Tales from Thailand Part 1: Bargaining Loser

Anyone who has gone to Thailand would probably know that before buying anything, one should bargain real hard for it first. More often than not, the price of the product on sale is probably way over-priced and can be reduced by a great 50%.

Anyway, during my trip to Bangkok, I really sucked at bargaining, and was really 'chopped' by the Thais many times. Chopped as in kena conned... If it was done literally, I would probably return to Singapore as a limbless handicap (and suffer from Xiaxue's scornful remarks o_O).

On the other hand, my Little Princess is the Queen of Bargaining, often managing to 'kill' the salesgirl/salesman and securing a superb bargain.

Anyway, there was one night when we just bought loads of stuff and our hands were full with bags of shirts and pants to clothe the population of a Third World country. We tried to hail a cab to get back to the hotel, but every cab we stopped demanded that they do not charge us by the meter but that we have to pay a flat fee of 100 to 200 baht back to the hotel. We refused to accept that because it is up to 4 times the usual amount we paid for our ride back to the hotel.

And so we walked along the streets of Bangkok, until I came upon a cab driver standing outside his cab talking to his Tut-tut buddy. Feeling that I should give it a go at bargaining with the cab driver and wanting to secure a ride back that cost around 50 baht, I immediately went up to the driver and said," D'Ma Pavilion Hotel, 30 baht?" My reasoning for starting the price at 30 baht was simple, yet short-sighted. I was thinking that if I were to start bargaining from 30 baht, the fella would probably up the price to somewhere in the region of 50 baht. Haha... Short-sighted cause the starting price of a normal, metered and legal ride in Bangkok is 35 baht. Of course at the time of bargaining, I didn't take that into consideration.

The driver's reply was instant and simple, he just turned away and continued talking to his buddy. And when I turned around to my little princess she was laughing her head off. Haha... Dumb me... Then she told me the starting price of a normal ride is 35 baht, of course the driver wouldn't even bother listening to me when i started bargaining at 30 baht... Bleah, only then did i realised my dumb mistake. Hehe...