It’s not who you are, it’s who you know?

Posted by Art man on November 6th, 2007 filed in Expat life, Living here, Nightlife, The North

“It’s not who you are it’s who you know, and its not who they are but who they knew when they wanted to be someone. And once they knew them they became who they are, and they don’t want to introduce you to who they know that made them who they are because that would mean that you are someone too, and that puts them at risk of not being anyone, just someone who once knew someone.

 

You want to meet the one who the someone knows even more than you want to know them (the someone) because they might be able to make you someone other than no one even quicker than the initial someone, who would see such a thing as pulling rank in the worst way. But it’s that kind of world we live in, that’s what it takes to make it in this cutthroat business. Go big or go home they say. This is what we have to deal with, we tuk-tuk drivers.”

 

Or at least this is how you may imagine it works when you wonder how waiting tuk-tuk positions in front of the restaurants saddling the banks of the Ping River in Chiang Mai are jockeyed for. After all, this is the sweetest transport fare cherry in town. Gaggles of liquored and pished farangs stumble out of any of the main eateries on a Friday night and suddenly your exorbitant triple-priced fare is but a shrug and a few red bills away from reality.

 

They say not to give money to the beggars in India, they say not to let the East European gypsies annoy you into giving them what they want, they warn you about giving something to one and the many that will follow because you set the precedent that all tourists are suckers and corrupt the gaff quicker than the isolated grottos printed in the pages of a Lonely Planet; not so isolated anymore.

 

The jury hung themselves long ago on the riverside, where if you are not a tourist that hears ‘200 baht’ and immediately compares it to what a bargain the ride is compared to a London black taxi, your jaw may drop as the same tuk-tuk driver that drove you from Warorot market to Wat Prasing for 40 baht suddenly looks glassily at you when you protest his sudden fee of 200.  You can bitch and wail, but chances are he won’t go for any haggling here, because in five minutes, two blond girls with flowers in their hair, each with a hulking arm from an American college refugee slung limply over them will two-step their way out and perform the above calculation- albeit a New York yellow cab will replace the London blackie on their fuzzy inner screens. They, unaware of the massive gouge they’ve just been subjected to, perpetuate the vicious cycle of evil.

 

And if you, local expat, you who knows better, get to the point where you believe physical violence may be your next option, take hope in the fact that walking up to the bridge and catching a tuk-tuk en route that is not part of the mafia-like gangs of drivers clutching at the upward mobility of the illustrious and elite band of chauffeurs that is given clearance to fleece the entire tourist population of Chiang Mai will probably gladly take 50. 

 

Leave the suckers back there, the rubes with the crap luck to be dragged to the Riverside and be subjected to John Denver covers sung phonetically with a revved up beat reminiscent of the theme song from Miami Vice. Good Riddance. And nuts to them anyway.