Tagging along with the Thais is the only way to cross Bangkok's chaotic, crowded thoroughfares where there are only three road rules: go, go and go faster.
"Where you headed?" he asked.
"Just for a walk." "Special day today!" he enthused.
"Tuk-tuk only 40 baht. Go anywhere."
"I'm fine thanks," I replied, my internal scam alert drowning out the traffic.
"Happy to walk."
"You must see the Standing Buddha. Free today."
He was insistent. "Special day."
Before I knew it I was on a Government tuk-tuk (they have yellow plates, he explained) weaving through the traffic to the Standing Buddha, or the Luangpor Toh. And, to be fair, it was pretty impressive. Made of brick and stucco and plated in 24-carat gold, workers began sculpting it in 1867. It took them 60 years and at 32m from toe to topknot, it is the tallest in the world. Pretty cool.
My faithful tuk-tuk driver was waiting when I'd taken the prerequisite photos and off we zoomed to the Lucky Buddha. More photos: a temple under restoration and a smallish gold-coated statue. Back into the tuk-tuk.
This time, my driver had a spiel waiting: tourism in Thailand is suffering because of the political protests. I needed to visit the export centre, buy precious gems discounted because of the troubles. I'd seen the closed-off intersections, the sandbags at the barriers.
I'd heard the lectures into the night, televised on giant screens at protest sites. But I didn't want diamonds or sapphires. He insisted.
So I went. Wandered around the rows of cabinets housing rings, necklaces and bracelets sparkling temptingly under the well-placed spotlights. Left. We went to another export centre. Same spiel. Still not interested. Wandered around to be polite. Left.
Next stop was a silk export centre but I had no time to get a dress made. My politeness was ebbing: I wanted to see the Marble Temple in Dusit.
The Wat Benchamabophit Dusitvanaramis, to give it its Thai name, is worth the delays at gem sellers. Its dazzling white walls are topped with steep ornate red and gold stacked roofs.
A canal running through the peaceful grounds is spanned by pretty red bridges with a different carved Buddha holding down each corner. Rows of 52 Buddha statues, each in a different style and pose, line a courtyard at the back. There's even a bodhi tree, bought as a gift for King Rama V from Bod Gaya, the place of Buddha's enlightenment.
I bought a Coke and, feeling generous, also bought one for my driver, whom I suddenly couldn't see. He wasn't among the row of tuk-tuks waiting outside. He didn't appear even as I walked up the row a second time. Or a third.
Finally, one of the drivers explained he had suddenly been called to hospital with a sick child.
But I have to get back to my hotel, I explained, I have a plane to catch this afternoon.
No, he couldn't take me: he already had passengers.
Well, what was I to do?
He shrugged.
Luckily, a friendly French tourist in the same predicament showed me his map and I was able to plan a route back to the hotel. I was fuming and might even have stomped as I walked - I drank his Coke first - but I calmed down and looked back on my fabulous time in Bangkok.
My faithless tuk-tuk driver had told me the truth about one thing: the political protests are driving away tourists and Thais who earn a living prising baht from the receding hordes are feeling the pinch.
On our first day in Bangkok, we had lunch at Naj, an exquisite restaurant in an old-style wooden house that once belonged to an aristocratic family. We had to take a circuitous route to avoid the barricades set up by protesters trying to bring down the government.
We were the only diners at Naj, so there was no one to roll their eyes as we all pulled out our phones to photograph the dishes: crispy cups with fried vegetables (kra thong tong); pumpkin leaves; crispy duck with sweet sauce and prawn and tamarind sauce. We left it up to our guide to order and none of us rued the decision.
I also got to try my hand at Thai cooking at Amita's school on the banks of the Bangkok Yai canal of the Chao Phraya River in old Bangkok.
We swept up the brown waterways in a long-tailed boat, passing wooden shacks where scaly water monitors basked and old women pegged out laundry.
The school is in the home of teacher Tam Piyawadi Jantrupon. Joining me was Bindi from London - a passionate foodie who has appeared in Come Dine With Me, a family from Kuwait with an astonishingly robust child I took to be 10 but later learned was six; and an Australian woman.
Tam walked us through her garden, letting us see and sniff the herbs and explaining their uses. She first showed us how to cook the dishes, giving us tastes along the way - I hadn't been there long before I began to wish I hadn't had breakfast - then we took up our woks. And ate.
I was so full I wished my massage table had a cut-out circle for my bulging tummy as well as my face when I went for a Thai massage afterwards.
After all that food and to shake off the soporific effects of a massage, it was shopping time. It was only a five-minute walk from Mo Chit sky train stop to the Chatuchat weekend market, Thailand's largest.
If you're looking for incense by the kilo, a tweed suit for your dog, for porcelain or pretty sparkly sandals to wear to the office, you're bound to find it among the 15,000 stalls sprawling over 14ha. There's even rumoured to be an area where you can buy exotic and probably dangerous creatures.
Perhaps the person who abandoned what looked like a python that caused much excitement in the bushes near my hotel had been shopping here.
That snake was probably the most dangerous creature I saw in Bangkok - and it wasn't even that big. Not compared to, say, an anaconda.
The protests are not aimed at tourists. Perhaps the biggest danger is those tuk-tuk drivers.
Searching Google later, I found numerous tales of a scam in which a local would befriend tourists on the street with a plausible story about closed temples and a special day; a "government" tuk-tuk would mysteriously appear and off they would tootle to the Standing Buddha, the Lucky Buddha and to export centres where they would buy discounted gems that, surprise, surprise, later turned out to be overpriced.
I guess my fickle tuk-tuk driver would have got a generous cut had I pulled out my wallet but he didn't even hang around long enough to get his fare. And, as it was my last day in Thailand, I would have given him my remaining few hundred baht.
Plus, I'd bought him a Coke.
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Thai Airways flies direct from Auckland to Bangkok every Sunday, Tuesday Thursday and Friday.
Accommodation: Rembrandt Hotel at 19 Sukhumvit Soi 18 Sukhumvit Rd, Klong Toei and Siam@Siam Design Hotel & Spa at 865 Rama 1 Rd, opposite the National Stadium.
Further information: See tourismthailand.org.
The writer travelled as a guest of the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
