Well, let me tell you a story. I was out drinking one afternoon, and a very pleasant man began chatting with me. He was an engineer, his English was solid, and he clearly wanted to engage with a foreigner, so we had a very nice chat. He might have spotted me my next beer. Bonzer bloke, so it seemed. I probably mentioned the well-known hotel where I was staying.

So the next morning I was walking down toward the Grand Canal to go on a boat tour, and at the first intersection we pass each other, and he calls out a cheerful hello. Yes, in a city of 15 million I should have immediately been suspicious of such a coincidence….but I was lonely and homesick and so I credited it to the Fates and Fortunes.

So he began walking with me, I told him of my plans, and he (seemingly earnestly) said “oh sir, those boats are rip-offs, I have to take some flowers to my mother’s grave, why don’t you come with me, and then we’ll go on a boat tour that tourists never see?”

That sounded great, and I readily agreed. Let me say here, I am very well traveled, and no fool, so he was good at his game. He hailed a water taxi, and we went to a temple on the Grand Canal, where he really did put flowers somewhere, then he told the taxi driver something something, and we went off on a tour of the backwater canals, really cool, no way the big tour boats could have navigated these little streams. I was having a blast.

We pulled over to a shotgun shack on stilts, climbed up, ordered two beers (for which he paid), and sent a boy in a cardboard box across the canal to climb up a coconut tree, machete in his teeth, cut two coconuts off, paddle back, machete the tops off, insert two bamboo straws, and present them to us, next to our beers. I was having a blast. Nobody does Bangkok like A.C. Fucking Doyle, right???

So when it’s time to go, and he hails a water taxi, the driver looks remarkably like the guy who collected us at the original quay on the Grand Canal. Something in my central nervous system goes WTF, why that’s a coinkidink.

The friendliness evaporates. Little engineer man and chauffeur are all of a sudden rather severe. I know exactly what’s about to transpire. Luckily, it ain’t my first rodeo, and most of my cash is in a hidden pouch against my crotch. So we veer out into the filthy Grand Canal, several miles from downtown, and they cut the motor. My heart sinks. Not because of the imminent robbery, but because of how unnecessary it all was.

I am bigger and stronger and probably a better fighter than either. But some quick mental calculation tells me: 1) they know what hotel I’m in; 2) they will tell a better story to the local police; 3) I’m not certain I know how to operate these “dragon boats” and get back to a safe quay. So overpowering them and throwing them both overboard might not be a strategically sound decision. Tempting, but unwise.

So I capitulate. You want all my money, fine. Here’s $18 in Japanese yen, $12 in Taiwanese dollars, and $8 in Thai baht. I neglected to mention the $200 in greenbacks up against my scrotum. The little engineer is pissed. He’s a walking ForEx calculator, and knows exactly what each currency is worth.

He assumed I’d have more cash, and he probably laid out, that day and the afternoon before, a good $8 in beers, so this was a $30 robbery. That’s a lot of work and faux camaraderie for $30. I am very nervous that they will toss me into the filthy canal and make me swim for it.

But no, they just point inward to an industrial wasteland, about 3 or 4 miles from downtown, buzz in, tell me to get out, and I have to walk back downtown, past tire-fire dumps and that sort of squalor.

And here’s what I yelled at them as they were backing out from the tire-fire: “Dude, the Tourist Tours on The Big Dumb Boats are $42. You took $38 from me. Had you told me, “hey Gringo, give me $50 and I’ll show you a side of Bangkok no tourist ever sees, I’d have happily given you $50, plus a $10 tip, plus bought all the beers, and a fancy lunch and dinner. You Stupid Motherfucking Motherfucker!!! Your inept robbery cost you EASILY thirty dollars, you fucking fuck-hole!”

Then I started skipping through the tire fire in a happy Gringo skip.