Making the Most of Tuk-Tuk "Scams"

The weekend is "coupon day" for most of the Tuk Tuk drivers in Bangkok. This means that if they can convince tourists to make a stop on their journey to a jewelery shop, a tailor or a souvenier shop and have them look around for 15mins (or even better buy something), the shop will buy the Tuk Tuk driver his petrol. The upside of this is that the driver will usually drop his prices very low just to get you to take a journey (since the petrol is worth quite a bit to him). We had a lot of time on our hands in Bangkok, so we played along with these schemes for the day getting driven everywhere for no more than 50c a pop ... and all we had to do is look around a few jewelery shops on the way. We never bought anything of course ... Good deal we thought :-)