We Need a Price Check on Aisle 4!

Veteran expats and concerned locals inundated us with advice when we arrived in Bangkok five years ago. Don't eat food from street vendors; don't rent a place in a dead-end soi; don't be friendly with your maid; don't eat unwashed, unpeeled fruit and veg; don't convert prices into U.S. dollars or you'll think everything's so cheap that you'll buy way more than you need and not bargain at all, thereby prompting vendors to hike prices for all khon farang and, more importantly, kill the fun for khon farang who enjoy the art of haggling. (Tourists have already done the damage at Chatuchak Market; it's nigh impossible to bring a price down more than 15 percent because the salespeople know that even if I walk away, a callow khon farang cruise-ship traveler will pay the asking price 15 minutes later.)

All of the "don'ts" listed above make tremendous sense, which of course means that I do them all anyway, and live to tell about it.

Sure, I've spent several 24-hour periods retching my guts out (a chicken sandwich in Siem Reap; grilled chicken from a street vendor), and it sure is a bitch to get a taxi now that we live smack-dab at the actual end of a dead-end soi. During her five-year-plus tenure with our family, our maid has transcended the word to become a much-beloved family assistant/ladies' valet (she is wise Jeeves to my bumbling Wooster). One time a single sliver of apparently unwashed, unpeeled, unripe mango offered to me and Alec (then age 2.5 years), which we then shared, made both of us sick for an entire weekend.

But without taking some risks about what to eat, where to live, and to whom we open our hearts, our lives here might seem pallid and half-lived. (Remind me I wrote that the next time I spend an evening clutching the commode.)

Now that I think about it, however, I've stopped thinking in U.S. dollars most of the time. When it's an imported American item -- like "People" magazine, or Lucky Charms cereal, or a current New York Times-bestselling book -- I calculate from baht to dollars in my head, usually not because I'm going to buy the thing, but rather to digest how crazy the world is, like "Oh my God! Ten dollars for a box of cereal?!"

True story: Shopping at Villa Market the other day, I noticed in the liquid hand soap section that imported Softsoap costs...nearly $7. So I stocked up on about three bottles. Kidding!

At some point I shifted from going "Wow! Everything's so much cheaper than back home!" to taking Thai prices at their face value. That means not want to spend more baht than necessary, as a Thai would, even thought the exchange rate means that my dollar goes a lot farther here than it would in the States. For instance, taxis start their meters at B35 (about 84 cents) and the trip between say, my place and Alec's nursery, would usually cost about B45 (about $1.12). Even though that's a lot cheaper than the same ride would be back home (proabably about $12!), I do a lot of walking and BTS'ing in order to avoid spending "a lot" on taxis". (And to help the environment, per my last post.)

You could say I've become a tightwad. That darling blouse for B799 at the Emporium? Why go there? A stall at the Thursday market sells a nearly-identical knock-off for B199. (I've gotten more compliments for a pair of black flats I found for B199 at the Thursday market than my $80 Steve Madden kicks ever earned.) The latest "InStyle" with Heidi Klum on the cover, for which all bookstores demand B395? Wait a week, and go to Elite Used Books on Sukhumvit between Soi 33/1 and Soi 35 to buy it for B150! Don't buy Pringles for B105; try the locally made imitation for B65. It's almost a game, this trying to beat prices inflated for the naivete of khon farang and the vanity of hi-so Thai people who love to spend more money than necessary just to show they can.

My full conversion to thinking mainly in local currency became clear last week. The Emporium's old food court (as opposed to its newer, "trendy", more expensive food court) apparently decided to raise its prices as part of its bid to stay popular. After all, if the food is cheap, then the hi-so losers who love to spend more money than necessary won't grace the old food court with their presence, now will they? They'll only opt for the flash food court set off by velvet ropes to create an aura of exclusivity.

My family's favorite stall for gai yang (grilled chicken), som tam (papaya salad), and khao niow (sticky rice) had followed suit with the price-hike scheme. Time was, you could buy a set of the yumsters mentioned above for B65, or B90 for an "extra" set that included more chicken. Now, chicken alone is B65, the som tam is B40, and khao niow is B10. The kicker? Instead of the moist, plump chicken that made the Walter family big fans of the stall, they serve bird meat so scrawny that it consists mainly of skin, gristle, and bones. I say "bird meat" because I'm not entirely convinced that the meat is chicken.

"Phaeng mahk, kai dua lek lek! Chan mai chawp. Sahm deuan gawn, raakhaa hok-sip-hah baht, daw-nii neung-roy-sip-hah baht!" Very expensive, the chicken is very little. I don't like it. Three months ago,the price was B65, now it's B115, I was (politely, in a jai yen voice) telling the lady working at the booth.

She shrugged and looked at me like, why complain? as she scooped up the khao niow. She was right: Why was I wasting my breath? She had no power over the prices. But the earnest Yank in me felt the need respectfully to register my displeasure.

Later I bitched about the price hike to a more-recently-arrived American aqcuiantance. "You do realize," she pointed out, "that the price went from only about $1.50 to less than $3. For lunch. I mean, that's still really cheap!"

Ah, newbies. She's right, but she's new so she doesn't quite get it yet. It's the principle of the thing. I don't care if it's less than $3, and that back in the States, the same meal (even with the pitiful pseudo-chicken) would probably cost about $15. We're in Thailand, dammit, and when that meal costs about B60 on the street it shouldn't jump to nearly twice that just because some mall hopes to gentrify its food court by charging prices that suit clueless foreigners and hi-so ponces.

Comments

[Elemmaciltur]

Great post! Absolutely right on!

[kob]

Loved this post. Would you like to be added the dcblogs.com/live feed ... it automatically lets people know when you updated. Regards,

[Bronny]

Just loved this post- from a fellow Bangkokian. Many of my aussie friends wonder why I ply the streets of Bangkok looking for 'that ultimate bargain'. I can tell you, the pleasure is all in the thrill of the chase!! As you rightly point out, it really is just a game. Don't we all want to feel like the winner?

[Walter Guest]

The most important thing I learned is to not eat the eggs. I have never seen them refrigerated anywhere. I had some serious commode hugging until I quit eating them.
After over two years here I finally figured how to get takeout from any restaurant in town. Where I live is six subway stops from downtown so many places won't deliver. But those orange-vested bikers are glad to make the round trip. Voila!

[Jennifer]

Exactly! I'm taking a friend with me to Bangkok next year on a mid-spring jaunt and I dread having to tell her that just because the dollar goes a long way, it doesn't mean that you pay exactly what they ask, it makes it harder for the rest of us. She's just too compliant for her own good. I'll be forwarding this journal post to her, you said exactly what I needed/wanted to say. Appreciate it!