Vietnam 2013

After anxiously waiting to sample the east in all it's occidental glory, I have had the chance to trawl through blogs and forum entries written by more savvy and in-the-know tourists (most refer to themselves as travellers) who are both bounteously benevolent in their directions and advice on topics such as 'how to escape the tourists in Bangkok' and surprising quick to reveal 'Bankok's best kept secrets!' into the ether. 

Despite all these useful tid-bits of information about Bangkok from said travellers that I have gleaned sporadically over the last few months, none have proved useful! Endless blogs and posts warning against being ripped off were the most worrying to read prior to arriving. It turns out that one of the most warned about activities in Bangkok (getting ripped off) is actually one of the most productive: today we were escorted pretty much all day by Lee, our Tuk Tuk driver who stopped when we asked him, pulled up whenever we asked him to and gave us a ruddy marvelous tour of the city! "the cost?" I hear you ask? Well, Lee was quite honest with us; providing that we let him take us to various shops, retailers and stalls and tailors shops he would be paid 200baht /£4 for each shop that we spent 5 mins or more in. 

So everyone (in this convoluted story) was a winner! Lee got his commision from the shops, we got chauffered all over Bangkok and it cost us only £2! So we gave him £4 because I felt guilty (recieving such wonderful service) and despite my leanings I do sort of agree with a national minimum wage (so too the NHS). It was great to know that Lee was getting paid just for delivering us to high end retailers: I even managed to  practice my refusal technique with the nepalese tailors (I have to be honest- if my bag was any bigger I would have bought a three piece suit for £20.00 - will probably regret that refusal). Despite this wonderful bargain, many Travellers would say that that our journeying should only have cost us about 80p! And yes, that we had been ripped off!

So, the moral of this story is: ignore any information you read on an online blog (offline ones are equally bad too) and allow yourself to be ripped off, it can be strangely rewarding. If speeding round Peckham in a three wheeler is good enough for Del Boy then doing the same in Bangkok suits me fine. Forget any guide book that witters (can't say twitter any more, it is copyright theft- honestly, I read that on a blog). Thr other moral of the story is: immediately declare yourself a Tourist ( as opposed to a Traveller), Why? ... because it is much more comfortable, less sweaty, considerably more likely to involve a mitsubishi airconditioner and certainly involves sensible footwear.; all of which add up to make for a lovely holiday in the tropics. However hard it may be for you Traveller types, take courage: help is out there and it comes in the form of compromise and negotiation. Which seems to sum the entire existence of most of the happy smiling Thai people that we have met so far. So compromise and enjoy the pleasure of being a Tourist once again...