A Rip From the Greediest Thai in Thailand

January 24 2010

Elena opted to stay in the bungalow and read her twilight novel while her skin was trying to heal. Brittney and I ventured into the same town to find a bookstore. We eventually found one and sat for about an hour perusing and chatting about what kind of novella would suit our experience.

We were located really close to the pier, which happened to be swarming with taxi and bus drivers, very accurate to what our travel books describe. It is here that we came in contact, for the second time, with the meanest Thai in all of Thailand. He seems to be the taxi/bus ringleader, approaching every tourist with arrogance, asking where you're going then pronouncing how much it would cost. each time a tourist responds to him saying that he's asking too much, he asks a fellow driver to pull out a menu of locations and corresponding prices, which is laughable because it’s stupid that they simply listed locations and corresponding overpriced costs in a Microsoft word document, printed it, and laminated it in order to seem legitimate to show when tourists won’t agree to the same verbal price. It’s really ridiculous, and when we still tell this man 'no' he looks at us and says, "Oh if you don’t have this certain amount then you can walk," and walks away waving his cigarette like we're pieces of crap. We respond really offended and whirls around and says, "Do you really think that I am going to believe that you don’t have any more money? I don’t believe that. You don’t pay what I ask, you walk." he then proceeded to yell at any advancing eager Thai driver to not to approach us because we wouldn’t pay his price. And they didn’t say boo.

This had happened twice, when we first came, and this day when we needed to get to a bookstore and back. It’s really revealing, both sides of my perspective I guess. My feelings feel hurt, I feel upset that someone thinks they can take such blatant advantage, its rude and mean and the truth is that while I am American and privileged, my budget, not the budget of the generalized American people, MY wallet really cannot handle an extra 10 baht here and an extra 10 baht there. His attitude and greediness was an awful slap in the face.

I feel sorry for him, him being the meanest greediest Thai I’ve met in all of Thailand. What a position to hold in someone’s life and experience.

But on a lighter note, being savvy Brittney and I walked up the route that the local busses take and we waited for one to come bouncing down the road. To our luck our driver agreed to our modest price for two, made it home, and I went down to read by the ocean in the shade.

I found these treasures of the sea: