Silliest things you did to save the smallest amount of baht?

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<hr>I remember haggling about 10 Baht when discussing with a streetprostitute about her fee. The compromise of paying 5 Baht less made us both feel good. <hr></blockquote>

Do you actually feel proud about this??? First you admit going to a streetprostitute (I can only imagine how healthy she was) then haggling with the poor girl over 10 baht...! you're pathetic!!!

I don't know being a newbie traveler doesn't mean you have to be that "stingy" - I mean what is two baht? Even when you don't have money, 2 baht is hardly anything. I am aware that backpackers at the beginning might not know better, but you have lost face in Thailand when haggling over 2 baht! It is alright to bargain when at a market, or give less tip or be more aware of the money after being in Thailand for longer but c'mon waiting for hours on a bus station just to save 4.50 Baht is a little too much - doesn't your time cost anything? (and by the way the normal bus fair is now 3 Baht, not 2.50 Baht anymore).

One day i arrived at ChiangMai 'international' airport, no friend to pick me up, no tuktuk allowed, the only way to go to the city was a 100 baht taxi, I thought i'd better go out walking and i'll find a tuk tuk outside, indeed there were a few, but the 50 baht they asked seemed still too much, so I decided to walk. The city might be only a couple of kilometers away but the road to get there is like a highway, not very friendly. after a few hundred meters, i was really tired, the air was loaded with humidity, my bags were heavy, i hadn't sleep in the plane from europe, and it started raining, actually it turned rapidly like Noe's deluge and no place to hide. When i finally spotted a tuktuk i was soaked to the bones, he asked 60 baht for the ride (I had walked already halfway to the city). I was in no position to bargain and he knew it, actually he was one of those tuktuk i had refused some time earlier. I still tried for 50 baht but his big grin told me I had played and lost.

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<hr>so if you have any more "tips" throw them out! <hr></blockquote>

Girllrig (Ha, I only just figured your tag out) going on your post history, you're probably not interested in tips about bartering down barfines as supplied by #2, but here's a few more...

Going to airport from Sukhumvit by red buses - first the Number 38 up towards Morchit then switch to 29 for the airport - total fare less than 10B (you may want to check those routes/wait for bmta to correct me as it has been a few years since I was stupid enough to do it - it takes forever!)

When eating at street stalls, drink all the water you can hold down as it is free.

When using an internet cafe to check useless facts like these, make sure it is a cafe where internet is free if you buy something to eat or drink - buy a five baht bottle of water then use the net all day.

If, by following the above, you eventually save enough to come to Phnom Penh, once here, steal the Bangkok Post out of FCC and sell it to the kids on the street for 2,000 Riel.

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<hr>Damn, you are a cheap bastard.<hr></blockquote>
Was!!! and for all my cheap behaviour I do apologise - except FCC - $1.80 for a Beer Lao! outrageous

> I mean what is two baht? Even when you don't have money, 2 baht is hardly anything

You're right, these days I don't advocate haggling over amounts under 5 baht. Chalk it up to inflation and the exchange rate. :-)

But since you asked what 2 baht is, it's 50% of the fare for a 3 hour sightseeing trip all across bangkok by ordinary public bus. During rush-hour of course, it lasts longer that way. :)

#15 .. if you do it once it might be alright, still, who wants too sit in a bus in the rush hour without air-condition for 3 hours - that is suicide. And as far as I understood this, the person who wanted to save these 2 Baht was doing it more than once ...

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<hr>steal the Bangkok Post out of FCC and sell it to the kids on the street for 2,000 Riel.<hr></blockquote>
Your bargaining skills suck! :) Three years ago I picked up a copy of the BKK Post that some other traveller had finished with at my hotel in PP. Managed to sell it to one of those kids for Riel 3,000, told him it was a special edition and that he could charge some barang extra for it. I'm sure I'll burn in hell for that one but the extra Riel covered a much needed cup of coffee after drinking the night before.

I find it rather disturbing that people sell the Bangkok Post to kids on the Street in Cambodia - what is more disturbing is that they tell their story to everyone, rather than being ashamed of themselves.

Well I would have sold them the Nation (a slightly better paper in my opinion), but someone had already grabbed it - by USD no doubt.

What is disturbing about it? The kids sell the papers out the front of FCC and anywhere else barangs hang out - they'll easily get a $1.50 or more off a tourist that doesn't know the correct prices, so they've cleared a $1 for a paper worth 50c... (and I use the term worth loosely)

I guess I could just give it to them, but the whole country is on the dole already and ill-thought hand-outs do enough damage here without me throwing the BP around.

PS just to keep my eating/drinking rights at FCC, I don't steal your papers - honest ;-) And I actually rent the papers off the kids...really.

why can't you just leave the paper where it is after you've read it? Why do you need to sell it to the kids? I mean what is $1, it is a fortune to them but for you it is nothing! Let them sell the paper to tourists for $1.50, what is the big deal - they try to make as much money as possible.

Just asking myself how people even come to the idea of selling a bloddy newspaper when they are traveling?!