“Tuk-Tuk only 30 baht!”
In Bangkok, a lot of people want to talk to you. They may be genuinely interested in where you come from, whether you support Manchester United (or Everton) and what you think about Thailand. They may want to practice their English or are simply proud of their country and want to point out the sights on your map.
However chances are that the person you are talking to is not a nurse or teacher as they claim, but a scammer.
You can pretty much tell from the moment they start drawing circles on your map, but if they continue to outline the route and make claims such as “Grand Palace close until afternoon” or “white temple open today only. One day, one year. Close at eleven, so hurry!”—all meant to throw you off your track—you’re about to fall for the infamous tuk-tuk scam.
Let’s be clear here: a tuk-tuk ride never costs less than around 50 baht and one tuk-tuk driver who was not actually interested in scamming me (he was waiting outside an upmarket hotel) said that metered taxis are cheaper. There is no government-subsidised scheme for tuk-tuk drivers to show tourists around on the cheap, and government-licenced drivers are in on the scam.
I knew all that, but what I didn’t know is that the operation has expanded considerably and that the tactics have changed. Back on my first visit, it was just the tuk-tuk drivers yelling their ridiculously cheap fares at me. Now it’s the guy who talked to us on the street corner, his friend the English teacher, the nurse from Chiang Mai who invited us inside a temple and talked about her weekend visit to Bangkok, and the tuk-tuk drivers. It’s put me off talking to people.
That’s a real shame because we have met a number of genuinely nice people who really were on a weekend visit to Bangkok or worked at the National Museum and wanted to recommend Thailand’s cultural treasures to us.
Here is what I don’t get. If the person drawing the itinerary onto a fresh copy of my tourist map had said: “hire tuk-tuk half day. Only 300 baht”, I would probably have taken them up on it because 300 baht is just enough for me to think that the offer is genuine. Not only would they get the money, they’d still have an opportunity to scam us at the end!
Tags: SE Asia, Travel, Tag Index
Denni