2004jun18. Koh Samui is a twelve-hour train ride plus a two-hour boat ride from Bangkok. I stayed there for three nights, and somewhere in the middle of my stay I realized I was running out of Baht. I gave one of the official bank-related money changers $60 USD, expecting about 2400 THB, as the exchange rate for the day was something just over 40:1. I got back more than 4200 THB. Although I’d never been that far off in my exchange calculations before, I figured I’d just go back to my bungalow and figure things out there – it was late at night, I was tired, that was a lot more money, etc. Sure enough, the receipt indicated that in addition to not asking me for my passport (a money exchange SOP), she gave me the GBP conversion rate instead of USD. It was late at night, I was tired, she was tired. The next day I was circumnavigating the island by grabbing songthaew after songthaew, stopping at various beaches, and the money exchange place was out of the way. I ended up back there around 24hrs later. I stopped just short of the window, off to the side about twenty feet, checking the current day’s rates v. yesterday’s, so I wouldn’t get screwed there. Someone walking nearby noticed me, said something to a group of people at a table and they all turned and stared and one woman got up and went down an alley by the building to sound the Criminal Mastermind Within 100 Foot Radius silent alarm. The clerk comes out, and there’s her manager. He smiles, I smile. We are all smiles. He’s holding the white copy, I have the pink copy. “Okay, let’s do this thing.” That was me, as if I needed to say that, or this. He writes down the GBP conversion from yesterday, the USD conversion it should have been, subtracts it, and there’s how much I’m to pay him. No big deal. But while I’m peeling off the bills, he starts asking questions, and maybe this is a cultural thing “Where were you yesterday?” Etc, questions that indicated to me he was wondering why I hadn’t returned immediately with the money, as if I used the extra ~$30 US for seed money to start a casino or something. Also questions about where I was staying, how long, etc, just to cover his ass in case I was pulling the wool over their eyes again. While we were chatting, I also phoned the guy up from the Hong Kong Tourist Board, handed the phone to him and they had a lot to talk about.
TUNE IN TOMORROW WHEN YOU'LL READ ABOUT MY EXCITING AND SEXY PHONECARD ENCOUNTER IN BANGKOK WHILE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A MEETING!