Bangkok is not for the faint of heart. There are 6 million people here, but during the day, 11 million pack into the city for work. It is congested to say the least, people and cars everywhere. Fumes mix with heat and humidity making you long for the proverbial, “breath of fresh air”. You do find English spoken “leetle beet” and some signage is readable, but the majority of what we saw and heard looked and sounded like this: กรุวรรณภูมุงเทพมหานคร
The city preys upon the naïve traveler like the doctor fish do on your toes in the fish pedicure (we had in Chaing Mai). Scammers here are very, very good at it, making it hard at times for even the wary tourist to know what’s happening until it’s too late. This isn’t to say you can’t trust anyone, you just have to realize to many of the locals, a tourist is a walking wallet (which you should never keep in a back pocket).
Two examples: We took a water taxi from our hotel on the Chao Praya River to the Grand Palace. We knew you aren’t allowed in to the wats and palace in shorts or capris (interesting that women could wear skirts just below the knee, but not capris just below the knee). No bare shoulders either, so we’d brought clothes in our bag.
Next door to the Grand Palace is Wat Pho, a temple housing the Reclining Buddha, a gold plated Buddha 46 meters long and 15 meters high. (note: everything is METRIC here – proving once again the disadvantage we Americans have on the global measurement scale. The U.S. is now the only industrialized nation not using it. The sad thing is that Congress has enacted several laws (1975, 1988) to convert the U.S. to metric – but without mandates. Making the conversion voluntary was like not making it at all. I mean, unless you leave America, you really don’t need it. But when you do leave, you DO need it, dang it!! I’m forever going, “So how many feet/pounds/miles is that?” We’re not alone though – there are still two other countries in the world that haven’t gone metric – Liberia and Burma. So, if you travel there, you’ll at least be able to know how long it will take you to go from here to there and how much it might cost to fill your gas tank.) Anyway, a little side-tracked there…back to Wat Pho and Bangkok scams.
Our hotel concierge had warned us about the people who will approach you outside the Grand Palace telling you it is closed. Some religious holiday or other reason preventing you from going in. But not to worry, this same do-gooder will offer to show you to another wat (more beautiful, less visited) close by – and you don’t have to change your clothes! Plus – he’ll take you there for free! Sounds like a scam here on this screen, but they do good great job of selling it.
I told the concierge I already knew about those touts. In fact, the day before, we’d talked to some tourists from England who actually fell for it. They believed the guy for whatever reason and ended up in his tuk tuk (three wheeled motorized taxi) to see some Black or White Buddha and going to places they never asked to be taken to. Each stop was just “for a minute to see the gem factory, the silk factory, etc” but they felt like hostages, not knowing where they were in the city. They were eventually dropped off at their hotel, 3 hours later and fuming! These touts get kickbacks from the shop owners when they bring tourists there. They are sometimes pressured to buy and threatened with no transportation if they don’t.
Not only did I hear about their story, but I had read warnings in guide books and my friend Lynette also said, “Beware the touts around the Grand Palace”.
So, I’m thinking…”Surely these touts don’t get many suckers, with all the publicity and word on the streets about their scams, right?” Wrong.
Our concierge suggested we visit Wat Pho first, and drew on our map where it was and where the entrance to the Grand Palace. Now we know why he made a big deal of the specific entrance (it’s huge – encompassing several blocks and surrounded by a giant white wall). We got off the water taxi at Tha Tien pier, one stop before the Grand Palace, as planned. We left the ferry and were immediately overwhelmed with…well…Bangkok. Sights, smells, people everywhere. Everywhere. They cloud your vision, block your path, distract you from your plan.
The first distraction was no one’s fault…it was just so funny we had to stop. Right off the pier, in fact still on the dock, was a couple of kittens. One was using his paw to reach under a fence to grab a fish from a fisherman’s bag. His partner-in-crime stood guard. We watched as the thief ever so casually strode away with the catch. Very cute.
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| The Great See-food Heist |
As we continued out the pier, there’s ice cold water for sale, 10 baht (60 cents) we had to have, then of course, to your left, right, all around are vendors selling…selling everything from food to trinkets, clothing. It’s a busy place. Then, the cars…the streets are small, but filled with vehicles going every direction. The lanes in the streets here in Bangkok are merely a suggestion, so there is a fair amount of zig-zagging..
We walk out of the pier area not really sure where to go from here. We know we are looking for Wat Pho. We know it’s “right around here somewhere”, but which way? Right, left? It’s miserably hot, you don’t want to stroll aimlessly. The air is polluted and thick with humidity. You want to see the Reclining Buddha, but which direction? Rick asked a street vendor, “Reclining Buddha?” Rick had his map in hand (a mistake – you learn where a map is and isn’t your friend. . . if you’re in Boston’s North End with a map, some kind Italian will approach you, “Watcha lookin’ fuwa dear?”, but here, it means, “Sucker”).
The vendor said, “That way” (pointing the wrong direction, to the Grand Palace), but it closed ‘til 2 o’clock for King’s holiday”. Yeah, sure, we thought. Ha ha, nice try but we’re too savvy for you. We headed in the direction he pointed anyway, going to see the “closed” wat, ha! We have never been here before. There are NO signs whatsoever pointing you to where things are (this the gov’t could easily fix, but you wonder if they care to).
We walk along the big white wall until we see the entrance. We don’t think to look at our map with the concierge’s directions, because we can see the entrance. It’s an opening in the wall with a couple of guards and another man in uniform standing out front. We approach. He steps toward us and proceeds to let us know we are not dressed properly. We were expecting this. We said we have clothes, but he says, “No, you must have collar in shirt, and no skirt no good, you have to be wearing long pants, and collar on shirt, but no matter, temple not open til 2pm today. It king’s holiday, but other temple open. It close by and not crowded and you can wear your clothes, no problem!” Here, I show you (takes my map and starts drawing on it), it right here, and I can take you there for very little baht. It not crowded, not so much tourists…”
Ok, now I know you’re thinking…”SCAM, SCAM!!” But, I’m telling you, here we were, right in FRONT of the darn palace. The guy had on a uniform. He was standing next to a couple guards with guns by the opening to the palace. He even showed me his badge, “I work here, see”. I mean, I had planned to just keep walking when someone said the Palace was closed, but we were AT the palace. Where would we keep walking to? No signs anywhere.
I think it was when he wrote “White Buddha” on my map that I knew. I just said, “No thanks, we’ll keep walking” He said, “But it closed…” We just kept walking, crossed the street to the crowded sidewalk and found some western-looking tourists and asked them. They said, “Wat Pho? It’s this way (opposite direction). It’s not closed. Just come with us, were going there now”.
And that’s my advice – do NOT ask a local where anything is. Ask another tourist. And if you have a map in your hand, be wary of any help offered to you. Fortunately, we were only delayed a few minutes, but as we walked by this guy on our way to the REAL entrance to the Grand Palace (around the next corner) we saw him giving his lying spiel to group after group of unsuspecting tourists about ready to spend hours driving all over Bangkok visiting places they had no desire to. We did warn one family as we walked by, “It’s open, don’t believe him!”
Things like that tend to leave you with an impression of a place, y’know? You just have to be very careful and skeptical. And, even knowing that, and knowing how the taxis work here, I still got another lesson from the book of hard knocks. Minor, fortunately.
We’d been in Chiang Mai for 4 days and returned to Bangkok for a couple days before heading south to Koh Tao. We took a cab from the airport to our hotel in the city.
Taxis in Bangkok are mostly metered now. This was a result of a gov’t mandate requiring a standardized fare structure to help tourists. The meter system is awesome! It’s cheap, it’s honest. But, you have to make sure the cabs actually USE the meter. Some will want to charge you a flat fee instead. At the airport, it’s so regulated that when you approach the line for taxis outside level 1, you tell the person at the desk where you are going and they write the address down on one paper, then on another they write the name of the cab you are taking. You get the paper with the cabbie’s name and they get the paper with the address. Some cabbies want you to give them the paper with their name (so if anything happens, you can’t report them), this happened on our first trip into the city. I held on to it when he asked for it. Turns out he didn’t need it after all. He used the meter and it was 450 baht total, incl the highway tolls we paid on the way to the city.
Well, when we arrived back in BKK last night, got in another metered taxi to go to our hotel, he said, “450 baht to hotel”. I thought this was strange. Why the flat rate? (Because this hotel was closer to the airport, that’s why and 450 was too much). I said, “No, use the meter, please”. He said, “Meter cost 550 and you pay highway. I charge you 450 and I pay highway. Much cheaper for you.” I told him it was 450 the last time with the meter and us paying tolls. He said, “lots traffic”. I told him we had a ton of traffic the last time – there’d been an accident – and it was still only 450. He said, “550 with meter and you pay highway”. The thing is – they can NOT predict a price using the meter. That’s the whole idea. If there’s a lot of traffic, it might be a bit more as the meter clicks away, but even then, the meter is extremely affordable for taxi travel in Bangkok. 40 min drive for $10-15.
I should’ve gotten out of the cab right then, since we hadn’t moved yet (but our bags were locked in the trunk), but realized we were talking about 100 baht ($3.25), so not a big deal. “Fine, 450” I said. Sheesh.
Well, 10 min into the ride he turns on the meter (not sure why unless they’re required to, which may be the case). It starts at 70, which is about where it should’ve been at that point (all meters leave the airport at 35). When we arrived at the hotel, the meter showed 260. Add the 70 in tolls and we should’ve paid 330, not 450. I told him, “Next time, we use meter and I pay highway”. He started chuckling, knowing I knew what he had known all along. But a deal is a deal and I pulled out the 450. As I was counting, he stopped me at 440 and said, “That good”.
Must’ve felt overcharging 100 baht was good enough for him.
Erikka said, “Welcome back to Bangkok”
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| Wat Pho The Reclining Buddha |
Kind of difficult to get a good photo of the Reclining Buddha, as there's not much room in the temple.
108 metal bowls line the hall along the back of the Buddha and visitors and worshipers try to gain merit, or luck, and a long life by dropping a coin (a bag can be conveniently purchased right inside the temple) into each one. This leads to a continuous clinking sound from dawn to dusk.
Bangkok isn't all bad... We've enjoyed some different foods for sure, many of them very good. We've seen and eaten a lot of this, called longon. Grows on trees all over Thailand. Consistency is like a grape but the flavor is much milder, with a big seed inside.
The large pink ones below are dragon fruit which looks like a white kiwi inside
(tastes similar too)
We watched a demonstration of "snake milking" to make anti-venom at the
Red Cross Snake Farm in Bangkok.
But our favorite part of Bangkok was a 2 hour long-tail boat tour of the Thornbori canals. A vision into the daily life of the Thai living here. Bangkok has been called, "Venice of the East" for good reason.
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| This would be the driveway. Many homes had their boats suspended just outside their homes. |
A floating mini-mart paddled right up to our boat.
Nordstrom has nothing on convenience when it comes to this!
This is the Chao Praya River - and it is that muddy
During our canal trip we saw a WATER MONITOR about 10 feet from us.
Our guide saw our faces and had to calm us by letting us know, "No crocodile...only snake"
We were much calmer then...right.
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Putting on proper attire in 90 degree heat and humidity
 Thailand: The Land of Smiles  |
