Police surcharge - Bangkok, Thailand

There is a little street in Bangkok, a few dozen meters from one of the most touristy roads of the country. In the past ten years I've heard its funny name - Rambuttri - mispronounced in several ways: Rainbow street, Rain on tree, and there was even a movie-version, Rambo 3. There is a place in that street that for the sake of anonymity - without keeping it too vague though - I'll just call SH. Back when it opened the SH used to be a guest house for low-budget tourists: two stories, a few rooms and a simple restaurant located near the main entrance. The owners are smart: they keep developing their place, which expands continuously over the years. A travel agency is added, the restaurant is open 24 hours and at night it becomes a bar with plenty of atmosphere, with soft lights and music that you can listen to in the coolest clubs of New York, Paris or Ibiza. The menu is divided into a Thai and an international section and the cocktail list is so long that an alcoholic could get bored just half-way through it. In the mid '00s they add a sort of a mezzanine floor, with pool tables and air-conditioning (the rest of the seats are outdoor). Later on the restaurant expands its boundaries and takes over the lower floor of a building two blocks away, next to a bank. A few more months and the gap is filled: the house that causes the solution of continuity is torn down and its place is taken by a large room decorated with Siamese and Balinese sculptures. As a last touch tables pop up along both sides of the alley, around a stall where a foreign guy prepares and serves shishas, water-pipes filled with flavored tobacco.
The bar is nice and has a lot of character, its location, layout and the way its parts are integrated act like a magnet on the many tourists and young locals who stroll along the narrow street, which over the years has become a very popular alternative to the famous road that gives the name to the whole area. Most of the tables (and nowadays there is really a lot of them) are often occupied, day and night, by people who come to have breakfast, lunch, to read a book and sip a coffee away from the afternoon heat, to have dinner, to enjoy a couple of drinks before moving on to a more lively club or to have one for the road after they got out of it.
I personally came to this place for years, at any time. Its tables, chairs, aisles, menus, pool tables, outdoor kitchen, TV screens, music - even when its genre or volume annoyed me - its different rooms and bathrooms bring back to mind a long sequence of moments and people that marked the last quarter of my life, the one that I almost entirely spent in the Far East. A sequence that was suddenly interrupted at the beginning of this year. Actually, with the benefit of insight, I might be able to move that moment back to the second half of last year.
The first time I thought it was a mistake and I accepted the waiter's apologies, reckoning they were sincere. Apologies that I received after having pointed out an error in the bill total, which was 10 or 20% higher than it should have been. The second time I was with J, a Spanish friend of mine. Same story and first doubts on the innocence of those who made the mistake. The third time I was with the same guy and a Thai female friend of his. This fact proved that not even the presence of a local could act as a shield. This was obviously all part of a planned strategy, intentional mistakes, despicable frauds aimed at their own customers. Customers who choose to come here instead of heading to any other restaurant of this busy area, that a honest and far-sighted owner would be kind and grateful to, sometimes even granting a discount or offering something as a token of appreciation. Nothing of the sort, Mr SH has a different opinion altogether: he prefers to cheat his clients instead of keeping them good customers, cowardly taking advantage of the fact that many of them have just arrived to Thailand, are disoriented, still have to get used to the local cost of living, are tipsy and most likely won't come back to his place.
I decided not to go there again and - as far as possible - to give them a bad name. The course of events, though, didn't allow me to stick to my resolution. 
An sms makes the threadbare denim of my trouser pocket gently vibrate, the same pocket that I normally use to give vent to my restlessness, with cyclical and circular movements of my index finger and thumb.
"We're at the SH...come and join us!"
I have already been at the SH with R, but apparently I still haven't had the chance to tell him what I recently found out.
"Ah, those crooks. I'm on my way..."
I didn't add any explanation in my message. 
I decided to break my vow for various reasons. First of all I wouldn't miss a chance to meet up with R. Secondly, if I know him well enough, I have the vague feeling that the experience is going to be exciting, if not exactly fun. Besides that, the presence of P, his Thai girlfriend, provides us with a special weapon to be used against this clique of scammers, not really because of language reasons - R's Thai is virtually perfect - but because by wrenching us from the unaware, naive and obliging crowd of tipsy tourists it will put us onto Siamese social and moral territory, legitimizing not only our right to protest but the one to accuse them as well. An opportunity that I definitely cannot miss. 
When I get there R has already ordered a small bottle of local rum, a few bottles of soda water and coke, a bucket of ice and a portion of french fries. Between a sip of sweet thick liquid and a potato we add yet another item to a ten-year-long sequence of pleasant hours spent together. Then, when the rum is finished, we ask the bill. In the meanwhile I've updated P and R on my recent findings. In order not to be taken by surprise, with the aid of a menu we've calculated  beforehand how much we owe them. R is a hound ready to pounce on anyone carrying a wacky check. A young waiter lays a notepad page down on our table. The item list reminds me of a housewife note scribbled on a sheet of cheese-wrapping paper. And it is completely written in Thai (a detail that grants them a considerable advantage over the vast majority of the foreign customers, excluding us, of course). The amount is approximately 20% higher than it should be. We let him know that there is a mistake. The guy calls the waitress who has been taking care of us and the two of them start to stage a farce that they probably rehearsed a few times in the kitchen, asking us how many mixers we had, how much ice, what food. As if it wasn't them the ones who served us. Once they've settled this pathetic matter of the clarifications they withdraw to plot and they come back with a total amount which is lower than the previous one but still 10% too high. How can they fail to notice our skepticism? To suspect that we know something? It looks as if they are looking for troubles, for just a few baht, what's the point?
R grabs the notepad and writes down again the list of the things we ordered, asking what the price of each item is. When it comes to the french fries they shoot a wrong figure, R asks for a menu and finds the right one. They really are making fools of themselves now. Judging by the stubbornness they are displaying one would say that they are the ones who'd make a profit out of this, not their employer. Finally R writes down the total and starts to give them an ear bashing they would hardly have expected. 
"I don't want to imply that you are stupid or dishonest here, god forbid. But I'm wondering why you do this? Is your employer forcing you?"
I expect them to deny everything but the waiter, who might be panic stricken, decides to surprise us. 
"We do it because..."
"Ah, you do it! You admit then!"
R's bait worked, unbelievable. And more is coming, because this guy, trying to improve his situation, gets himself swallowed even deeper into the quicksand of clumsy frauds, exposed swindles and lies that backfire on those who tell them.
"Well, we're open 24 hours..."
"So what?"
"Actually it's not legal, so we have to bribe the police. It's quite expensive..."
"Ah really? So you..."
"We slightly increase our customers' checks"
Excellent. He said what we already knew but would have never imagined he had the ingenuousness, the honesty or the half-crazy-half-foolish courage to tell. Reckoning that we could have accepted it as an explanation, shown some understanding and stopped making him and his boss feel guilty.
Poor victims, stifled by racket. Everyday these guys make a profit that not even four of the other restaurants of the area put together can dream of. And instead of using their money for the bribe they decided to have their holy customers pay for it. Not by fairly increasing the prices in their menus but by manipulating the bills on the sly.
They outright confessed. One could even sue them. Problem is that the police we'd have to talk to are the same who protect them. 
Anyway, I still publish the story here. And if someone is interested I'll also send it to some websites with a wider audience than this humble little blog.
If you happen to be in Bangkok and you come across a place that matches my description don't go there, just walk past it and if you feel indignant insult them (not in English though, and smile while you do it, otherwise you might end up posing as a punching bag). If you really have to eat or drink there remember to carefully check your bill before you pay, protest and when the matter is settled (don't) say goodbye and while you're leaving insult them again (don't forget: keep smiling and don't speak English! A local dialect would be perfect, in case you know any).

Photo by pasukaru76 (CC)