As Luck Would Have It....

Wat at Night Bike Tour of Bangkok

Hello and welcome back to the shores of the Huang Pu river on the Dark Side of the Earth.   Today we are going explore the pervasive and significant concept of Luck.  Luck is a big deal in Asia.  Much energy is focused on securing and attracting the Auspicious, including lucky signs, numbers, habits, birth dates and the famous "Get Lucky Me" t-shirts.  You even pay more for "lucky" cell phone numbers, for example.


To fully document an adventure in Luck that EP and I experienced recently, we are going to visit the legendary Thai city of Bangkok!   As part of our "Where Are We Now?" anthology of Asian travel, EP and I spent a week in Bangkok during the winter holiday exploring temples and searching for....amulets.


Amulets?  EP and I did extensive research before we went to Bangkok.  We bought a Lonely Planet guide and threw it in the suitcase.  Then we read John Burdett's Royal Thai detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep series (highly recommended) and realized we'd better go back and read the guide.  After that, we trolled many of the travel websites.  

Armed with hard facts and good directional sense, we hit Khao San road and had Padd Tai and Singha Beer while watching backpackers look for, well, weed.   Yes, we hit Soi Cowboy, in honor of Jitpleecheep, home of his mom's....um....house of happiness.   I almost got a tattoo there, but that is another story.

Soi Cowboy

Khao San Road

Amulet Market

Now, alerted to the reality of Bangkok,  we realized that if we were going to survive Krung Thep, the "City of Angels," we would need some protection.  Of the spiritual kind, that is.   And, as it turns out, you can find it there in the form of amulets.  Amulets have varying degrees of power and purpose, sort of like batteries.  There are amulets for protection, good luck, to attract wealth, for ummm...potency, for health, and a thousand other uses.

River Taxi

Adjacent to Wat Mahathat, between Maharat Road and the river, is Bangkok's biggest amulet market so we hopped on a river taxi and headed there.  We were ready.  We understood bargaining. We understood fakes, and we understood....scams.  Yes, Bangkok is a beehive of tricks and if you Google "Bangkok Scams"  you will be startled at the diversity, number and cleverness.   We had already avoided many of them, including the famous "The Temple is Closed but Here is A Better Place to Go" scam.    EP and I had the advantage of dealing with dozens of scams in Beijing.  The tea house, the silk store, the jade store, the pottery store, the gem store, the fresh water pearls and the Chinese medicine scam.  In Shanghai there is the "Shoe Shine" scam, the "Street Food" scam, the "Tea Ceremony" scam, the "Lost Visitor" scam and of course, our favorite the "You Are Not Chinese  and Therefore Are Targets" scam. 


So we were focused.  We were frosty.  We were well hydrated and ready to rock.  We had dodged the scams and were at the amulet market.  And sure enough, after purchasing a few, we hit an incredible string of luck.  The power of the amulets were at work.  We were scoring a few amulets from a vendor when a Tourist Policeman warned us about our backpacks because of pickpockets.  He then mentioned that we should be sure to see the Royal Gardens because they are only open a few days a year.  He waved us into a tuktuk, sternly told the driver to not rip us off and we chugged over to the Temple where we were personally escorted by a very kind guard who showed us around.  Our luck was on a roll.  The guard showed us around the lovely temple and educated us on Thai architecture, religious habits, because as it turns out, he had been a monk in his earlier days.  And, he was wearing a shirt full of amulets, mostly for luck. The temple was serene, the architecture was beautiful and clearly off the dreaded tourist path. 

The Kindly Guard

We even met the supervisor, who commented on how lucky we were and mentioned that it was special day to go see the King's Palace because it was only open a few days a year.  And, it would close in an hour or so.  Annnnnd,  lucky for us they were offering special prices on many beautiful things that only lucky people like us would receive because we were now moving in the same circles as in the know locals.   We thanked them, ducked into a waiting taxi and headed out to continue our roll, waving a friendly goodbye the the Monk and his boss.

Mr. Chen, the friendly Supervisor

The Serene Temple

The driver taxi driver cheerfully rushed us over to the King's Palace and dropped us off at the front door with our profuse thanks.  We turned, entered the building and walked into....The Famous Gem Scam!    Lucky day!  We were soooo worried we would miss the most basic and well known of the scams and our luck had led us right into one!
And, it felt very.....Chinese.   We knew the drill!  A well spoken host collared us before we could bolt out the door.   The "Royal Jewelry Store", open 365 days a year, 12 hours a day, was a one-way arrangement where we could only get out by working our way through the thousands of cases of, well, things we did not want. 


However, now humbled, chagrined, and somewhat amused we were very comfortable asking all of our new friends to cram their discount trinkets where the Buddha never goes, as we wandered out.

Guardians of the Wat

The amulets have been a big hit with friends and EP and I wear them almost every day.  As the saying goes, "Luck never made a man wise".