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Published: March 20th 2006
I decided to go see the Royal Palace today. The major motivation was knowing that it's extremely unlikely that I will ever return to Thailand and I don't want to regret when I'm 102 years old that I was --> <--- this close to it but never went.
This morning Mr. Ink. was nice enough, again, to write in Thai the directions to On Nut station for the taxi driver, and then another for the next driver to take me to the Royal Palace. (Basically, I was going taxi to the skytrain, take the skytrain, and then taxi to the RP. In hindsight, I probably should've just taken one taxi all the way since the skytrain costs 35 baht and just getting into the second cab will cost me 35 baht. Ohwell.)
Everything went according to plan up until the end of the skytrain ride. Then I tried to call a taxi for the third and final leg.
The first taxi driver I hailed down knew I was a foreigner even before I got into the cab. He said "Hallo! Where are you going?" as I was closing the door. (Do I have SUCKER written on my forehead as well?) I said the Royal Palace. He said something-something-in-thai 200 baht. I said, huh? meter? and I pointed at the meter. He said no, something-something-in-thai and then laced his fingers together (the Thai sign for traffic?) and repeated, 200 baht. I said, no, I go. And then I opened the door and got out. Back into the heat and the humidity.
something-something in english. Shit!
I walk a few steps back up the street and hailed another cab. I got in, the dude said sawadeka. This is a better sign... I took out my piece of paper with the Thai words for the Royal Palace and showed it to him. He took it, said some things in Thai, shook his head, pointed to his eyes... My guess is that I had hailed an illiterate cab driver. :-/
Shit. Luckily, I have a backup plan! I pull out my free mall map and pointed to the cartoonized Royal Palace on the back of it. Ah, now we're getting somewhere! So he starts driving and talking in Thai at the same time. Me, I shake my head and say something like "me, I no Thai" (don't ask me why all of a sudden my English sucks.)
He keeps driving and talking, and then he pulls out some paper money from his pocket and says 600 baht.
WTF?! This is highway robbery! I know it can't possibly be 600 baht b/c the other guy only wanted 200! So I say to this guy again," no 600 baht, meter," and I point to the meter. He keeps driving and say how much, 500 baht.
I see where this is going... he wants to haggle! I repeat again, meter.
He goes down to 400. I say meter, no meter I go (point to door). He keeps driving. I'm getting a bit nervous... If he drives any farther, I'll have to take another taxi to come back! fuck.
Now we're stopped because there's traffic. He offers 200, like the other guy. Now I feel sorry for him because I'm sure typically each side gives a little during the negotiations. And I'm not giving at all.
Then he goes down to 100 baht. I'm still insisting meter, even though by this point I feel like I'm taking a gamble... What if the traffic is REALLY bad and the meter runs past 100 while we're sitting there? Then he's gonna have a really good laugh at the stupid foreigner. :-/
The negotiations kinda broke down at this point. The light's about to change, I just said, ok, I pay 35 baht (point to door), I go now (since we already rode for a ways). I think this would've been a good deal for him since he's still within easy driving distance of Siam Center plenty of people need rides around there. But guess what he said.
He said,"ok, meter".
Phew.
So we're riding along. And now I'm getting super paranoid that this guy's taking me for a ride. So I check my watch for time/date (almost noon, almost equinox), and figured out where the sun should be and then verified that we're heading in the right direction.
He didn't drive very far until we hit traffic. Oopsie, my bad. But it was worse going in the other direction. So I'm thinking, fine, I'll tip.
We reached the Royal Palace perimeter (?) and he told me to get out here. Oh, okay... and at this point meter was under 100 baht. I gave him 110 baht, said thanks, and got out. Then as I was straightening myself out and putting on my backpack, I realized that my cellphone wasn't in my pocket. omg. It must've fallen out of my pocket or my bag and gotten left on the taxi... I was so pissed and angry. That's not even my phone! That's Toy's phone, she lent it to me to use here in Thailand b/c my Taiwan special won't charge (damn 120v).
End of morning taxi trauma.
So now I'm at the Royal Palace and it is very beautiful. Just like the slides from architecture class. I see a bunch of people standing in a line and of course I want to go stand in it! :-p
But then I realized that that's the loser foreigner line. That's the line of tourists who came in shorts, short skirts, skimpy tops, or other disrespectful clothing and they were in that special loser line to borrow clothes from the palace to wear during their tour. Isn't that bizzare?? But I guess it's a bit more accommodating than St. Peters/Vatican in Rome. There if you're wearing shorts or a tanktop they just turn you away.
So I make my way to the official ticket line and pay 250 baht. Right next to that is the audio tour tape rental place. What the hell, it's for a good cause; so I put down another 200 for that. The lady behind the counter speaks decent enough English and tells me that I have to return the tape in 2 hours. Grr. Fine. This really sucks because the rental place is OUTSIDE of the turnstile; if I come out to return the tape I'm out of the Palace and cannot get back in. And there is a late fee for the tape if I don't return within 2 hours. Fine. 2 hours it is.
Then I begin to make my way to the turnstile. And notice that there are two types of lines:
One for Thai's and one for Foreigners.
Did you know that Thai's get in for free?? I didn't know that. So if you're Thai, I guess you swing over to the left lane and get waved in? Meanwhile, now I'm in the stupid white people (foreigner) line. So second class citizen.
Right after the turnstile was the first alter, the statue of the father of Thai herbal medicine. Next to it is a man selling incense. I see someone praying at the alter with the incense and I decide to do that as well. Since he's the medicine one, I figure I can wish for good health for everybody. I asked how much, he said 30 baht. I think I got the foreigner price... There wasn't a tag. But anyway, it's for a good cause.
I got 4 things for my 30 baht:
1. a stubby yellow candle
2. a flower
3. 3 incense sticks, and
4. a ~2"x4" piece of newsprint with a ~.5"x.5" gold square? what the....
I knew what to do with #1-3, but that piece of paper totally stomped me. Do I burn it? Is it like paper money? Do I toss it to the wind? Do I eat it?
(mystery will be solved later... for now I just stuck it in my pocket)
I did my little praying bit and then moved on; I was on the clock and had to cover the whole Palace and return the tape.
So for the next hour or so I followed the taped tour and went around admiring the Palace. I took many photos, will upload later.
There were a few places where photography was forbidden.
I'll leave the detailed stuff about the different parts of the RP for later, if I ever get around to it.
About midway through the tour I came to the statue of the Goddess Kun Lam, aka the Goddess of Mercy. (in Chinese I think it sounds more like Guin Ing). This was another station where you could pray, light incense, and offer fruits and foods.
And it was there that the mystery of the little piece of paper with the gold foil was solved... I saw a man peel off his square of gold foil and then try to make it adhere to this not-made-of-gold statue of the buddha.
Ahhhhhhh, so that's what we're supposed to do! We're supposed to manually 'electroplate' the Buddha! It all makes sense now. That stuff is probably real gold pounded reeeeeealy thin, that's why we each only get a teeny tiny square.
I reach in to my pocket to look for mine. Damn it, I've sweated so much that the paper's all stuck together! The foil's folded back on itself now and tears apart as I tried to separate it. 😞
And now the wind's blowing (why wasn't it blowing earlier when I was sweating like a pig?) and the foil's flapping and I'm afraid it's going to fly off.
I manage to stick a part of it into the elbow bend of the statue -- that seems to be a popular spot to stick the paper, just jam it in there. I mean, we're not talking ferrous metals here... It ain't easy to make gold stick! Next to me is a guy with a big SLR camera shooting portraits of the Buddha. I wanted to tell him to stop, but he spoke first.
He asked me to put my hand back onto the Buddha to pretend like I'm sticking more gold onto there (so he can photograph it). Uh, so I tell him that's not cool, the Buddha doesn't like to be photographed. He must've thought I was a wack job when I told him his picture's going to come out blurry. Whatever dude. That's what I was taught, and I believe it!
End of Royal Palace Tour.
I made it in 2 hours and returned my tape. By now I was hot, dehydrated, and I wanted to go back to the Mall. There was the giant reclining gold Buddha statue that I wanted to go see, but I just couldn't handle the heat any more.
I went back to the area where this morning the taxi driver had dropped me off. There were quite a few taxis and a few tuk tuks.
I've lost faith in my good taxi driver finder radar. :-/
I go up to one, get in the back seat, and say "Siam Center" (that's the shopping area). He says,"ahh, 200 baht." Great. Same shit as this morning.
I'm not in the mood to negotiate so I get out and go to the next taxi.
I don't even get in, he rolls down the window,"where you go"; I say "Siam Center". Slight pause. "200 Baht".
I keep going. I'm getting pissed off. The sun's in my face. I'm hot. But I'm not about to pay 200 baht for a stinkin taxi ride!
Parked between me and the next taxi is a tuk tuk. Driver hollers at me.
What the hell, I'll give it a try. I go over and he asks me where I want to go.
I say Siam Center.
He says 200 baht.
I say no, 80 baht (cuz there ain't no meter on a tuk tuk).
He makes a whistling noise, as if he can't believe what he's hearing. Tells me traffic bad. Yeah, I can see that, but a tuk tuk has no AC and it cost me around 90 to get here in the morning in a taxi so I figure I can offer 80 and get away with it.
He counters with 160 or 150 baht. I stick to my guns, sort of, 85 baht.
He makes that whistling noise again. I'm smiling but I'm still pissed, and there are at least two more taxis and one tuk tuk that I haven't asked, so I'm not the loser yet.
He comes down in price farther to 120. I go up to 90.
Now I've gotten out a piece of paper so we can write down our prices. I don't remember exactly where I picked this up from, but seems like all the haggling and negotiations happen with the sides pushing pieces of paper (or the calculator) back and forth.
He points to traffic again, 100 baht. That's more than what I paid to get here.
I write down 95.
He still wants 100.
Now I'm getting annoyed. It's only 5 baht, but I'm tired of haggling and I'm not about to pay more for a no AC ride than one with AC!! I make the "I'm outta here motion" towards the next available ride, and that's when we finally settled on 95.
Eh. I didn't feel so good about the whole thing. I hate haggling, it feels so not up front, everyone's hiding something. He got me back to Siam in good time, but he kept asking me if I wanted to go shopping, buy jewelry, buy clothes. (This I found out later is because he wanted to drop me off at shops where he can get commissions). I say no. He could probably tell it anyway. I only have two pieces of jewelry (if counting my stainless steel watch)...
I shot some videos of me riding the tuk tuk. A tuk tuk cam. ahahha. 😊
I had one more shitty taxi experience home, but I'm tired, so in short:
the driver gave me his card, told me to call him tonight, and wanted to come visit me in Taiwan in a few years. *shudder* Good thing I won't be there.
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Ian
non-member comment
Awesome!
Just think of how great a story this will make to tell in a couple of years when you're not hot, tired, sweating, and frustrated.