I’m pretty pissed about today, but I’ll tough through it and get this blog post out before I run out of steam.

We’re still quite jet lagged as it’s our 2nd day in SE Asia. Went to sleep at 3:30am last night and I shot awake at 7 thinking I was running late for something. The plan today was to check out the Grand Palace, a temple or two, and Khao San road towards the end of the day. Since it was going to be a lot of walking, we took the morning pretty easy and headed out around noon time.

The hostel suggested that we take the subway to the end of the line, walk to the closest pier and then take the public transportation boat up the river and to the grand palace.
We got off at the Hua Lamphong station and when we got out onto the street a guy approached us asking where we were going. I said to the pier and he suggested we take a tuk tuk there and mentioned that the grand palace is closed until 3pm today for a ceremony (remember this detail). I knew from the last time I was in Bangkok that the tuk tuk drivers tend to take you to their friend’s establishments and kind of force you to buy stuff but I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was more excited about riding a tuk tuk and getting some pictures than anything else.

As expected, they didn’t take us to the pier and dropped us off at a random restaurant, led us to the back which was facing the river with a dock and a guy with a map wanted $100 to take us on a 6 hour boat tour. There was an Asian couple there too who was getting pressured with the same thing. I pressed back saying it’s not what we wanted to do, we walked out, and found the public transportation pier. When the boat arrived, the driver rushed everyone off/on board as fast as possible and sped off as soon as the last person had two feet on the boat.

I figured since the guy said that the palace was closed until 3 we could wander the nearby flower market to kill some time. We got hungry and walked into a random dark building which I thought was the flower market but had some random stalls with tons of vegetables and a few food stalls as well. Turns out this was a good decision as we ordered the best Pad See Ew and Pork Satay skewers we’ve ever had for less than $3.

There was an American girl that approached us asking where we ordered the food and we helped her out and invited her to eat lunch with us. Her name was Emily and she just finished teaching English in Vietnam. Before that, she was born and raised in New Hampshire and never left the country until her teaching gig.
After lunch we found the flower market but there were barely any flowers around. I assume it’s because it was later in the day?

We walked to Wat Pho the Buddhist temple with the golden reclining Buddah and a guy at the gate said that it was closed for the day along with the Grand Palace but he’d be happy to suggest a few other places we could visit and called a tuk tuk to us saying it would only cost 40 BHT. The first place he suggested was a lucky Buddha temple, then the government garment factory, and then the tall standing Buddha. I agreed to go along with it because it was another cheap tuk tuk ride and I had already seen the reclining Buddah before.

The driver took us to an area next to a middle school and walked us into a building with a small shrine. There was a really nice older man in there that introduced himself and explained that the shrine was for good luck in health, family, and work. He asked us why we were there as it is not common for foreigners to visit. We told him that our driver suggested it since we were trying to go to the other places. He confirmed that the Queen is sick today and people have closed those places for a special ceremony for her and he said that we should check out the government garment factory as it is not open for the public very often. I pointed out that it was our next stop and he said that we’re lucky for going there as the prices for clothes is cheap this week.

We got back into the tuk tuk and he took us to the the clothing place. I have to admit that I totally fell for this and I feel embarrassed for it but I’ll continue the story to prevent others falling for it too. We were dropped off at a suit shop and were told the same story as the other people we ran into that afternoon about how the shop only does work for the government but is only open to the public this week. I got rushed into considering a custom tailored suit for $400 that consisted of a jacket, pants, vest, shirt, and tie made out of cashmere and silk. They weren’t negatively pressuring me persée but they kind of flew me through the process without me having the clarity to think through things first. I ordered the suit and when we left the store I thought about it again and remembered what I knew about tuk tuk drivers.

I did a google search “The Grand Palace Scam” and all the results pointed out everything that happened to us today. I also searched the shop that I ordered the suit from, Visutkasat Collection, and got 18 – 1 star reviews on google maps. My stomach sank and I felt really dumb for going through with all that. Not only did I potentially buy a crappy suit but we wasted our entire afternoon going along with the scammers and lost our opportunity to do what we wanted to do today. I know this might get looked down upon by some people but I called my credit card company to dispute the transaction telling them that I made a transaction based on dishonest information. They said it hasn’t been posted yet but the’ll see what they can do. Considering I’m not set to pick up the suit for another 2 weeks I’m hoping I can get out of the purchase. I don’t necessarily have a problem with buying a nice suit nor am I trying to put the blame on anyone else because I was the one that made the final decision. It’s how the people went about it to get me to buy it that makes me uncomfortable.

For everyone that plans on going to Bangkok, don’t trust tuk tuk drivers or random strangers on the street who are willing to give you travel advice. I think Japan has spoiled me and I’m just generally naive coming from MN where people don’t try to rip you off. It’s just crazy to me how big this scheme is.

Anyway, we managed to get to Khao San Road as we planned but Joanna and I were tired and sweaty from being in 94f weather all day and the stress and disappointment from the afternoon, we didn’t have the energy to wander the area so we went back to the train market to get dinner and went to the hostel.

I am running on less than 4 hours of sleep and we have to catch a flight early tomorrow morning to Krabi so I am going to bed.