When I heard about the BIGGEST WATERFIGHT IN THE WORLD, in Thailand during Thai New Year (called Songkran) I knew it was fate. The Songkran (New Year) water fights began as a blessing, a sprinkling of water from older people to younger people, and somehow in the sweltering 100 degree temperature, morphed into a giant 3-day waterfight. Talk about stamina. Thousands of people in the streets running around with super soakers and throwing buckets of undrinkable water at each other FOR THREE DAYS sent a shiver up my spine; even the thought of having to throw toilet paper in the trash couldn’t stop me. One full day turned out to be plenty of water fight for us, and getting soaked within minutes of leaving our tour van or hotel made the trip doubly exciting. You never knew when you were going to get hit, and EVERYONE was fair game. People were driving around with umbrellas and full plastic suits. Even in the countryside, far away on our all-day “elephant / orchid farm/ ox-cart/ long-neck village women” excursion, we were hit with water. My passport has water/ink stains everywhere and I had to take immense pains to dry it and squish into its former shape. I guess that’s what I get for not using a brand name Ziploc bag! Anyhow, I should give some Thai cultural background before I continue.
Thailand, formerly Siam, is a country that I could only imagine from seeing movies like, “The King and I” and “Brokedown Palace”. I wasn’t too sure about what was there exactly, besides exotic animals, glittery buildings, illicit drugs, underage prostitutes, and fabulous reviews from other travelers. Other than being world-famous for silk and elephants, Thailand also holds the Guinness Record for the world’s longest place name: the capital, Bangkok’s full name is (drumroll please): “The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarma".
There is only a 2-hour difference between Japan and Thailand, which I discovered on the first day. I got up, bright and scruffy, at 6:30am, got down to the dim lobby, filled with attendants sleeping on the hotel couches. I was really excited to eat breakfast, whereupon I was informed that it was only 4:30 am! This made me instantly tired, but I decided to read a little, before I had to wake up the girls to let me back in the room (They key needs to be put in a special slot to operate the lights, so I thought it best to leave it in the room). I was chomping at the bit to use Thai, having downloaded Thai dictionaries, podcasts and travel phrases, but alas they didn’t understand me unless I spoke English! I think they don’t expect people to try at all and were genuinely surprised when someone tries to speak to them in Thai. It was good to have the map and some directions printed out in Thai since they couldn’t really understand English, only basic phrases and bargaining. A fair amount can speak at length about their specific trade interest (our elephant driver could answer “What’s the elephant’s name?” but when I asked “Where are you from?” he had absolutely no idea)
There are two airports in Bangkok one for international and one for local (same as Japan), so it is important to pay attention exactly which one you need to be at. The baht is their currency (worth 33 times less than the dollar – aka multiply by 3 and take off 2 zero’s, so 300 baht is $9). So it makes it easy to think you’re spending less than you actually are. It’s relatively easy to find transportation that can be bargained down (or up, depending on how good you are at bargaining) as everyone wants to drive tourists in order to earn a little extra under the table. It cost about 200 baht for the 1/2 drive to our hotel. Tuk Tuks (Taxi’s with a Thai twist- resemble golf carts) were a bit more expensive, but I found the most entertaining form of travel The hotel people understood English and were able to speak quite fluently. All in all, I spent about 320,000 yen, which is about $330 and was able to get my eyelashes curled (300 baht), buy gifts and alcohol, eat at expensive places (for Thailand), go on an all-day tour (900 baht) and all transportation costs. If I didn’t buy gifts or go to expensive places (Pizza Hut was a whopping 350 baht for a medium pizza – Jenn REALLY wanted non-Japanese pizza), I could do a week on 200,000 yen ($210) easy. The normal price range for food is 50 – 100 baht.
Thailanders adore their king and his face plastered all over the place, in taxis, on bridges and even fire hydrants! The beloved king has been instrumental in bringing the boiling political environment down to a simmer throughout his 63-year reign (the world’s longest serving monarch). The red-shirt protestors were very tame when I saw them, and the common working Thais that I encountered seemed very supportive of them. The clashes with the government are about as peaceful as Thailand can make them (being dependent on tourism) and the gov’t closed the surrounding businesses/malls early and well before any government clashes. In general, the Red Shirts (common working people) support a more socialist government that was elected and ousted by the Yellow Shirts (business owners and supporters of the royal family), a few years ago. Red Shirts want fresh elections and some want the old government back. Both types of Shirts have thousands of followers, and though this year the Red Shirts took over a parliament building and TV station, there have been surprisingly few deaths and injuries. The Red Shirts` deadly clash last year taught them a few lessons and this year they are much more organized. When I was there, the government clashes were limited to certain areas and both sides tended to avoid tourists, although richer areas have been blockaded by the Red Shirts costing those businesses thousands as the weeks drag on. Thailand was operating in a state of emergency when I was there, and as the weeks drag on without a resolution, the tension and violence has been escalating. Both Shirts are determined to have their say in the Thai government, and I think a bigger clash between the two Shirts is inevitable.
Political tension notwithstanding, Thai people were very friendly, it’s not called the Land of Smiles for nothing, although I must admit that nothing can compare to Japanese service. People are very pushy for you to help them by purchasing their wares and I found it hard to refuse them, considering they get by on about $8,600 (PPP) per year. Bargaining is a national pastime, for example, when a taxi driver didn’t turn on his meter, I started to get out, but when he dropped the price (which was cheap either way) and said, “Please help me” I couldn’t resist his plea. We got caught up in about 5 different scams while we were there, although we were too cautious (and on an economy budget) to get taken by any, although we didn’t realize they were scams at first.
Scams in Thailand are very well planned and oiled machines, organized to take thousands of dollars from tourists in gem, silk and other various scams. These complicated schemes are massive (Burmese) gangster-related operations. Here is how they did it to us (I felt like I was in a Mario videogame trying to evade things that wanted to take one of my lives. Mario background music was in my head the whole time)
1) Smooth-talking Thai picked us up en route to a popular tourist destination and offered us a really cheap Tuk Tuk Thai taxi (golf cart- ish) ride.
2) Told us that the site that we were going to, is being cleaned for Thai New Year and they would take us to 3 other tourist sites, and including the Lucky Buddha (etc) site for a couple of hours til it was done being cleaned.
3) Convinced us that although the price is abnormally low, the gov’t is compensating them in some way to help tourism. Got one of his henchmen to take us in a Tuk Tuk immediately.
4) At the temple, an unknown VERY friendly person approached us, spoke very good English and told us the best place in Thailand to buy tailored suits. (I have read that depending on the situation, gem scammers will come and talk to you about the safest place to buy Thai gems.)
5) On the way to the next tourist destination, we got taken to the same tailor shop that the guy had mentioned, although we had said nothing to him about it. (We saw one Red Shirt blockade where they waved and smiled at us. They seemed very friendly.)
6) They tried to pressure us into buying and using words like government authorized, etc.
7) We were taken to the next tailor shop which was a little bit more upscale, where our Tuk Tuk driver told us that he gets gas coupons for every shop that he goes to, so he said we could go in and look around for a few minutes then come back out. We consented, came out then he took us to another tourist site.
8) We told him no more tailor shops, so he said bargained with us for just one gem shop, which we didn’t mind, we had time to kill before the water fights and it was interesting to see Thailand at 100 miles an hour in a golf cart (Tuk Tuk)
9) We went to a very well-organized, nice looking gem export center where we were greeted by people in suits, given free drinks and convinced of the precious stones’ value and authenticity (usually low quality stones or colored glass). There were workers sitting in the front cutting the gems to show us. We didn’t buy anything.
(Start Mario-fighting-the-dragon-at-the-end music)
10) Then we were driven unwillingly to a tailor shop, where the salesperson waved us away (I don’t know why but he looked upset) then finally back to the castle.
11) As soon as we exited the tuktuk, birdseed materialized on my crossed arms and I turned to see Jen had 3 bags somehow, we were yelled at to feed the pigeons. Even knowing this was a money scam or take-my-purse-and-run scam, I was confused about what to do with the birdseed and stood there for a time. They wouldn’t accept the seeds back and dirty pigeons were flying everywhere. I left the birdseed on a gate by the pigeons. I would have refused to feed pigeons even if the birdseed was free!! Freaking pigeons, I hate them!
12) Then, we were approached by more scammers who said we didn’t have appropriate attire for the castle and wanted us to buy their long skirts. Although they were correct about our short-pants being inappropriate, we refused them and rented the free skirts that the castle provided.
13) I bargained down postcards from $9 to $1.50 and some bottles of water!! YAY, I mastered a skill to get out alive!
13) Game Over! We barely escaped! We made it to the Castle! (victory music)
