Beware of fake DVD's!, Bangkok

I had a no. of bad experiences while in bangkok (3rd-7th July 2004). This is one of them. Within just 4 days in bangkok, I encountered one case of a taxi driver taking me to a restaurant other than the one I specified. Since I have never been to the restaurant, I had the bell boy at the hotel to make sure that the driver knows where the particular place is. After the assurance, I hopped onto the cab but lo and behold, I was intentionally brought to one that obviously has some sort of 'reward' system for drivers who bring customers to them.

Another incident was with a tuk tuk driver. Despite having agreed on the price to get to MBK, I was brought to a quiet alley near the hotel and the driver demanded 10 times the agreed amount. Otherwise, he suggested that I follow his 'itenary' to visit factories and restaurants, obviously his "sponsors". I took a picture of the tuk tuk registration nos. See left.

I am not sure what I can do differently to avoid being dubbed by drivers like these. It is all the more frustrating when there seems to be no other way but to keep my fingers crossed and hope to be lucky! I never thought I would say this of a city, but after travelling half the globe, Bangkok is the only city that I would not want to go back to.