Consider us jet-lagged. Since landing in Bangkok three days back, we’d been in bed by 9:30 each night. We’d been waking early, too. On this day we were awake, showered, breakfasted and on the street by 8:30 a.m. We were also confused.
This was nothing new. Our first day in the city, we’d asked the receptionist at our hotel to mark our location on the map. She’d marked the wrong spot and it had been throwing us off, only we didn’t know this yet. Instead, Bangkok had knotted our brains into a constant state of frustration. Why couldn’t we ever find our way?
Take this morning. Our plan was to see the Giant Golden Buddha, a five-ton, 700-year-old, pure gold statue of a Buddha. Our guidebook claimed it was the largest all-gold Buddha in the world; the book also said the statue was in Chinatown. Our hotel was in Chinatown. That should have given us a leg up, but we were lost. Again.
I was standing on a corner cursing our map when a tuk tuk pulled up and stopped. The driver beckoned my husband, Quang. Did we need a ride?
I longed to zip through Bangkok traffic on a tuk tuk’s back bench, but Quang had been steadfastly denying my fantasy. He’d read a box called “Tourist Scamming” in our guide that particularly warned against the three-wheeled, passenger-hauling machines. Tuk tuk drivers, it claimed, jacked travel fares. So far, Quang had insisted on hailing cabs with running meters as we made our way about town. Was he changing his mind?
Somehow, Quang and the driver reached a deal. The tuk tuk man would take us to see the Giant Golden Buddha for 10 baht, or 25 cents. In exchange, we would ride with him to a jewelry store. We didn’t need to buy anything, but if we got out and talked to the clerk, the driver would earn a gas coupon.
“I like this guy,” whispered Quang as we climbed in the tuk tuk and took off. Quang liked anyone who was prepared deal and he admired the driver’s bluntness about the gas coupon routine. I knew Quang thought his Asian features had earned him this honesty, yet I didn’t care what bartering techniques had tipped the scales so long as my tuk tuk dream came true.
Before we visited the jewelry store, we cruised a number of avenues, sat through countless stop lights and breathed an impressive amount of rush-hour fumes. And we also stopped at a travel agent because if we just got out and asked about one little flight, the driver could earn another gas coupon.
We didn’t fight the change of plans. It seemed an easy enough task to complete. We asked a few questions about flights to the beach and left after ten minutes, zero receipts in hand. But our driver didn’t care. We’d fulfilled some sort of contract by simply walking through the door. He smiled to see us coming and ushered us back to his cart. “Where you from?” he asked Quang as he fired the ignition.
“United States,” answered Quang.
The driver frowned, repeated, “Where you from?”
“United States,” said Quang.
“No. Where you from?”
Quang changed his answer. “Vietnam.”
The driver nodded then pointed at me. “Where she from?”
“United States,” Quang said.
“America?”
We nodded.
The driver’s face lit up. He reached to slap Quang on the knee. “America!” he laughed then added, “Now we go jewelry.” He pulled into traffic, nearly missed a bus and steered the wrong way down a thin alley earning a chorus of angry honks.
Bangkok whizzed by. “You still like this guy?” I asked Quang, knowing it didn’t matter. We’d twisted too many turns and were at the driver’s mercy. Eventually we pulled to a stop and the driver motioned to a door. “Jewelry,” he beamed. “America!”
We did our duty, went in, killed ten minutes, and came back out. As we exited the store, the driver flashed a thumbs up. “Now we go tailor,” he said.
“No!” we chimed. “Golden Buddha.”
He offered the tailor twice more, but gave up when we stood our ground. After another twisty, twenty-minute ride through Bangkok’s streets, he finally dropped us at the Golden Buddha.
We paid our entrance, climbed the stairs to the statue’s home, slipped off our shoes, went in and saw the world’s largest, pure gold Buddha. But it was just another Buddha. After five minutes, we were ready to go.
We returned to our shoes, walked out a different entrance than the one we’d gone in, looked up the street and saw our hotel less than one block away. I frantically dug for the map, turning the paper until the grids fell into place and finally, finally, Bangkok made sense.
Click the stars to vote
Tricky Tricky Tuk Tuk
Bangkok, Thailand
Consider us jet-lagged. Since landing in Bangkok three days back, we’d been in bed by 9:30 each night. We’d been waking early, too. On this day we were awake, showered, breakfasted and on the street by 8:30 a.m. We were also confused.
This was nothing new. Our first day in the city, we’d asked the receptionist at our hotel to mark our location on the map. She’d marked the wrong spot and it had been throwing us off, only we didn’t know this yet. Instead, Bangkok had knotted our brains into a constant state of frustration. Why couldn’t we ever find our way?
Take this morning. Our plan was to see the Giant Golden Buddha, a five-ton, 700-year-old, pure gold statue of a Buddha. Our guidebook claimed it was the largest all-gold Buddha in the world; the book also said the statue was in Chinatown. Our hotel was in Chinatown. That should have given us a leg up, but we were lost. Again.
I was standing on a corner cursing our map when a tuk tuk pulled up and stopped. The driver beckoned my husband, Quang. Did we need a ride?
I longed to zip through Bangkok traffic on a tuk tuk’s back bench, but Quang had been steadfastly denying my fantasy. He’d read a box called “Tourist Scamming” in our guide that particularly warned against the three-wheeled, passenger-hauling machines. Tuk tuk drivers, it claimed, jacked travel fares. So far, Quang had insisted on hailing cabs with running meters as we made our way about town. Was he changing his mind?
Somehow, Quang and the driver reached a deal. The tuk tuk man would take us to see the Giant Golden Buddha for 10 baht, or 25 cents. In exchange, we would ride with him to a jewelry store. We didn’t need to buy anything, but if we got out and talked to the clerk, the driver would earn a gas coupon.
“I like this guy,” whispered Quang as we climbed in the tuk tuk and took off. Quang liked anyone who was prepared deal and he admired the driver’s bluntness about the gas coupon routine. I knew Quang thought his Asian features had earned him this honesty, yet I didn’t care what bartering techniques had tipped the scales so long as my tuk tuk dream came true.
Before we visited the jewelry store, we cruised a number of avenues, sat through countless stop lights and breathed an impressive amount of rush-hour fumes. And we also stopped at a travel agent because if we just got out and asked about one little flight, the driver could earn another gas coupon.
We didn’t fight the change of plans. It seemed an easy enough task to complete. We asked a few questions about flights to the beach and left after ten minutes, zero receipts in hand. But our driver didn’t care. We’d fulfilled some sort of contract by simply walking through the door. He smiled to see us coming and ushered us back to his cart. “Where you from?” he asked Quang as he fired the ignition.
“United States,” answered Quang.
The driver frowned, repeated, “Where you from?”
“United States,” said Quang.
“No. Where you from?”
Quang changed his answer. “Vietnam.”
The driver nodded then pointed at me. “Where she from?”
“United States,” Quang said.
“America?”
We nodded.
The driver’s face lit up. He reached to slap Quang on the knee. “America!” he laughed then added, “Now we go jewelry.” He pulled into traffic, nearly missed a bus and steered the wrong way down a thin alley earning a chorus of angry honks.
Bangkok whizzed by. “You still like this guy?” I asked Quang, knowing it didn’t matter. We’d twisted too many turns and were at the driver’s mercy. Eventually we pulled to a stop and the driver motioned to a door. “Jewelry,” he beamed. “America!”
We did our duty, went in, killed ten minutes, and came back out. As we exited the store, the driver flashed a thumbs up. “Now we go tailor,” he said.
“No!” we chimed. “Golden Buddha.”
He offered the tailor twice more, but gave up when we stood our ground. After another twisty, twenty-minute ride through Bangkok’s streets, he finally dropped us at the Golden Buddha.
We paid our entrance, climbed the stairs to the statue’s home, slipped off our shoes, went in and saw the world’s largest, pure gold Buddha. But it was just another Buddha. After five minutes, we were ready to go.
We returned to our shoes, walked out a different entrance than the one we’d gone in, looked up the street and saw our hotel less than one block away. I frantically dug for the map, turning the paper until the grids fell into place and finally, finally, Bangkok made sense.
http://www.gonomad.com/theerfiles/
Kelly Westhoff, Contest, 02/04/2008