Greg Goodman is currently in...San Francisco

From the beginning, I had a tough time with most interactions we had with locals in Vietnam. Granted, most of the people we met were some form of shopkeeper and as soon as money was introduced to the equation the nice relationship became mean, rude and angry. However, due to our rushed pace and lack of knowledge of the language, it made interacting with anyone but a shopkeeper difficult. As such, I left the country with a very sour taste in my mouth. A few reasons why….

Haggling is a way of life when traveling in developing nations. However, for some reason in Vietnam it gets down right mean and personal. First, shopkeepers can’t even be bothered to come and talk to you when you are clearly waiting at their shop to possibly buy something. Then, if you try to haggle they quickly get mad at you and yell. “NO! YOU GIVE ME 10,000! GOOD PRICE! YOU BUY NOW!” It’s like they get instantly enraged. My favorite example was trying to buy a bottle of water in Hue. I knew the fair price and asked for it, to which the woman yelled, “noooooo!” She would rather not make any money at all than sell me the product at the fair price.

Another thing that really irks me is how many times I have been shooed away by a Vietnamese shopkeeper. Sometimes it’s because they don’t agree to my price, but other’s its just because they don’t want to sell to me at all. Is it because I’m Western? Because I sure don’t look American with my massive beard…not that you can really tell someone is from America just by looking at them. I can’t count how many times I’ve had a hand shoved in my face to get rid of me. Sometimes I like to shoo them back and say, “you shoo,” before lecturing them on how rude they are. Not that it ever makes a difference.

Physical contact during altercations is also, unfortunately, common. During a monsoon rain storm in Sapa, Carrie stopped at a street stall to buy a poncho. The lady charged far too much, but it was pouring and Carrie was desperate so she paid. The thing came out of the bag broken, but when Carrie tried to exchange it for a new one the woman demanded more money…yelling, of course. Carrie refused and more yelling happened, so finally she just said “here is your poncho, just give me my money back.” The woman refused again, so Carrie just picked up the new poncho and gave her back the old one, trying again to explain how she was not paying for a broken product.

At this point, the woman grabbed Carrie by the arm and squeezed as hard as possible, digging her nails into her arm. I physically had to remove the woman’s hands from Carrie’s arm, at which point the shopkeeper began to wave her arms, stomp her feet and yell at me in Vietnamese. So, I gave it right back to her. I yelled, stamped my feet and mimicked her, which finally got her to stop and actually caused her to have no idea what to do or say for a solid five seconds. In the end, I got Carrie the poncho, but the woman was beyond furious. All over what, 20 cents? It’s just the principal…and why did she have to get so angry.

You want another example, you say? Well, while waiting for our Halong Bay tour bus to arrive we ran into an old friend and wanted to get on the same boat. Before even getting on the four hour bus ride to the Bay, both Carrie and I talked to three different staff members and requested that we be on the same boat as our friend. Naturally, when we arrived they acted like this was the first time they ever heard this request and immediately started yelling at Carrie for not letting them know earlier. “I’m too busy. Leave me alone. You tell me at the beginning, not now. No, you go on your boat. He go on his boat.”

The scene got ugly so fast that none of us even saw it coming. One minute everyone was happy, the next minute every staff member was screaming at each other and slapping each other. It was a very unpleasant scene. In the end we got on the same boat as our friend, but the yelling continued for more than 20 minutes, even after Carrie went around and found people to trade boats with us so that the workers didn’t have to do anything at all. Apparently, the anger continued for the next two days and the staff, who were also the boat tour guides, did nothing but yell at the people on their boat. Thank goodness we switched.

Moving on, it also really bugs me how every time I try to speak Vietnamese to a shopkeeper I just get made fun of. Sure, I get it…the language is very tonal and if I don’t raise or lower my pitch the correct way I might be making a mistake, but I know they can understand. Literally, I’ve been pointed at and I can hear as they repeat what I say and laugh directly at me.

Finally, and then I will stop this complaining section, I can’t count how many times I was shoved by a local. Never do I hear excuse me…or even the Vietnamese version. Instead, even if I’m slightly in the way I get shoved. Like when I was leaving a restaurant in Hue and the waitress, who had a huge smile for us the whole night, suddenly shoved me. Used to the insanity that follows us I thought nothing of it, but when I later returned to look for a hat I forgot there she was yelling at me from the start. “Look in your bag. It’s in your bag,” she yelled. Of course, it wasn’t. In the end I never got my hat, but I did get more abuse from the waitress.

Really, I’m sure that the Vietnamese people are very nice. We met plenty of non-backpackers who were paying lots of money for their tours and food and experiences and all of them did not have a single complaint. The people we met in the street that had nothing to do with money were quite friendly and the kids were full of smiles and waves. However, for backpackers, trying to negotiate anything in Vietnam is just a nightmare. At least the country was beautiful!

Our bus arrived in Ho Chi Min (formerly Saigon) in the middle of a monsoon and quickly got into a cab to take us to our hotel. After a few blocks, we noticed that the meter was already very high. We told him to stop and asked what was going on, telling him that our hotel was very close and that it should only cost $1. He said, “no, you pay $10 or meter!”

As always, an argument ensued and we decided to leave the cab, smelling a rat. We refused to pay and, somehow, he let us get away with that. After seeking shelter from the rain in a mall and properly looking at the map, we realized that the bus had, in fact, dropped us off a block from the hotel. Thank goodness we didn’t let the cabbie take us for a ride. Welcome to Vietnam!

The next day, our only one in Ho Chi Min, we set out for a walking tour of the city that our guide book outlined. We manged to get lost a few times, but saw the old post office, a few beautiful temples from the inside, many more from the outside, war remnants such as tanks and helicopters on display and a wide variety of architecture. After spending nearly an hour searching for an ice cream parlor with no success, we got caught in monsoon rains and had to take solace in the Reunification Palace

The Reunification Palace is especially important to history, as when it was overrun by the North Vietnamese army in 1975 it marked the end of the Vietnam war. Propaganda-filled exhibits were on every floor: a theme that would continue throughout the country.

I also got a kick out of seeing the old spy communications rooms, still preserved with their old-school phones, computers and more. We opted not to watch the hour-long film on the history of the country and just headed home instead when the rain slowed down.

While the sunrise every morning was absolutely beautiful, the scene in front of it was not. As soon as it got light enough to see without a flashlight the locals came out in packs to scavenge. Lots of partiers had passed out on the beach and if anything had fallen out of their pocket it was quickly picked up and taken. Bags and fanny packs that were left unwatched or lost on the beach were fair game and Carrie even saw a guy thwart a Thai pickpocket.

Flip flops were another popular target of the scavengers, as the beach was full of lost and forgotten sandals. Unfortunately, not all the sandals being scavenged were lost. While watching the sunrise next to our group’s shoes a local man came by and quickly slipped off his cheap black flip flops, put on Karen’s expensive black ones and started to walk away. I saw him and said “hey, what are you doing?” He quickly said, “oh, sorry, I thought these were mine,” before quickly switching back and scurrying off to try somewhere else.

I can only imagine how much other shady things go on under the cover of darkness and alcohol. I saw a Thai woman walking around with a stack of empty alcohol buckets going around to a bunch of locals. Each of them would put a wad of bills in the bucket, she would look through it and give them their keep. Sometimes I don’t think it was all bills. Whatever they did to get that money, I doubt it was legal.

Thailand is filled with lady boys: men who either dress like women or who are in some stage of actually becoming a woman through surgery. Most times they are easy to pick out of a crowd, though some have had so much work done or had such a feminine physique to begin with that it’s tough to identify them.

Lady boys are extremely popular in Thailand, working in every legitimate part of society. They are especially prevalent in beauty salons, shops, cabarets, restaurants, tourist centers, entertainment districts and beauty pageants. Surprisingly, considering how many nearby countries forbid homosexuality, they are an accepted part of every day life.

While many live legitimate lives, another aspect of the lady boy culture is that of prostitution and deception. Especially in Phuket, Bangkok and other tourist destinations, many lady boys will do whatever is necessary to part someone with their money. To this day we have till not gotten a real answer as to who is hiring them. Are they straight men who can’t tell it’s a lady boy? Gay men? Gay women? We have mostly been told it’s straight men, but only by a few people and we are still not sure.

All we know for sure is that the lady boys were out in force at the full moon party. I have no idea what went on under the cover of darkness, but as the sun came up I saw dozens of drunken male partiers hand in hand with lady boys. My personal favorite were the jocks, frat boys and meatheads who you know are the most homophobic and anti-gay people around while sober. Karma at its finest.

However, there were also a ton of young guys – maybe in their late teens or early 20’s – walking around with lady boys. These kids clearly had too much to drink and had no idea that the beautiful woman they were locking lips with was clearly a man. The biggest commonality they all had was the presence of a big bucket of booze in their hands that they continued to drink well after sunrise. I saw a lady boy take a sip while flirting with a guy then turn her head and spit it out on the sand. It seems that they pretend to be partying with their new lover but in reality are staying pretty much sober.

So if they are not doing it for free booze and they know that when the guy sobers up he will probably no longer be interested, why do they do it? Sadly, the best theory I have is that they rob the guys then leave them. At one point I saw a guy flop down on the sand followed immediately by his lady boy friend. She laid on top of him, caressed him all over, put the back of her head on his chest, pretended to get a text message, got up and walked away quickly. The guy was drunk and didn’t really know what happened, but I saw him checking his pockets and his hand came out empty handed as he stumbled away.

I continued to watch as a group of lady boys hung out together and occasionally split off as one of them spotted the drunkest Westerner they could and began to flirt. Often, within minutes, the pair was kissing. In the background the rest of the lady boys would laugh and cheer her on silently.

All this said, I don’t want to say that the lady boys were the only ones playing the “let’s take advantage of the drunken Westerners” game. I saw tons of real Thai women pretending to be interested in men far too drunk to sweet talk them in any way shape or form. It’s sad to say, but it’s just another part of the business of the full moon party.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that Bali was unlike any place we’ve ever traveled before, in that it is nearly impossible to use public transportation. As always, after arriving at the airport we were greeted by scores of taxi drivers. And as always, we politely refused and said that we wanted to take public transportation. After finding another pair of backpackers and getting information on how to make the 50 minute journey to Ubud, we walked out of the airport towards the bus stand.

Public buses in Bali (called bemos) are actually little vans with bench or bus style seating. They do not go long distances and getting across the country can be done only by using multiple bemos for each little leg of the trip. Each bemo ride should not cost more than 5,000 rupia (50 cents) per person and should drop us off at either a bus stop or terminal where the next bemo should be waiting or on its way.

For locals in Bali, this is exactly how it works. However, as we quickly found out after leaving the airport, the reality is quite different for tourists. We had to haggle hard with every single driver  we encountered to get even close to the fair price and often drivers would just flat out refuse anything less  than 20,000 rupia per person to go even a short distance. Most told us that there were no more bemos to Ubud that day and we should just give them large sums of money to take us.

“But aren’t you a bemo?” we would ask the drivers. The answer was always the same: “yes, but this is a private bemo.” We would later learn that all bemos spend some time doing trips for locals but most just wait around and use their vehicle as a private transport for foreigners, as it makes them far more money. Very few public bemos were even willing to stop for us, as the system in place is designed to frustrate foreigners to the point that they throw their hands up and accept whatever price the private ones ask for.

The epilogue to our airport to Ubud story is that we finally made it there: four hours and four bemos later. We spent God knows how much time haggling and saying no to absurd prices and even despite our best work the trip wound up only being $9 cheaper than it would have been to have a 50 minute long AC cab ride from the airport to our hotel. At that point we too threw up our hands and decided no more bemos!

After a few days in Ubud, we decided to try out the other cheap option for travelers in Bali: the shuttle service. For anywhere between $5 and $20 per person, a private car will pick up as many people as it can cram in. Reservations are required, but last-minute additions are welcomed. Regardless of how many people are in the car, the per person cost remains the same. We were lucky enough to have our first one be for just us, but we have heard horror stories from other travelers.

While the shuttle service is ok, they only operate in major destinations. Other times, there is no choice but to pay a driver to go wherever we need to go. This is the most obnoxious of all, as they know you are lost without them and charge between $20 and $30 for a quick drive anywhere. We contemplated going back to bemos, but the odds of those working out in our favor were slim so we just sucked it up.

Next we come to the public and private taxis. In big towns like Kuta and Denpensar (the capital), iit is not hard to find a normal metered taxi. However, once you get out of these places the taxis are just more private drivers. As we learned, actual taxis are only allowed in a select few cities. Everywhere else, anyone with a car is welcome to line the streets and hawk out their vehicle for a ride. This results in the most commonly heard things on the streets of a town like Ubud being, “hello taxi? Yes, taxi? You want taxi? Taxi? No? Maybe tomorrow?” It gets quite overwhelming with more drivers than tourists and becomes something of a joke for all travelers.

Finally we come to the most economical way to get around that, unfortunately, we didn’t realize and take advantage of until the end of our trip: rental cars. For $9 per day we rented a Feroza, which is a Jeep-like bucket of bolts with a very wide turning radius, speed and gas gauges that don’t work and very little pickup. In order to rent it all we had to do was fill out a simple form with our name, address in the USA and passport number, but they didn’t verify any of it and I easily could have put down any info and still gotten the car.

As I can barely drive stick on the right side of the road, Carrie was our driver and did an amazing job navigating driving on the left side of the road and shifting gears with her left hand. We got lost a few times due to terrible signage in the country, but all in all the rental car was the best way to travel and we wish we had done it from the start…it would have alleviated much stress, hassle and wasted money.

Rating: Bali Low (except for the rental car)

As I mentioned earlier, one of our biggest frustrations in Bali was trying to get a fair price. A typical negotiation would usually go something like:

Us: Hi, we are interested in a room, meal, item in your store, etc. How much?
Them: What is your country?
Us: USA
Them: (eyes light up) Ahhh, very rich country. Your price is…[insert price at least double or triple what locals pay]

Sometimes we would try to avoid telling them our country but we never got a price until we said something. Other times they would just know from our accents. A few times we joked that we should go into a place separately and ask for the same thing. I would say I’m from the USA, Carrie would say from Czech Republic or some other country that they have no idea what to do with and see what happens. Maybe next time. All we know is thank goodness we’re not Japanese, as they pay nearly double what Americans do.

Verdict: Bali Way Low

I didn’t notice until I had to pay $50 at the Bali airport to get a visa, but the women at our Phuket hotel totally robbed me. I had 2 $20s, a $10 and a $1 in my wallet that they replaced with 4 $1 bills. I even looked into my wallet before leaving, but saw 4 bills so I didn’t bother to check that they were the right ones until standing at the visa counter in Bali. The worst part is the women totally pretended to be our friends and were so super nice. That’s how they get you…lull you into a sense of security then strike!

When we arrived at the Bali airport, we had to fill out a yellow card stating that we had not been in any swine flu infected areas lately and that we had none of the symptoms within the past two weeks. Then, we had to walk through a body temperature scanner that would show if anyone had a fever and they would be instantly quarantined. Scary!

Someone thought I was from Germany just because of my green floppy hat

Most soda comes in 250ml Red Bull sized cans

For some reason some prices require change that either does not exist or that the store does not carry. In place of the small change, clerks will often give the customer a piece of candy instead.

Everyone has a business card from the taxi drivers to the guys trying to book you on a tour to random people you meet in a restaurant who just want to be your friend…until the other shoe drops and they are trying to get money from you somehow.

One of the things Lovina is most famous for are sunrise dolphin spotting boat tours. Despite the fact that our hotel owner knew that we had booked a scuba tour for that day, at 6am he woke us up with a knock on the door asking, “you want dolphin tour?” To which I very irritatedly yelled back, “no, I want to sleep!”

Much like 7-Eleven was all over Thailand, Circle K was all over Bali.

Further proving our thoughts on the over-tourism of Bali, we heard a radio program in a taxi that said that the island had nearly twice as many hotel rooms as possible clients and far too many for an island of that size.

When we picked up rocks at the top of Mt Batur they would crackle and begin to turn from black to grey as they interacted with the fresh air for the first time.

A local was telling us about how for very big occasions they sacrifice a cow by taking it out on a boat and dropping it into the water to kill it. For lesser occasions, they kill a chicken, fry it up and eat it.

While taking photos of rice terraces, a vendor came up to me and told me to buy his postcard because it was better than the photo I was taking. Great sales pitch, ass!

One night in Ubud we were forced to listen to the never-ending repeating music of a local festival. Literally, it was the same 10 second tune over and over again for hours.

I love when they ask if I want transport when I’m already in a car or vehicular!

When taxi drivers ask, “hello, transport?” they make a driving motion with their hands that often looks like they are milking a cow.

My favorite vendor/taxi driver/massage vendor expression is when they, out of the blue, come up to you and say “yes?” Like, I’m sorry, did I miss something? Did we have an entire conversation about me using your services and you are just checking in to see if now is a good time? I thought not.

We saw a clothes dryer that was heated by fires atop the unit.

We saw a guy sitting on the street with a chicken in his lap relaxing and smoking a cigarette.

Local pride, or whatever you want to call it, seems to reign supreme in Bali, as we were constantly cut in lines by locals and our orders at restaurants and food stalls were pushed back so that the orders of a local who arrived after us could be filled first. Imagine that in our customer service oriented society in the USA?!

The lights in our hotel by Mt Batur were so bad that I often had to check and see if I was still wearing sunglasses.

We treated some tap water with the pills to kill any parasites inside, which worked well but left the water tasting like a swimming pool. Yuck!

After we spent the last of our Bali money at the airport and went through the gates, we were treated to an airport departure tax. Luckily, Carrie had a few US dollars left so we didn’t have to pay absurd ATM fees, but how can you not warn passengers of that before blindsiding them with the expensive fee. That just ain’t right.

There were bootleg movies on every street corner. I read in a newspaper that the US just placed Indonesia on the Priority Watch List for piracy this year after causing $132 million in losses in 2008. At present, there are more than 550 million pirated movies and CDs on the streets of Indonesia.

The phrase “hello massage” is so common that we even heard it in the airport. Listen to someone saying it here…

Much like the rest of Southeast Asia, there are no open container laws, so people walk down the street drinking beer all the time.

Scuba dive masters make $3.50 – $4.50 per dive as a salary and considering Southeast Asia is a non-tipping culture, they rarely make any more.

We saw a monkey laying on his back on the side of the road holding one finger up, as if begging for one banana. Crazy what a lifetime of tourism will do to an animal.

It was actually in Thailand, but we were given bananas during our snorkeling tour and the fish flocked around to eat them out of our hands. It felt really wierd when these toothless animals missed the food and nibbled on my hand.

While Indonesia was the country hit hardest by the 2004 tsunami with more than 200,000 deaths, Bali was completely spared. Local legend says that it is because the island has temples on all four corners and the Gods spared Bali.

Lovina is famous for its early morning dolphin spotting tours, but Carrie and I had no interest as we were there to scuba dive. However, someone forgot to tell our hotel and at 6am we heard a knock on the door and someone saying, “you want dolphin tour?” NO! We want to sleep!

The police in Ubud have black teeshirts that say Police in the local language and some weapons on their belt. other than that they look like any other local going to temple for the day wearing a sarong and festive head covering.

When shops don’t have the correct small change or the change due is in increments that do not exist in Balinese currency, they give little pieces of candy as change instead.

Despite the legal driving age being 16, we see kids far too young looking to be driving scooting around all the time. This was true in every country we’ve visited so far as well.

We learned that the actual Division Bell statue from the Pink Floyd album of the same name was located just a few km away in Ubud. Sadly, we learned this just before we left and could not go visit it. Lame!

Our last night in Bali was spent in Kuta, a super-touristy resort town. I just wanted a bowl of Bakso, which is chicken ball soup. After being told a price that was double what the price was everywhere else in Bali, failing to bargain the vendor down and talking to other locals who speak English about how crazy the Kuta markup is, I finally bought the soup at the higher price and took it to go. When I got back and started eating it, it may have been the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten. Literally, my lips were on fire and my stomach burned. Despite saying “only a little spicy,” I’m convinced it was their silent revenge for my trying to get the price I knew was correct. I mean literally, the soup was bright red! That couldn’t be by accident.

During our last stop in Ubud, I saw a sign with directions to the actual statues used for the cover of the Pink Floyd album The Division Bell. Of course that wasn’t in our guide book and by the time I saw the poster it was too late to head over there. Bummer!

On our drive from Tanah Lot to the airport, we ran out of gas in our rental car. I had to walk a while down the highway, dig through some trash to find a used water bottle and go to a gas station to have them fill it up with petrol. Thank goodness laws are different than in the US, where I could never just show up with a water bottle and expect it to be filled.

And finally, after telling a pair of British girls that the hotel they were looking at and we were already staying was a great place and the price was as good as they would find in Ubud, the manager who overheard my talking his place up came over, shook my hand and said thanks. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

“Can you help me? I seem to have gotten lost in southwest Thailand and am trying to find my way back onto the backpacking trail.” These are the types of thoughts that Carrie and I have had lately after our visit to the Andaman coast. It started in Krabi, where we headed to after Bangkok to check out some beaches, the stunning limestone crags that line the sea and to do some diving.

Upon arriving in Krabi, we quickly found that our ideas of finding a cheap local boat to take us around to the crags and beaches would not work. The system in place makes it very difficult to do anything yourself unless you know the right people or have a large group to split the costs. If you are traveling solo, or with one other person, there is little other choice than to go through a tourist agent to book a tour.

For two days we shopped around, comparing tour options and prices while trying to coordinate with our friend Sean that we met in Bangkok. In the end, we found a few we liked but first had to head to Kho Lak to see about scuba diving.

Though only two hours away, everyone we talked to said the only way to get there was an overpriced AC minivan. Even the locals we talked to said that it was the way to go, so we booked it and hopped onto the van that picked us up at our hotel…can’t complain about that. However, a mere five minutes later we pulled into a restaurant parking lot and were told to grab our bags and get off.

We soon learned that tour agencies sell tourists these rides without coordinating with the actual van company. Upon arriving at the restaurant everyone gets off the van and is given a little sticker with the name of their destination. The staff then has to figure out how many people are going where…and how to get them all onto the few vans that they have. For more popular destinations there is no problem, but some people had to go out of their way to drop off others first: no problem in a bus, but they paid for a direct shuttle!

Everyone was also told that they could be dropped off at their hotel if they had one, and if not the company had to book them a hotel or they would be left at the edge of town. This was just a ploy to get hotel commission, as in the end everyone was dropped off at the same place in Kho Lak and the driver refused to take people to their hotels. Thankfully, we knew better…but some in our van did not.

Carrie and I hate the tourist scene. Plain and simple. So, upon arriving in Patong, the tourist mecca of Phuket, we quickly logged onto Couchsurfing to find a local to give us the real scoop on the town, the party scene and the best boat tours. After exchanging a few emails and a phone call, we met up with Tut (actual name has been changed to not get him fired by accident): an expatriate living and working in Patong.

Everything seemed normal at first: introductions were exchanged and small talk followed. However, as soon as we brought up the subject of tours Tut reached into his fannie pack and pulled out a brochure. The pitch: eat a free breakfast on the beach, attended a 90 minute presentation at a luxury hotel, say no thanks, get a voucher for a free dinner or boat tour.

Intrigued, our next stop with Tut was a tour booking stall where he helped us sort through our options before making plans to meet up again later for a night on the town. By the time we met back up, Carrie and I had decided on our tours, neither of which were available as the free one from Tut, and chosen the gourmet dinner as our prize. However, a night on the town was no longer in the cards as our host was too tired. He gave us some info and told us to wait for a car to pick us up the next morning in front of a ritzy hotel. We had to lie and say it was ours, as opposed to the cheapo one we were really in.

After our experience at the Overstay, this encounter with Tut really frustrated us. Did he ever intend to show us around? Does he get commission off of the tours we booked? Everything also seemed to go against the principals of Couchsurfing: it’s not supposed to be used to make money! Still wanted the free dinner so the next morning we hopped in the car and headed to what we thought was a luxury hotel.

The full implications of what we agreed to quickly became clear when we got out of the car at a condo community and met Doug, an obese 50-something Englishman with a mole on his face and beady eyes who made inappropriate comments. We were promptly whisked off to a barely-air conditioned room nearly a mile from the beach for a gross breakfast and the beginnings of his sales pitch. The product? Timeshares!

Doug’s presentation started out with a series of questions about our income, jobs, relationship history, trip habits, hotel costs and more: all of which we had to lie about. Tut had prepped us for some of these questions in advance, as backpackers are not ideal time share customers. I did my best, responding with what I though were expensive prices for luxury vacation packages, hotels in England and week-long resort stays. All Doug could do was say, “what are you guys, backpackers?”

Never having attended a timeshare presentation before, Carrie and I were fascinated and kept asking questions and imagining the possibilities. A week vacation in a luxury hotel for only $150? None of the blackout dates and rules of a normal timeshare company? Half price airfare? Only a $200 annual fee? As frequent travelers, how could we resist!

Finally, after nearly two hours of conversation the other shoe dropped: a mere $16,500 initiation fee was required that very day. No time to think. Even waiting an hour would up the price to $24,500. We laughed to ourselves and said we had to think about it…much to the irritation of Doug’s boss. However, Doug was very nice and risked his job by giving us his cell phone number and telling us if we got back to him by the end of the day with a yes he could smooth it over with his boss, who owed him a big favor. What a nice guy!

After receiving the voucher for our free dinner, we jumped back into the car to return to Patong to meet the bus for our first boat tour. Of course, we were late…but more on that later. The epilogue to the timeshare saga came two nights later when we tried to redeem our dinner voucher and hit a snag: no one in Patong had ever heard of the restaurant. We walked around, asked tons of people, called Tut but only got voicemail and went even went to Tut’s office in hopes it would be open at 9pm. It wasn’t.

As we continued to search a downpour began and we finally resigned to eating a bland dinner on the street under umbrellas instead of the romantic one we had envisioned. Convinced that Tut and the time share company had screwed us over, we called him one more time and were met with tons of apologies and an instant response. It turned out the receptionist who gave us the voucher thought we were staying in a different town: hence the restaurant mix up. Tut quickly fixed the problem and told us to go have our dinner and meet up later for our nightlife tour.

Already full from earlier, we instead met up with Tut, used the entire value of the voucher on a small pizza and some drinks at an Italian restaurant and headed out to Bangla road to party. The rest of the night was spent dancing our feet off at five different clubs, all of which he knew the bouncers of and got us into for free. We were out until nearly 4am, but spent most of our time at Hollywood Disco making friends with everyone around us. So despite a rocky start we ashamedly admit that we were completely wrong about Tut and and wound up having one of our most fun and memorable nights of the trip so far.

Another fascinating aspect of Thailand is the large amount of older and larger white men with young and attractive Thai woman. While some of these are surely a John/prostitute situation, many of them are in actual relationships. Everywhere we looked we saw these girls canoodling and holding hands with men three times their age. While we would love to believe that these men come to Thailand and finally find true love, the truth is quite different.

Often, a foreigner buys a home and comes to Thailand a few times a year. During those visits, he lives there with his Thai girlfriend or wife who does whatever he wants. The rest of the time she has free reign on the place. Not a bad deal. Other times it’s literally a case of a tourist coming into town and going to all the common tourist spots. The local girls know how to sweet talk them and make them feel loved, and in exchange these men treat them like princesses.

Sometimes, the relationship goes even further and marriage is involved. We spoke to a few men who had Thai wives who had children with other men before they met. Almost always the story involved money having to be paid off to the child’s father or some sort of financial rescue. These men truly love their new family and think they have it all…and maybe they do, who are we to say, but we just can’t buy into it 100%. All I know is that in Bangkok I had to make a call from the visa office and saw a waiting room filled with bored looking Thai women sitting next to foreigners.

Disclaimer: This post is based just on observations and a few conversations we had with people. As Carrie says in her TravelPod, the few foreigners we spoke with who had Thai beaus also went on and on about how happy they were and how easy life was with their sweethearts. And in the end, all that really matters is that everyone is happy.

Arriving in the capital of Thailand during New Year’s, we figured that Couchsurfing would be the best way to get a local feel for the celebration. Carrie must have sent out more than a dozen requests, but the only one to say yes came from the owner of The Overstay, a bar, who had lots of extra space for couchsurfers to crash. If we wanted to sleep on the floor without any privacy, we could do so for free, but he also had a few rooms available for $3 per night. Charging anything really goes against the whole idea of couchsurfing, but it was still cheaper than doing it on our own and we thought we might meet some fun people.

Little did we know upon arriving that the nap we took by the baggage claim carousel in the airport would be the best sleep we would get until we left Bangkok. We showed up at the Overstay at around 10am the day before Songkran started but the guests had already begun the party and were soaking everyone and everything in sight. The owner was nowhere to be found, but another guest showed us the one remaining room: a little box no more than 8×8 feet small with no light, window or door lock. Oh, and it was about a thousand degrees.

With no other choice, we dropped off our bags and began asking the other guests what there was to do in the neighborhood and where the weekend market was. No one had any idea of anything except drinking at the Overstay or walking down the street to get some food. The general idea behind the place is that the owner offers cheap or free accommodation, a fun bar atmosphere and then charges bar prices for beer, that he brings in by the caseload every day. Guests don’t even need money; everyone gets a passport book upon arrival that they just stamp every time they take a brew.

The building itself is a six story fixer-upper in the most dire way one can use that term. A former whorehouse and home of at least two murders and one ghost, the Overstay would be condemned in the USA. The floors were beyond dirty and the dark hallway on our floor had a pane of broken glass pointing out so any drunken fool could just stumble into it. Our shared bathroom’s toilet did not flush and someone made a huge mess the first day that was still not cleaned up when we left four days later. Oh, and that was also where we had to shower.

Moving up, the next floor was a wide open room with a sink and bar area, none of which worked, and piles of CDs, art supplies, clothes and people sleeping out in the open. The bathroom had a better toilet, but the urinals drained right onto the floor and my feet. Gross! Moving up some more, the next two floors each had a few rooms, more people sleeping on the floor and more disgusting bathrooms. One of them actually had a usable shower, though the water came out in a trickle from a hose protruding from the wall.

All of the rooms in the place were teeny and hot. There were no beds: only foldable mattresses that offered no real difference from sleeping on the floor. Some rooms had mosquito nets: ours did not. Some of the higher up rooms offered a break from the pumping bass of the bar’s music that pumped until after 5am. Ours did not. One night we even tried moving rooms to one with a window. We literally got no sleep that night as our chests vibrated from the music that just never ended.

And the dirt. Dirt everywhere. Every day the bar was cleaned by a local woman who never made it past the fist floor. My feet were completely black when I didn’t wear shoes and it had to be the most unsanitary place I’ve ever stayed.

Perhaps the most amazing part about the Overstay was just how happy other people were there. We checked the owner’s Couchsurfing profile and guests just raved about how much fun they had. Sure, we met a few other disgruntled surfers, but for the most part people loved it. Every morning the floors, couches and entire bar area was filled with passed out people. Even the owner rarely made it to his own room. To each their own, I guess. You better believe we were very happy to get out of there!

Every tour guide, souvenir salesman or monument caretaker is quick to let us know that the civil war in Sri Lanka has caused a dramatic decrease in visits to every single tourist spot in the country. As such, when we arrive anywhere we are instantly bombarded by people anxious to show us around, give us a full tour or provide information about what we are looking at. While we love the knowledge, it is usually the same info our book provides and very rarely requested by us.

The worst are the old men and women who latch onto us and, in broken and heavily accented English, proceed to tell us the same things we heard at the last five sites. Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of them is to be stern and downright mean, which is very tough when they begin giving us the sob story about the lack of tourism and when we just want to pinch their cheeks they are so cute.

Of course we can’t be mean so we let them continue, knowing full well that when their shpeal is done the donation is expected. If we have it we give them a few rupees, if not we quickly walk away with our heads hung low. In the end though it’s not about the money: usually it’s only a few cents and helps them more than it helps us. The problem we have and what bugs me the most is that their service is completely unsolicited and we really can’t say no…and they know that.

The souvenir sellers are also ruthless. After the 75 year old is done talking and gets his tip, they come over with the same replica statues we have seen everywhere else. Amazingly, everyone tells us that their fathers made these and they are not available anywhere else. They are also happy to give us a very good price because tourism is so bad and they have to feed their families.

We don’t doubt that tourism is bad and that business is down, and we honestly do feel bad for all of them and want to help out every single one. But the fact of the matter is, we just can’t help an entire country ravished by the effects of a civil war, no matter how much we want to.

Even when we get away from archaeological sites and temples, the guilt trip continues. Hotel owners throw it at us when we try to haggle; three-wheeler (taxi) drivers use it to justify a price triple what the locals pay. It just never ends.

Our book warned us but nothing could have prepared us for the great disparity between the local price and the foreigner price. Carrie and I have traveled a lot in this world and have become used to, if not accepting, of attempts to rip us off. Sure, they are frustrating and sometimes leave me fuming, but the occasional double charge is a reality of life. However, in Sri Lanka it is more egregious than anywhere I have ever been.

While I understand that even living the shoestring lifestyle we have more money than many people we encounter ever will, I still maintain that we deserve the same treatment. The craziest example of this was when we arrived at an Internet café in Galle. We knew from the past few weeks that the price should be 50 rupees per hour, but since it had air conditioning we figured it might be a little more. Unfortunately, when I asked the price I had my camera around my neck and, after staring at it for a solid five seconds, the man said four rupees per minute: 240 rupees for an hour.

This caught both Carrie and I by surprise and after telling him that we knew that the price should be 50, we asked a local using a computer what he was paying. He replied 50. The café owner said yes, but our price was 240. At this point another local in the shop chimed in and said that 50 was the local price and we had to pay the tourist price. Flabbergasted I asked him how he thought this was fair, to which he replied, because that’s the way it is. I told him he was a racist and stormed out to the café next door that charged 50, but had no AC.

Another example was buying bottled water as we went. First off, mineral water is clearly a tourist product to begin with, as the locals are all acclimated to the tap. Still, prices are pretty fixed and the MSRP is even written right on the bottle. This means nothing, however, as shop keepers still took one look at us and made up whatever price they wanted. Sometimes they justified a nearly 50% increase over MSRP by saying it was a “cool charge” for keeping it in the fridge. Other times they just shrugged and repeated their obnoxious price. When desperate, we paid. Usually we walked out and looked elsewhere.

Don’t even get me started on how tuk tuk and taxi drivers try to rip you off.

Also don’t get me started on how we have to pay hundreds of rupees to enter temples, monuments and the botanical gardens while locals only have to pay 10 or 20.

Our hotel in Kandy required taking a bus from downtown and the price was always different. We paid 6, 8, 9 and 10 rupees on separate occasions for the exact same trip.

Despite the fact that I know it does no good and is always met with a blank stare, I still try to explain to the folks ripping us off how they can’t do that and how it’s not right. Maybe one day I’ll stop trying, because it usually just fires me up more and they will just do the same thing to the next person.