100,000 Baht T-shirt

[elektrified]

The other day while shopping at Chiang Mai Plastics I was in need of a caffeine fix and decided I would go to the little shop directly across from Chiang Mai Plastics. There is a sign that says coffee shop upstairs. I think the shop is called Thamil or Tamel or something like that. They sell fabrics and sandals, incense and other things imported from India and other places. I took a quick look around before going upstairs to the coffee shop. There was nothing special. Just the usual Indian imports.

While I was sitting there having a cup of coffee I noticed some t-shirts for sale. One in particular caught my eye because it reminded me of a t-shirt I owned back in the late 1970's. It was simply a black cotton t-shirt with the orange sunshine logo in the center - you know the one with the smiling face in the center of the sun. Other than that someone had taken a paint brush and drawn some broad strokes with oil paint on the bottom, the back, sleeves, etc. It was the kind of shirt I wore to Grateful Dead concerts in California. Really nothing special but like I said it reminded so much of the one I owned years ago.

The woman proprietor saw me checking it out and approached me. I asked her if she had an XL but she said that she only had L right now (even thought it looked like an M) . Out of curiosity I asked her how much the shirt was. For well over a minute she checked me out, looking at my old gold watch, clothes, hair - you know - sizing me up. Finally after what seemed like an unusual amount of time she said to me 100,000 Baht! Well I wasn't born yesterday and I've traveled around Thailand a bit, so I decided to play this out a little. I looked at her and the shirt and said 'jing jing?" She said yes, really. She went on to say that the shirt was hand-painted and "one-of-a-kind". Come on....as far as I know the logo is in the public domain by now. So I asked her the name of the artist. She looked at me and said "I don't know." Well then I asked her if she was open to an offer and she said how much? I said 450 Baht which was already far more than I had ever paid for a t-shirt in Thailand even if it was hand-painted! She said no in a very unfriendly manner and I gave her the old mai bpen rai at that point. She was insulted and stormed off to the corner where she had been sitting. As I finished my coffee I noticed she was occasionally staring at me. She was writing something and then I saw her get up and attach a price tag to the t-shirt and after giving me one final look of disgust, she stormed off downstairs. As I got up to leave I took a peek at the price tag and sure enough -100,000 Baht.

Amazing! If you want to see a 100,000 Baht t-shirt, they have them in Chiang Mai.

[cmsally]

:D

I once asked for the price of a scarf in that shop - ordinary Indian cloth scarf - was told 800Bt .

It was absolutely not worth 800Bt.

Friend with me also enquired about something - also way overpriced.

Never went in there again.

[PhilHarries]

So it must be true, Van Gogh is still alive and painting tee shirts.

[richardt1808]

mmm,

A while back there was the beautiful thread about GOM (grumpy old man) in Emporium.

Maybe you guys in CM can get something going with this GOW.

[vagabond48]

I guess OP didn't notice the 2 hidden armed guards in the shop. Can't have 100,000b merchandise unguarded. She must of a few of these priceless shirts around.

I might even approach her and ask if she would want to have it stolen so she could put in for an insurance claim of ohhhhhhhhh 150Kb, that sounds about right. I would ask for a small fee of 10k for my bad deed.

[uptheos]

Thai's don't know where to put the commas and full stops - most likely it was 1000.00 = still way too much.

[elektrified]

Thai's don't know where to put the commas and full stops - most likely it was 1000.00 = still way too much.

It was definitely 100,000 Baht! The girl repeated the price in both Thai and English and wrote 100,000 Baht on the tag as well. I got that right for sure!

[IanForbes]

She obviously took her cue from the Nana Plaza bar owners who raise their prices when there are fewer customers... hoping to make up their short fall on the regulars who have stuck by them. Then, when the prices go up the regulars leave and so do the bar girls due to lack of customers. Pretty soon the bar stands their empty and the stupid owner wonders why.

[ThaiPauly]

I think we should all go in there and marvel at it...tell her to put it to one side while we go and get the cash

...and go have a beer (if you drink that is)

[womblejamie]

100,000 BAHT!!!!!!!!!!!

What, is she planning to buy some land with the proceeds? She got to be off her bleeding rocker. I've heard some things in my time but that has gone so far over the ridiculous line that its just a dot in the distance.

[PoorSucker]

Maybe she meant satang.

[chimsa]

Perhaps she thought he wanted to buy the shop, not just the T-shirt?

[NancyL]

Maybe it was the personal property of her or some member of her family. Back when Hubby and I ran a nursery/greenhouse business we discovered that customers expected everything on the property to have a price, to be for sale. That was a little difficult since it was also our home. So we finally just put a ridiculous price on the dog, our houseplants that spent the summer outdoors, the hanging baskets on our porch, etc, etc. We actually sold some of our personal plants for that ridiculous price. No takers for the dog -- although someone did ask to be notified if she ever had puppies.

[Donnyboy]

fun ber ter

[Donnyboy]

OP you need to dress down to something more suitable to get cheap price

[Puwa]

No offense intended, but she probably just took an immediate disliking to you and quoted 100K to piss you off and drive you away. Writing out the price tag is a classic. People sometimes do the strangest things.

[Explorer]

bullet proof t-shirt?

Op, next time you are there, try to snap a pic and post it here.

Explorer

[chiangmaiexpat]

You must have plenty of bats in the belfry to pay 100k for a T-shirt and just as many to offer a T-Shirt at that price. Chiang Mai isn't exactly Beverly Hills.

Cheers, CMX

[chuang]

T-shirt soaked in cocaine....

[eek]

Should maybe have told her you will need to go to the bank for cash and be back at around 9pm to pay. If she was silly enough to think up such a crazy price, maybe she would be silly enough to sit in her shop for hours after closing time waiting for you.