The Fair Price

He told me he never gets ripped off. He's paying 4,000 a month too much for his condo.

I pick him up at the airport at 9:40 at night, from the pickup bay where the app tells you to stand and nobody does. He finds me anyway. He's the kind who reads instructions, then explains them to you.

"Sawasdee krub," he says, getting in the back, very proud of the krub. "Chalong, please. You know the price, I know the price, no funny business."

The price is on the app. It was on the app before he got in. I say, "Yes, sir," and pull out.

His name is Declan, from Cork, eleven years in Phuket, and it takes him four minutes to bring up the taxi story from last month, the one that was all over Facebook, the tourist who paid four times the fare from the airport. He has opinions on it. He has had the opinions ready since September, waiting for someone in a car.

"First-timer," he says. "That's the problem. Doesn't know the system. Me, I've never been ripped off once. Not once. You know why?"

I know why. He's going to tell me anyway.

"Because I speak Thai."

He demonstrates. *Tao rai.* *Paeng mak.* *Mai pen rai.* He says them with real feeling, especially *paeng mak*, too expensive, which he says to the back of my head twice, for practice, though I haven't asked him for anything. I tell him his Thai is very good. It's a long drive to Chalong.

For the next forty minutes Declan explains Phuket to me.

He explains the airport road, which I drive eight times a day. He explains that you have to agree the price before you get in a tuk-tuk, which is true, and that the Thais respect you more if you bargain, which is a thing farang tell each other the way children tell each other about ghosts. He explains that tourists get ripped off because they don't live here like he does. He explains the rainy season. Outside, it's raining.

I drive. I'm good at driving and listening. Most of the job is the second one.

Then he gives me his address, the condo building, so I can find the gate in the dark.

I know the building. My cousin Nok manages it. Small, clean, pool on the side, about forty units. I know what the one-bedrooms rent for, because Nok complains about the owners who rent them for too much, and the owners who rent them for too little, and there's a list in the office.

"Corner unit," says Declan. "Fifth floor. Best one in the building. I got a very good deal, the landlord's a friend of mine."

I know the corner unit on the fifth floor. Nok has mentioned it. The landlord is a friend of a lot of people. He charges Declan four thousand baht a month more than every other one-bedroom in the building, and has for six years, because the first year Declan told him he'd been in Phuket long enough to know a fair price when he saw one, and the landlord agreed with him.

Six years. I do the maths at a red light. It comes to more than the tourist in the news paid for his taxi. Quite a lot more.

"You can't let them see you're new," Declan says. "That's the trick."

I say nothing. It's not my job to tell people what things cost. That's what the app is for.

At the gate the guard waves at me. Declan looks surprised that the guard knows me. I don't explain. He gets out, stretches, counts out the fare exactly, no more and no less, and hands it to me over the seat with the face of a man who has once again not been ripped off.

"See?" he says. "Fair price. Everybody wins."

"Yes, sir," I say. "Everybody wins."

He goes in. The light comes on in the corner unit on the fifth floor. It really is a good view. I'll give him that.

On the way back I call Nok, because she likes stories, and because the airport road is long.

"Corner unit, fifth floor," I say. "He says the landlord's his friend."

Nok laughs so hard she has to put me on speaker.

The app pings. Another pickup. Airport, international arrivals, a first-timer from somewhere cold.

He'll pay the price on the app. It's a good system. It's the only one in Phuket that doesn't care how long you've lived here.

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Question: Is a refund enough when a taxi overcharges a tourist?

*Illustrations are AI-generated.*