The reclining Buddha was pretty cool. But after ten minutes he was still just lying there. I started to wander. My mind started to wander. One-hundred baht for the better part of the afternoon. I’m so shrewd. I’m getting the hang of this trekking-through-a third-world-country on a shoe-string budget. One-hundred baht. That’s like what, US$3.00. Three dollars for several hours? Okay, I know this is Thailand where travel is supposed to be so cheap, but that’s just seems too good to be true. I mean, how do they make any money? The gas alone . . . .
Something’s not adding up here.
Wait a minute . . . what kind of markets are they going to be taking us to?
Suddenly it clicked.
Oh my goodness, they’re going to take us to a tailor!
I've read about this in the Lonely Planet guide book. I've been seeing tailor shops everywhere we go in Bangkok.
When everyone had finished watching the Buddha recline, we reconvened at our tuk-tuks. I approached our driver and told them we had had a change of heart, we were no longer in the mood for shopping.
“Oh no, the shopping is very nice,” he replied
“Okay buddy,” I pulled out my wallet. “How much is it going to cost us to skip the ‘market’?”
But he wanted to hear nothing of the sort. “But the young man with the map said Reclining Buddha, market, Standing Buddha temple,” he argued.
We went back and forth for a few minutes until finally my tuk-tuk driver confessed to me that if he took us to the tailor, the shop owner would give him and the other driver their gas money for the day even if we didn’t buy anything.
Well at least that explains how he can spend the whole afternoon being our private tour guide for just US$3.00.
I knew it was too good to be true.
Okay, okay. Fine.
Hey, it’s just a tailor. How bad can it be? We’ll just go and get it over with and be on our way, I quietly assurred everyone. But privately I was having flashbacks to hard-press timeshare sales pitches in the Wisconsin Dells.
Alright my people, let’s get this over with. Back into the tuk-tuks.
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