The Scam of the Lucky Buddah

All the guidebooks warn you about tourist scams in Bangkok. Things like Taxi drivers not turning on their meters, shop keepers selling you jewelery then taking it to the back to "clean it" and switching it out with a cheaper version, etc. Since we were in some of the more popular tourist areas yesterday we heard a lot of scams and even fell for a minor ones.

Scam We Fell For:
As we started the day we needed to take a boat ride down to the Grand Palace. Since we got such an early start the regular public boat transportation wasn't running yet so we met up with a young couple from Boston and decided we would all hire a long tail boat to take us up the river. We did a good job negotiating the price down from 200 bt ($6 per person) to 125 bt ($4 per person) and all jumped in the water taxi. We were doing good until the boat landed at a private dock instead of the public one near the temples. As soon as we were out of the boat it tore off and we were left trying to negotiate the 20 bt "landing fee" for each tourist. Ultimately, it was only 60 cents a each but we felt like we had been "had."

Scam We Avoided:
After walking several blocks from the dock towards the Grand Place two different people tried to throw us the "Lucky Buddha Scam." This one is well documented in all the travel guides so it was easy to recognize. We were walking toward the Grand Palace when a tuk tuk driver called out to us that the Palace was closed until noon since it was Sunday. This actually sounded plausible and we were immediately disappointed (especially since it was 8:30 am and we were ready for some sight seeing) , but we knew we still needed to go check. Based on his directions we made a slight change in our course and headed toward the East gate of the Palace.

As we were walking past the high walls of the Palace we couldn't see in and we couldn't hear any tourists which made us a little concerned. When we turned the corner and saw the East gate we noticed people wondering in and out and breathed a sigh of relief. However, as we neared the gate (and were checking our map) another man told us there was a special ceremony going on at the Palace today. He seemed like a very nice old man and told us the Temple was closed to foreigners today because of the special ceremony and only Thai people could get in. He then asked us if we had seen the "Lucky Buddha." That sent the bells off in Crystal's head. There is no "Lucky Buddha" in all of Bangkok and anyone who wants you to go there just wants to scam an expensive tuk tuk drive off of you and get the kick backs from what ever shops are nearby what ever minor temple they take you to.

We quickly walked away and headed to the East gate which, surprisingly, actually was for Thai people only. And there was a ceremony going on that day that closed one of the buildings in the complex. But we kept walking to the main tourist gate and once there we found every thing open and became one of the hundreds enjoying the amazing sites of the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha.

It so sad that someone would try to deny a person the chance to see this incredible work of art.

May the Emerald Buddha take their Chi!

Scam We Avoided:
On our first day we crisscrossed the city on the public sky tram system and found it pretty easy to get around. Yesterday, we successfully navigated the public boat transportation, but also needed a taxi on a couple of occasions. A couple of tuk tuks we approached offered us dirt cheap fares (10 cents) but wanted to stop at a store on our way to our destination and something about gasoline tax that we didn't understand. Obviously, we walked away from those. We did end up in a couple of taxi cabs that are by law supposed to use a meter - which, of course, neither of them did - but we negotiated our $4.50 price up front.

Even if that was twice the normal price, it was well spent money to rest our aching feet!