I got duped today

So after about 6 months of travelling (a little more, actually, but who's counting....), I figured I'd be a pretty savvy traveller by now. Well, you'd hope so, or else I need to go buy one of those t-shirts on Khosang Road where a monkey has a bandaged stump for an arm and is juggling a chainsaw with the other arm, and the caption reads "I'm a slow learner." I may do that anyway though. Or maybe Ed deserves that one for his blog earlier about the doctor.

So today, I visited a temple and was then going to go to the palace to check it out. As I'm leaving the monastery compound, the ticket guy starts talking to me, which isn't that unusual since almost all Thais are extremely friendly and super helpful. So after a few minutes of chit chat, he tells me that the royal palace is closed for some kind of holiday or something. This seemed entirely plausible as parts of the monastery I had just visited were closed also. So he suggests these other Wats (monasteries) instead, and says I can go by the travel info center on the way to get some errands I had done. He also gave me a suggestion on which markets might yield good prices for technology stuff, as I needed a storage card for my camera. He also helped me out by negotiating an excellent price with a tuk tuk (motorized rickshaw) driver to run me to these places before dropping me back off at the Royal Palace. Well, I thought it was an excellent price ($1.30) that probably is normal for locals.
Now, at the time I thought "cool, that was nice" but after my first errand, the guy keeps mentioning a specific tailor. Now, I'd been interested in maybe talking to a tailor here, but more out of curiosity than anything else, and it begin to dawn on me that I've fallen for a classic Bangkok scam, one so frequent it's even detailed in my guide book, because there is no way the 40 Baht will cover gas expenses. After another stop, this time at a Wat, I quite frankly tell the driver that I can't take any clothing with me since my bag is full, but he plays it real cool: He straight up tells me that he gets a cut if I go, regardless of whether or not I buy anything, and that's what makes the ride price possible. I tell him I'll take a quick look, but he shouldn't get his hopes up, and indeed, after talking to the tailor for 2 minutes it's clear he won't provide the services I would consider, and so I stroll back outside and the tuk tuk shoots off to the next sight. This was a really cool Wat, located/built as a hill on the top of which is a shrine in which remnants of the Buddha himself are kept (if I understood correctly) and which is topped with a gold spire. From there, you have a fantastic 360 degree view out over the entire city, and I am really happy that I've gotten there.

However, when I descend back down, my driver has disappeared. But since I got a city map that includes the bus lines, I am no longer dependant of the taxis and tuk tuks, and can make my own way around the city for much less money. Moreover, it turns out I'm not that far from the palace anyway, and there is some other stuff even closer by that I wouldn't mind seeing.

So let me summarize the situation: I got an errand done and saw two sites I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise (but am glad I saw), then got dropped down the block from the Democracy Monument (which I felt I had to visit for irony's sake) and did not have to pay for any of this. Pretty much, I got scammed but ended up winning out in the situation while the scammers got nothing. Sweet. If they hadn't "scammed" me, I probably would have spend twice as much (as I didn't pay at the end) just getting to the tourist office to get the bus map. Savvy traveller indeed!

But the best part of the day hadn't even begun: Using my new map, I easily walked over to the Democracy Monument, where I found a huge protest going on. It was a big pro-democracy rally that was moving down the street from the royal palace past the monument and towards the royal residence, as I was to see. So since the protest was going in the direction I needed to head, I walked with them for a while, then decided to stay on and ended up having a great afternoon. The protest was an interesting experience. First and foremost, I think the gratitude of the people there will remain in my mind: Everyone was friendly, someone gave me one of the yellow headbands and a flag, and many people took pictures of me, or even came up to thank me for participating. Clearly, people here feel that they have a better chance of returning to democracy if the international community is on their side. I was offered water and everyone wanted to know where I am from. I got hugs and smiles left and right.
The overall protest was interesting, also. When the protest arrived at a police blockade of the road, the organizers used human chains for a number of purposes. The first one I saw surrounded the main vehicle, presumably in case anyone would try to take control of it. Beyond that, another human chain kept the protest divided so that the people in the front wouldn't be pushed up against the police, creating a confrontation. Instead, space was left so that neither side would feel threatened, and the police did not try to fill that space, either. Then a lot of stuff ion Thai followed, so I'm not exactly sure of what was going on. There was a lot of chanting, back-and-forth calls with speakers on the vehicles, sitting down and standing up. I think the protest was demonstrating unity. Finally, the front of the protest began moving up on the police while the main train of people stayed where they were (being the tallest person in the whole march gave me a good overview of what was happening). Then, as the protesters came close, the police just backed away to the side, blocking off another street but letting the march pass on along its preferred route. I saw some people leave the main vehicle earlier who had returned just before this happened, so I think it may have been a negotiated retreat.
Sever hundred meters further on, the same scenario repeated itself, except that the police did not let the march enter into the grounds of the race track adjoining the royal residency. Instead, the protest turned left, and I turned right, headed towards the tech market (where I found everything I wanted and more).

Good day, saw lots of the city, had a great experience on the use of non-violence (this definitely relates to what we've been discussing on Spears' blog).