Puwa

I stay on dirt most of the time but I am lucky to have lots of great trails just out my backdoor.  I try to stay off of narrow roads with no shoulder but I have never had a problem with passing vehicles.

Here we go again with double pricing.  This time at the market.

Several times a week for the past couple of months I've been dining at the local market.  The menu there is printed in both Thai and English.  And I've always enjoyed a number of tasty dishes that the friendly cook had prepared.  That's why I continued to return: good food, delightful cook, oh, and of course, the cost was always only 25 or 30 baht for most things, an occasional 40 baht for something nicer.

Well, yesterday after I ordered I got to browsing the menu and I noticed that one of the menus was in Thai only.  Looking closer I saw that the dish I had ordered--chicken and cashews with rice--was only 30 baht.  I had been paying 40, and was expecting to pay the same last evening.  I picked up another menu, the one with English and Thai, and saw that, yes, the same dish was 33% higher.

I immediately asked the cook what the difference was (other than 10 baht), and she said that the higher price menu was for tourists.  Grrrr.  I told her that I wanted to pay the Thai price, but she continued to say that I was a tourist.  After a bit more conversation she relented and said that I could pay the lower price, but this time only.  

Unfortunately for her and me that was the last time I will eat there.  She had always been friendly and attentive, but she'd been fleecing me all along.  It's not the 10 baht or the 5 baht difference on a plate of fried rice.  I just don't like the deliberate deceptiveness.  Buyer beware.