first 24 hours in Bangkok

[naive]

I just returned to Singapore from my first trip to Thailand.  On our first day in Bangkok we headed straight to the Grand Palace, where we were met by a tuk-tuk driver telling us the Palace was closed till 2:30 pm due to a special Buddhist ceremony.  He offered a ride around to see some sights for an amazingly cheap price.  Not believing this, I asked some other tourists about the situation, they had also heard that the Palace was closed, but wanted to have nothing to do with the tuk-tuk drivers.  The drivers then happily sent them on their way with wrong directions I later learned.

We decided to go for a tuk-tuk ride, why not?, see some Buddhas and whatever else.  At each sight we were met by tourists (fake ones I later learned) who claimed to have spent time in our country, told us about the special, last day sale of jewels they had taken advantage of.

When we were taken to the store, one of our group decided to purchase several expensive pieces.  Just the woman in charge spoke english at the time, the whole operation was so smooth.

Later, when we reached the Grand Palace and learned that it wasn't closed, and that there is no special jewel sale, we went to the Tourist Police to see what could be done.  I met several other couples there, all had been scammed during their first day in Bangkok. If the tourist was from Sweden, then a person claiming to be from Sweden had met them, if the tourists were grad students, then they were approached by other "grad" students.

The tourist police suggested going back to the shop to work out some refund. While at the shop I also decided to speak with some of the customers who were there.  The sales staff suddenly spoke plenty of vicious English and threatened to call the police on me!  I went back to the tourist police, who informed me that we cannot speak with other customers, only to the staff.  (Somewhere along the way I was slowly realising that we're not in Kansas anymore).

As is the way in Bangkok, there was plenty of bargaining on what adjustment could be made to the price of the jewelry, and even now my friend is not confident that the credit was applied to their card.

Just wondering what other "first 24 hours in a foreign city" stories are out there?  
and how did you handle whatever happened?

[Be careful...]

I first lived in Asia more than 15 years ago. After my first "gee whiz, this isn't Kansas" experience, I learned my lesson - when I travel to places like Bangkok, Cambodia, Manila, etc I tend to keep my face down, avoid the "gee whiz, willya lookit that" expression on my face, and ignore people who approach me. Admittedly, this is rather drastic, and I'm sure I have missed some interesting experiences and missed meeting some interesting people...

Some other things I do include planning at least a little bit about what I want to see and where I want to to go by examining a map briefly, so I can try to avoid being "taken for a ride." Also, I tend to keep a serious and determined look on my face, moving through crowds with purpose.

This approach has worked for many years in many situations and many places, including some very dodgy ones in SE Asia, Algiers, Tunis (former world HQ for the PLO when they were busy kidnapping westerners), etc.

To me, this is quite extreme - I am sure I am missing some of the simple joys of unstructured discovery in my travel adventures. But, I have also never been severely scammed, hurt, or kidnapped either - in more than 15 years abroad. A rather sad price to pay for personal security, tho...