And so the story continues. After 3 nights and 4 days in Bangkok it is time for a new update. We have changed hotels and are currently staying in Four points a little further down sukhumvit road.

It was a lot for us to take in since Bangkok itself is such a big city and we did sooo much. And honestly I do not know what to tell since it are so many things. Temples, food, tuk tuk, old white people with way to young Thai girls are just a few things that we saw. Bangkok is such a beautiful and lively city. We do have a really good/great/awesome time here! But there is one thing that we notice every day and is worth mentioning.

*Tuk tuk drivers, Taxi drivers and people on the steet are trying to push you toward their services(for 20 baht service/taxi for 2 hours). They are somewhat persistant if you say no, but in general they are always nice and polite.

And so on the second day we got ripped off. By a Thai man who claimed he was the head of security of the golden mountain. Since BKK is so freaking huge we always walk around with the map. So we are easy to spot for anyone who is trying to make some money of dumb european tourists. And of course the fact that we are white as milk.( Yes still! It is 38 degrees but there are always clouds so no sunshine).

We have been aproached by Thai people who looked really genuine in the beginning. Asking where we are from and making small talk. Is it your first time? and things like that. At first we thought they were so happy that they could speak english. But they keep on talking and talking and after a while they offer to take you to someplace or some office, shop and what not. By then it is hard to get rid of them.

So after walking for an hour from our hotel on the second day in BKK we finally reached a temple. Amazing! It was the temple before the Golden mount so not even a big one. Nice decorations, and real buddhist monks! attending a service. Even during the service we could walk in and take pictures. They did not seem to care. We were walking around the templegrounds when a Thai man came to us.

Hey you guys do you speak english? So we did, and we engaged in a conversation. The man knew to tell us that it will be Thai new year so there are ceremonies in every temple around BKK. But he knew of a place where there was a boat that took us to a tiny version of the floating market and around the canals of the old city centre. He showed us some pictures of what he claimed to be where his wife and daughters. He had such an amazing time. He highly reccommended it to us. So we liked what we heard. We trusted the man. He could arrange a tuk tuk for us for really cheap to take us to the pier where they offer the boat tour. He would inform the tuk tuk driver to pose as a friend for us to get us a better price.

(Just for your information. We only wanted to take the cheap tuk tuk service, we wanted to get to the pier and walk from there to the grand palace. That saved us another hour of walking.) But we did not want to tell the man who was so nice to us. And all that info free of charge!

So the thai man got called. Some thai gibberish I did not understand a thing, Lizet neither. He told us it was his wife bla bla. So he walked with us to the main road and WHOA! what a coincedence there was a tuk tuk already waiting for us. 60 baht for 25 minutes in the tuk tuk sounded good to us so we got in. We thanked the head of security and went off to that pier.

When we arrived at the pier there was another thai man coming directly to us. Hey you guys are here for the boat tour. Well…. yes kind of. Oke for you 8000 baht ( 210 euro). But our lovely tuk tuk driver intervened and told the man that he was a friend of ours so he should give the better rate. Oke oke for you now 6000 baht ( 157 euro). We found the price to be too high and we did not have that amount of cash on us. So we said no, we will not take it. Oke oke.. a bit agitated, 3000 baht ( 78 euro).

That sounded more like it. But we did not want to take the tour because we had other plans for the day. So I offered him that we come in two weeks with 2 other persons so that we would be with 4. That would mean more business for him. For some reason he did not like that idea at all. So he dropped the price again so now we only had to pay 2000 baht ( 52 euro).

What a price drop we thought. What a nice man. He must really like us. Oke you know what? The grand palace can wait. What the hell! we take your boat. What a great bargain! We are going to see so much. And one hour on a private boat!

What a laugh we had on the boat. When we sat down and went to a tiny canal away from the city centre from BKK we knew we have been had. Thai were sitting in their houses laughing and waving and we laughed back for both for different reasons. The floating market was a joke on its own. Seriously ONE grumpy guy in a tiny canoe selling all kind of crap people do not want. Lizet bought a tiny buddha at first it was 400 baht ( 10.50) In the end she had it for 50 baht ( 1.31). So the tour was nice but way to overpriced. We knew that when we got dropped of at a different pier and saw the prices for a boatpass for a whole day, 150 baht ( 3.90). One last funny thing. There were only tourists on the pier and the boats. When we went past them we only saw white faces. With that smile of acknowledgement and understanding.

You have been had too!