A Scary Story from a Trip to Thailand 👻 I Was Scammed After Being Invited onto a Boat by a Woman Who Spoke Fluent Japanese
I remembered the old days while looking at the river after crossing from Wat Arun.
This is a story from a long, long time ago.
"Won't you join us on a boat?" A story about a tourist scam that actually happened in Thailand
It was when I first started coming to Thailand, I think it was around 2008.
I was approached by a Thai woman who spoke fluent Japanese, and after getting on a boat, I was charged 7,000 yen for 15 minutes.
Looking back now, it was clearly a scam targeting tourists.
This is a failure story from back when I wasn't used to traveling abroad yet.
A Thai woman who was very good at Japanese
When I was walking around town with a friend, we were approached by two Thai women who spoke very good Japanese.
"Are you Japanese? We can speak Japanese."
They spoke very natural Japanese and said they had friends in Japan.
As we talked for a while, we started to warm up to them,
and the women said this:
"We're here sightseeing from the south of Thailand. We're planning to charter a boat, why don't you share it with us?"
Thinking it sounded fun, we ended up following them.
Looking back now, I should have been on guard at this point.
Once you're on a boat, you can't escape
We arrived at the boat landing and went straight onto a boat.
Once we were on the boat, the women acted as if they were used to it,
calling over boats selling goods on the water and buying us beer and food.
I thought, "What kind people."
I felt completely at ease.
However, when I asked to take a picture together halfway through, for some reason they refused.
At that moment, I felt a slight sense of unease, but
I just thought, "Oh well," and continued to enjoy the boat trip.
We were on the boat for about 15 minutes.
A sudden demand
When the boat reached the shore, the women said,
"Get off here."
And the moment we stepped off,
"That'll be 7,000 yen per person."
......What?!😱😱😱
At the time, the yen was strong.
7,000 yen per person in Thailand was quite a large sum.
But at that moment, the two of us only had about 7,000 yen in total.
In the end, we handed over all the money we had and were released.
An even scarier event at the end
A man was standing on the shore.
He was a man with a very ominous vibe, and he said,
"Pay the usage fee for this shore!!"
She approached us while shouting.
I didn't pay because I dashed away, but it was a close call💦
Fortunately, nothing else happened, and we were able to leave the scene.
What I learned from this experience
Those women were very fluent in Japanese,
and they said they had friends in Japan.
Ever since this experience, whenever I meet someone abroad who speaks very good Japanese,
I find myself on guard, thinking, "Could this be a scam?"
Of course, I know there are many good people out there, too.
But what I thought after this experience is
that when you're abroad, you should pause before accepting overly kind invitations.
I really think this is important.
In fact, I have been to Thailand many times since then.
I haven't had any trouble since, but I'm sure there are still scams targeting tourists that have just changed their form.
I wrote this so that people going to Thailand in the future
won't have a similar experience. Sorry for digressing from my travel stories💦
Next time, I'll go back to Yaowarat and head to a massage parlor!🛺🛺
I hope this will be helpful for those planning to visit Thailand soon🌴
Thank you for reading this far✨️ Please follow me if you'd like🙇
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