I heard and read about this scam. Even with prior knowledge, my friend and I were lured into this scam.
After exiting the Grand Palace, we walked to catch the boat ferry back down South. Before catching the ferry we bought a bag of Li Chee fruit and sat on a bench to eat. A nice man struck up a conversation with us. Asked us where we were from and what we did so far. He was really nice and talked about Thailand. He offered to take us around on his tuk tuk to see the Golden Buddah, standing Buddah, and then to a shopping center for $0.50 each. I said okay and off we went. We saw the Golden Buddah and Standing Buddah and then he took us to a jewerly store. Didn't buy anything and then he took us to another store. I told him I didn't want to go shopping but he got upset and insisted we go since we only paid him $0.50 for the ride. When we got there, we walked through the store really fast and he got upset that we didn't even look at the items good. He was mad and said that we should buy something so he can get a coupon for free gas. My friend spent $12 on some charms and we left with him. Tuk Tuk driver was not happy. I told him we wanted to go to a boat ramp to catch the ferry. He was not happy and was going to drop us off along side a road. I asked him to drop us off at the boat ramp..... he got mad but dropped us off at the boat ramp.
Overall not a good experience, but we had to laugh if off and continue to enjoy wonderful Bangkok.
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At Least Do This: Recommend not riding a Tuk Tuk. Always ride a metered taxi. Never had a bad experience with a Taxi driver. Taxi's are really cheap and you can generally get anywhere in Bangkok for under $4.
Make sure you get a hotel card written in Thai from the front desk so you can show it to the taxi drivers.
If anyone offers you help.... don't take it. They are being nice to you only because they want something from you.
Alternative: Metered taxi's are good and cheap!
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on Jun 26, 2005
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