Nice Old Man - University Professor and other Bangkok, Thailand Warning Or Danger Tips

My husband and I believe ourselves to be pretty savvy and had prepared ourselves before arriving in Bangkok for all the possible scams etc (or so we thought). While walking to the palace, we were greeted by a friendly-faced old man, carrying an umbrella and a briefcase. He asked us where we were from, and he told us he was a professor on his way to University (flashed us some sort of ID and pointed across the park to the University's location). After some friendly chit-chat he then proceeded to tell us that the palace was closed due to celebrations (a line we knew to expect from touts and taxi drivers, but one we weren't expecting from a nice old University professor). Next thing we know, he's arranging a tuk tuk (taxi) for us, explaining how we can avoid getting scamed by taking the ones with the green license plates because the yellow ones were illegal (or something to that effect). Next thing we know, we're thanking him and off we set in the tuk tuk who is going to take us to some obscure temple. But as soon as he stops first at a silk shop we recognise we've been had...so we toss him a few coins and head off on foot back to the palace, which of course....is open.

We got along absolutely fine for the rest of the trip via public bus. You can get a map with the bus routes from the tourism offices...and you can save more money for the great food!

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Website: http://www.tourist.police.go.th/