2004may17. I’m trying to think of a polite way to put this ... but I’m sick to death of bargaining for things. I’m back in Bangkok, but at Koh Samui everytime you wanted to take a trip by songthaew (two benches plus a raised roof in a truck bed), you bargain with the driver for a rate. Maybe. And in Bangkok, everytime you buy something that isn’t at the 7-11 or Family Mart, you bargain with the seller. Maybe. That is to say, sometimes the price is fixed, and sometimes it ain’t, and it’s up to you to figure out which is which. The songthaew experience was bargaining overdrive – sometimes you couldn’t bargain, sometimes the route was 2x than it was yesterday at the same time, sometimes the same driver would give you two vastly different rates only minutes apart, sometimes the driver would make a lemon face when you’d try to bargain, sometimes you’d tear your hair out and it was all over two dollars at most, but you multiply it out by how much songthaew travelling I did in Koh Samui and perhaps it was worth it. I didn’t rent a motorcycle like 99% of the other visitors because I like doing things the hard and stupid way, as evidenced by my Michael Palin dress shirt/pants get-up. See, I had read in the guide books that Thais found the Western style of dress – or non-dress (shorts/short-sleeved shirts) not to their liking, yet nearly every single tourist I’ve seen in Bangkok is doing the USA shorts/t-shirt thing, if they haven’t been infected by Thailand fever and are wearing “authentic” clothing that no one else is wearing except all of them. And corn rows. And tribal tattoos. Just trying to express my individuality. Also (getting back to the motorcycle thing) the highest number of accidents occur at Koh Samui because pretty much anyone can ride a motorcycle. Saw three eight-year-olds on a motorcycle one day. That’s a 24-year-old in terms of cycling experience right there.
Tomorrow, Japan. My understanding is that it is a different country.