One of those moments

Every once and a while, you get the opportunity to sit back and think, "You know, that wasn't really a very smart move." Other times, this realization doesn't come quietly as you sit and ponder... but rather it hits you in the face so hard, that you catch yourself looking around to see if anyone else around you noticed. These moments, although rare, usually come after particularly stupid moves or when someone clearly walked all over you without you even seeing it.

Michelle, Whitney, and I decided that we were not going to waste our limited time here in Thailand, we were going to see all we could! So, it came as no surprise to anyone when, soon after our arrival, we sat down to organize our first adventure. We wanted something easy to find, seeing as how asking people for directions wasn't an option-- not just because that would break every man-code there is, but also because my Thai isn't quite as good as my Latin (Et tu, Brute?). That hindrance left us with the major tourist areas. After a short discussion, we decided that there was no better place to start, than the famous Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace is an amazing complex that used to house the royal family (the current king lives else where) located in downtown Bangkok. We got up early in the morning and prepared ourselves for the fun filled day ahead. Noi (the mission home's housekeeper) wrote instructions down explaining how to get home onto a piece of paper that we could give a Taxi driver (thus preventing us from dying a slow and painful death, being forced to wander lost in a major city), and called a taxi for us. After she explained to the driver where we wanted to go, Michelle, Whitney, and I hopped in excited and ready.

As we stepped out of our taxi, which had stopped along the wall surrounding the Grand Palace, we quickly realized that we had no idea where we were supposed to go. The taxi had indeed stopped in front of a gate, however there were several guards in full military attire (complete with assault rifles) standing there, which-- surprise surprise-- kinda gave us a moment of hesitation. Lucky for us, a man, sensing our hesitation, came up to us and asked, in broken English, if we needed to buy our entrance tickets. He pointed us toward what appeared to be another gate some 200 yards down the wall. We thanked the man and started walking down the wall, the whole time I thought, "Man I'm so glad people here are ready to help the stupid tourists!" I had no idea.

As we made it about 2/3 of the way, another man came up to us. "You looking for entrance tickets?" "Yeah we are!" "Oh, not open now. Closed. Lunch. Don't open till 1:30. Sorry." I checked my watch. 12:30. Dang. Talk about bad timing! Now what would we do?! We were stuck with no way of knowing whats in the area! The man, sensing our disappointment, said, "You seen giant Buddha?" "Um... no. Where is that?" "Oh close c lose! One, two min. I show you!" He ran over to a Tuk-Tuk driver and spoke with him (in Thai). The driver reached under his seat and pulled out a map, which he gave to our good Samaritan. He then went on to show us that, it was indeed, pretty close (although in all honesty, I now realize we had no good point of reference. We had no idea how far it was). "I get Tuk-Tuk for you. Cheap, 20 Baht!" He talked with the driver from whom he had taken the map, then turned to us and said, "20 Baht, he take you there and back." It was a great deal! 20 Baht (about $0.75) How could we say no?!

We soon found ourselves zipping through the streets of Bangkok in our new ride, the Tuk-Tu k. Our driver could speak a little English and, upon hearing that we were American, immediately pulled out a poster that said "Obama" in big letters (I'm still amazed that other countries are so interested in our countries government). He was really excited to show it to us! We kinda chu ckled and talked with him a little as we rode. After a few min. we arrived at our destination and, as we pulled in, the driver said, "You take as long as you want. I wait here. Take time. Long as you want. I wait." That made me a little nervous because, 20 Baht is really a steal of deal on a Tuk-tuk, and I thought maybe he was planning to rip us off. He waits here for 3 hours and then charges us $300 for the time... but after trying to make it clear (through charades mostly) that he would only get 20 baht regardless of if he waited or not, we decided he understood and went to the giant Buddha.

It was... exactly as the name suggests. A giant s tatue of Buddha. Not much to tell you there... it was neat to see. Anyway, after about 40 min. we went back to our Tuk-Tuk, half expecting him to be gone. But, just as he had said, he was ther e waiting for us. We climbed into the Tuk-tuk, and our driver climbed out saying that he had to go to the bathroom first. Hard to argue with that! So we sat there for a min or so, until our itchy shutter fingers got the best of us. We started trying to get a picture of the three of us. Some random guy who was sitting next to us saw, what must have been a comical sight, and asked if he could take the picture for us. He took a few pictures and then started talking to us. He told us about himself and that he had a son in New York, he was a doctor... blah blah.... then he asked how long we would be in Thailand. After we told him 3 months, he asked if we had already been to the Tourist Authority of Thailand. We hadn't. He told us about how important it was that we do that so we could use our time here to see everything we could! That talk went on for quite some time until our driver came back. Our doctor friend said, "Oh, I'll tell the driver to take you to the TAT now! Its nearby!" "Oh no, we want to get back to the Grand Palace now." "Oh, you can, but it's closed right now for a special ceremony with the monks." "... really?" "Yep. Should I tell him to take you? Yeah, I'll tell him." Well, since the Grand Palace was still closed we might as well go to the T.A.T. We could get some pamphlets or something... although something was fishy...

Once again we found ourselves zipping through the streets of Bangkok in our Tuk-Tuk. Cutting buses off, swerving in and out of oncoming traffic... I'm just grateful to be alive. We drove for what seemed like a very long time, but finally made it to the T.A.T. We didn't learn too much there and it ended up being a waste of time. Ok, time to go back. Even if the Palace was closed, we could look at stores in the area or something. We told our driver and off we went. We drove for what seemed like forever, going down all these funny little alleys and back roads (the whole time I found myself thinking, "if he stops and tries to jump us... what do I do..."). After what seemed like an eternity, we pulled to a stop in front of another T.A.T. Uh... communication error? We just talked with one... don't really need another. We told him we didn't want to be here and there was this awkward moment where we all just sat there. Finally, he got it and dejectedly started the Tuk-tuk back up. "But first you go Thai Fashion, ok?" Uh... what? No! Grand Palace! We kept saying Grand Palace, he ke

pt saying Thai Fashion (which we figured out was a tailor shop), we didn't want suits cut, he didn't want to go to the palace without this detour... what the heck was going on!? "Just stay 5 min. 5 min. ok?" "NO!" Finally he sighed, "5 min. for me. I get gas." Suddenly it clicked. The whole day, we'd been worked over!

He got gas coupons for taking tourists to the T.A.T, this tailor shop, and the big Buddha! Everyone we had talked to since getting out of our taxi had been in on it! The helpful man directing us to the "ticket booth," the good Samaritan, the doctor, everyone had been placed to keep us moving smoothly from site to site. As we put it all together, we just laughed! We were so stupid! The Grand Palace closed for lunch?! Did w

e honestly fall for that?! We finally agreed to go to Thai fashion, just because they had worked us so well that they deserved it! 5 min. in and out. Then we went back to the Grand Palace and went through the gate (past the military guards) and got to see that as well.

In all honesty, I'm so glad we fell for the nutorious "Tuk-Tuk scam." It ended up being a lot of fun! We got to zip around downtown Bangkok and see all these things along the road that we never would have seen otherwise, and got a 2 hour Tuk-tuk ride for 20 baht! We were just 3 stupid Americans who had one heck of a day!