Bangkok Dangerous

Today we had one of the indispensible Bangkok experiences: we got hosed. Cheated. Scammed. Taken for a ride. Literally.

Bangkok is criss-crossed by hundreds of canals, some as wide as superhighways, some as narrow as hallways. I think the bulk of the population lives along these canals, although I'm not positive. They're generally lined with dilapidated houses that stand out of the water on stilts; the houses are patched together from a combination of wood and sheet metal and tree trunks. Some of them are really beautiful, but most of them are just incredibly interesting to look at.

We booked a canal tour, where you go down some of the main canals on long boats powered by car engines fitted with propellers. A "normal" canal tour, like the ones that Rebecca and I had taken in previous visits here, involves a long canal trip on a boat, with perhaps a stop for a bathroom break. These stops are usually short, unless you work out with your tour guide that you want to do something extended.

This trip was arranged by the travel agent in the lobby of our hotel, but what we thought we were paying for and what we got were two entirely different things. It started out reasonably well: we took a mini-bus to a pier, where we got onto a boat. The bus driver said that he would pick us up after the trip. Everything seemed normal. It was a little difficult for Peggy to get into the boat, but she managed.

Then the surprises started. We were taken, after a short ride, to a souvenir shop and forced to get out of the boat. We had entered from the front, where there were stairs leading down from the prow of the boat into the seating area. We were told to climb out the side, over a row of seats and onto a swaying dock that varied between a few inches and a foot and a half from the boat. This seemed like too much for Peggy, and we figured we wouldn't be there very long, so we asked if we could just sit it out. Nope. We had to leave. Peggy managed to get out, with the desired help from us and some undesired tugging from the dock workers. I realize that they were trying to be helpful, but yanking her arms out of her sockets or attempting to bodily lift her is not helpful. I won't be surprised if she ends up with bruises.

We had to leave because if we didn't leave, we wouldn't have the opportunity to wander around the shelves full of overpriced and under-quality merchandise for a half hour. There was nowhere to sit, so Peggy had to stand until Rebecca stole a vendor's stool for her. Everybody was done looking after ten minutes, but we were forced to wait, even though the boat driver, who had pulled downriver a few hundred feet, could see that we were all ready to go.

The second indignity was being taken to a literal tourist trap: a crocodile farm intended for tourists. It was a trap: we were again ejected from the boat and forced to wait. The crocodile attraction cost an extra 100 baht apiece, which the travel agent neglected to tell us. Instead of going in, we sat at some benches near the dock for the 40 minutes they were inside. We tried to find out how to hire a water taxi to take us back, but nobody was willing to help.

Finally we made it back to the dock, where the last surprise awaited us: the mini-bus driver had lied; he was not waiting for us, nor was there any plan for him to return. We had to take a cab, which, after a bit of strident arguing from Rebecca, the guy in charge of the dock paid for. We were gone for three hours, and we spent almost half of that time in tourist traps that we didn't want to see.

When we got back, Rebecca stopped to complain to the travel agent, this time a different person than yesterday. I am not positive, but I don't think she understood half of what we were saying. She nodded and smiled, or frowned when it seemed appropriate, and said a sincere apology at the end.

The time spent on the water was really nice; I took around 20 minutes of footage on Rebecca's video camera. But we couldn't understand a word of the broken English that the boat guide spoke, and we were forced to climb in and out of the boat twice and wait at places we were never told about.

I don't really like Bangkok; this confirms it. It's too big, too fast, too dirty, too polluted. While in Chiang Mai, the "taxi" drivers knew their city and usually understood where you wanted to go, here they look at you blankly even if you manage to pronounce the name of the road correctly. They don't read maps, so it doesn't help if you produce your Lonely Planet guidebook map. And since it's a big city, there are a lot of scams around. I don't think that this canal boat debacle was intended as a scam; it was more a series of miscommunications: between the travel agent and us, between the travel agent and the bus driver, between the bus driver and us, etc. It makes me miss Chiang Mai even more.

We're going to the Jim Thompson house later today; Thompson was a former CIA agent who became a major silk exporter until he disappeared while traveling in Malaysia. After that I hope to go to the MBK, a multilevel maze of shops where I hope to find some Thai movies with English subtitles. Rebecca was successful there last time, so I hope I have the same luck. We have to get up before dawn tomorrow to catch our 8:30 plane home. Gah. I'll write about that experience when I recover from the trip. Merry Christmas!

Update (like anyone has read this yet): We found Thai movies with English subtitles! It was amazingly easy. We walked into MBK, and there in front of us was a DVD store with an employee who understood what we were asking for. We got around six movies, including a couple that were at international festivals recently, and I got a Joey Boy CD. Joey Boy is a Thai rapper. He sounds about like what you'd expect, given that description.