Well after over three months of travel, we unfortunately ran into our first real blunder. Here’s the brief synopsis of how we messed up and what we’ve been doing to try and resolve it.
It was our first day in Bangkok, and we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to explore the city. We had FINALLY made it to Southeast Asia, the region were 4-star hotels only cost $20 a night and a fresh plate of pad thai only costs $0.60. We took the skytrain to the terminal stop, which is still about 2 miles from the main tourist sites. We didn’t really have an idea of what Bangkok had to offer beyond Khoa San Road, so we thought we’d wander a while. We were standing on a large street corner, trying to figure out where we were on the map when someone stopped and asked us where we were from. After explaining it was our first day in the city, he took the map and wrote all sorts of great ideas of where we should travel, and that it was a national holiday that day so all the tuk-tuks were only 20 Baht (about $0.60). How wonderful! We had a plan! What a nice man, giving us so many ideas… He even talked to the tuk-tuk driver and told him where to go.
Next thing we know, we’re at a business we thought was a government run tourist agency called T.A.T. (turns out that it was T.I.T (Tourist Information of Thailand)…we got TIT when we wanted TAT…there’s a joke in there somewhere). We were asked to sit down, and a man named Nicky started planning a trip through Southeast Asia for us. We didn’t really ask for him to do this, all we really wanted was some tips of what to see in the country, but he continued on.
“I give you great deal on this package! At least 20% off what you do! Nicky do his best for you!”
He never really asked us about what we wanted to see in Southeast Asia, he just started planning. I added that I’d like to go to Halong Bay in Vietnam, to which he responded,
“Oh.. okay. I can get to Hanoi, then you travel on your own.”
So it went from an all-inclusive trip to being a trip with a few hotels and a few flights. There was just so much information flying at us, it was completely overwhelming. One thing that Kevin and I have learned on this trip is that we have a hard time saying “no” to someone who’s put in a lot of work to do something for us, especially when they’re standing right in front of us. We don’t want to be rude to them, or have them think that we’re not appreciative for their time. This usually only costs us a bit of chump change at dinner, but not this time.
We sat for about an hour as Nicky told us all of these great things that he was going to do for us, and how it’s impossible for average tourists to get to some of these places, but not when he arranges it, so on and so forth… He gave us a price; we looked at each other and decided to go for it. Clearly jet lag and lack of food in our system really were affecting our judgment that day, because after going back to the hotel and crunching the numbers, we paid him over double what it should cost.
As you can imagine, we were livid. Actually, sick with anger. We couldn’t believe that we had been taken that badly. After discussing it for the better part of the night, we decided to go try and get our money back the next day.
We stopped by T.I.T. the next day to try and reason with the crook formerly known as Nicky, and get him to either refund our money or pay for our plane tickets home, both of which would have squared the debt (or brought it to within reason). Guess who was sleeping at his desk? When we got his attention, he looked at us, resituated himself and closed his eyes again. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Even at this we kept our composure, although our tempers were raging just under the surface. Amazingly, we never lost our cool…even when after calling Nicky out on his blatantly fraudulent activities, he flipped his lid and started yelling at us and jutting his finger in our faces. He knew that he did something wrong and that we caught him. Unfortunately, for us , the damage to our accounts had been done.
During his ranting, before he stormed out of the office (not to return), he said that we could cancel the tours, but he would only get half the money back. So we would effectively lose a ridiculous amount of cash for nothing. When he didn’t return that day we decided to go to the tourist police to see if there was anything that could be done.
After some time spent chatting with the police, we were informed that due to the lack of anti-fraud laws in Thailand and the fact that they already had our money, there wasn’t a lot that they could do. Then they said that we had gotten off fairly easily, that this type of thing happens often and sometime more severely. That we should take this as a life lesson and just go on the tour all the while being robbed blind. That did little to console us…but they did give us contact information at the Ministry of Tourism.
The next day we went to the Ministry of Tourism to file our complaint. To their credit, they were very nice people who tried to do all they could to help us. They contacted the T.I.T., but to no avail. Their hands were tied for the same reasons that the Tourist Police’s were. But they told us to contact our credit card companies, which we had already done…only via electronic means. So, we decided to call our respective companies…easier said than done. Not having a phone on us we had to resort to finding a calling card at one of the biggest malls that I have ever seen…and we’re from the land of the Mall of America. Unfortunately, in all that consumerism there wasn’t a calling card to be found; as we must have searched all seven floors for the better part of an hour. In the end, we used a phone at an information desk in the heart of that bedlam. Alas, we got a hold of our respective credit card companies at the mall then later at our hotel, explained the situation, and we have a pretty good chance of getting our money back in full, and the cheats aren’t going to get squat…here’s hoping.:) Thailand might not have anti-fraud laws, but God bless the US for having them. Wish us luck for getting our money back so that we didn’t blow an exorbitant amount of money on absolutely nothing.
As you may have guessed, we are not going on that trip…we have decided to organize our own SE Asia excursions; which if we were thinking clearly in the beginning we could have already been on and avoided all this mess. However, we are off to Chiang Mai tomorrow to hopefully trek through the mountains taking bamboo rafts and riding elephants. Then the plan is to take some Thai cooking classes, hit some beaches down south, visit Singapore then back to frickin’ Bangkok for a day of shopping for presents and catching a flight home. If we have time, we might make it to Vietnam or Cambodia. But at this point we are ready to experience a little bit more Asian culture then get back to the good ol’ US to maybe WWOOF our way to a wedding in New York at the end of September.
The end is nigh. We will visit when we get back. We still have a backlog of posts that we have to get to for the Middle East. But we needed to get this one out as sort of a catharsis. So thanks for your patience, and know that there are happier stories on the way.
Take care, talk to you soon…
Love,
The wayward spirits
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