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Published: March 20th 2005
Hi Momma Jones/Nord and the rest. We made it to Bangkok after a long trip and as a gift we got scammed right off the bat. We were told taxis were 300 baht almost anywhere in the city for some reason we decided to pay an unmetered taxi 700 baht for a ride out of the airport. Must have been Ben's idea. Ok probably not. Clayton was glad to see us but was to tired to talk much, we arrived at 2 am Bangkok time. He did have time to tell us that the tuk-tuk drivers liked to take foriegnors on rides to travel agencies for kickbacks...but...
We must not have heard or listened too well, because the next day on our way to the park we were stopped by a very nice Thai lawyer. By now we are familiar with the following 3 questions...but on our first day we had STUPID written on our forheads. "Where do you want to go?" "Where are you from?" "How long you been here?" WARNING WARNING WARNING scam in progress...we missed the signs. He told us the park was all wet because they washed it night before. So we told him we were on the way to the train station to pick up tickets to Chiang Mai. He told us to take the tuk-tuk to the T.A.T office, I (Kris) had heard of that so it sounded legit. Turns out it was a travel agency who probably gave our "lawyer" friend a kickback for gullible foriegnors like us. We ended up paying an extra 2 dollars to have a guy run and buy our train tickets for us and he didn't even get us in the same car! While he was out she convinced us to pay for 2 nights lodging in Chiang Mai at the Winner Inn. Well it does exist but its not all that. We'll update ya tomorrow because the next day was very auspicious...we saw swimming lizards in the park and that marked a huge change for the better.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Sounds like the adventures have begun!
It is fun to hear from you. I am glad to know that "Stupid" was only on your forheads for one day. Now that you are seasoned in "the ways", things should be better. As long as you don't get scammed worse than that, I would say you are doing quite well. We hope you are having a great time. Be safe and be good and be smart. Love, Mom Jones - Momma Jones