Thailand Trip (Day Two)

My friend showed up at about 2 AM last night. We woke up for minyan at Chabad at 9:30, after which we had a 250 baht breakfast (I had eggs, cappuccino, and salad), and then headed to the Royal Palace of Thailand.



The Royal Palace and the Emerald Buddha are all in the same complex so we also looked at some of the temples. Based on my limited knowledge of Buddhism, basically the novel Siddhartha and Wikipedia, I was under the impression that Buddhism was not avoda zara. I decided to email Rabbi Ezra Bick from Gush this morning just to check...



Question: I am in Thailand, and I was wondering if I can visit the Buddhist temples and or see the Buddhist statues.



Answer: Bhuddist temples are avoda zara mamash. They and everything in them are assurim be-hana'a. That means that you may not even enjoy the shade from the sun. Halakha l'maase one should not enter a temple even if there is no direct hana'a.



So in retrospect most of the day was pretty bad... We did not go to any place where they required us to take off our shoes, but we still looked at everything.



After the palace we were greeted by a very official looking Thai man who advised us that our ticket includes another museum which is a few miles away and that we should make sure to go there too. He arranged for us to travel with a tuk-tuk driver (basically a golf cart) that can take us there and some other places for only 40 baht - which is crazy cheap even for Thailand.



So we went with him expecting to see the sites but instead he took us to a custom made suit store where he makes commission. We were like we don't want anything and just want to go to the museum. So we got back into the tuk-tuk and drove for another 30 minutes at which point I insisted we definitely drove too far so he stopped in another minute and told us we were at an important site. We got out, and he drove away.



He left us basically in the middle of nowhere. (At least we didn't pay him...)

If only we had read the Lonely Planet guide:
Preludes to a rip off:
"A tuk-tuk driver offers a sighsteeing tour for 10B to 20B. Do thae maths: Petrol and time will get paid by you thanks to a commission from whatver tailor store the driver "happens" to know about". They even mention in another paragraph that "You should be doubly suspicious if they are professionally dressed but aren't busy at a real job somewhere."