thailand/ . It literally was verbatim what happened to us. Had this gone forward and we did not have Sunny to save us, we don’t exactly know how this would have turned out. Thankfully we already have some resources and helpful people around us! Sunny assured us that these people mean no physical harm. They are all hustlers and just want money from farangs (foreigners). We completely understood this and began the rest of our day scam-free.
Sunny showed us around some of the Old Town hassle-free. Our first stop was to a market behind the royal palace called Wang Lang Market. It was a market that sold a lot of old-school Thai food you wouldn’t normally see in other places. We got to try various desserts and other foods, all of which tasted delicious.
We then headed to Wat Arun. Wat means temple and arun means dawn (Temple of Dawn). Not only was it gigantic, but it was cool seeing all the details in the architecture.
Sunny explained how the temple was influenced by Hinduism and Chinese architecture. Inside one of the temples nearby, we got blessed by a monk, which according to Sunny was something special she was not expecting.
We were not able to visit the next two temples on our list because they closed early. That said, Sunny knew of a good pizza place by the water where you can see Wat Arun at night with all its lights.
We parted ways after a cocktail and watching the sunset along the water. We were distraught that we got scammed while also thankful to Sunny for making our day end on a peaceful note.
Fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice ain’t going to happen.
