Smita Jain meets giant Buddhas and small scamsters in Bangkok:
Linked by kuffir. Join Blogbharti facebook group.I had read about this. Most of these people are paid by shop owners to bring in tourists. “No,” I said firmly, also a little indignantly. What was he thinking trying to scam Indians? We invented scams! “I don’t want to shop.” “No, no, no shop. Only look,” he insisted. “No,” I said. “Then I don’t go.” Whatever the shopowners pay the tuk tuk walas and cabbies must be huge indeed because he was willing to let go of a lucrative fare in the hope of catching some other unsuspecting tourist.
About 10-15 years ago, I had to wait in Bangkok air-port for about 16 hours. I did not have much money left and one of those tourist operators kept bugging me to tour the city. Finally I showed him what money I had and said that I was ready to go if he was satisified with it; I think that it was about 20 dollars. I had the whole taxi to myself except for the guide and they showed me some of those places in the pictures, jewell shops where I had free soft drinks all together about half a day of touring around the city. Towards the end of the trip I felt sorry for them and offered them some of the silver bangles I bought in Delhi for my daighters but they refused and did not ask me for any thing more.