Backpacking from Bangkok To Chiang Mai: The Teller at Ayutthaya Station
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At first, I thought that I had misheard. The train ticket from Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai cost about the same as a plane ticket from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. As I inquired further, the teller explained the reason for the hefty price tag; it was for a first class ticket. I explained that a normal seat would do and proceeded to pay. I boarded the arriving train. "Same song and dance," I thought to myself. Little did I know that this ride was to be a rough one.
It started off insidiously enough.
As he reached me, the train controller explained that I was sitting in a third class seat, whereas my ticket read second class. He mentioned that I would have to move if someone else came to claim that seat; the teller at the station had done me dirty. Clocking me as a Farang, the teller knew how to upsell me and get away with it.
It is with pride that I call myself an Australian. Unlike true blue Australians who earnt their nationality by virtue of being born there, I earnt mine by virtue of hard work and sacrifice; this probably makes me twice as proud to be a citizen of the lucky country.
I was born on the island of Mauritius. Growing up there, I witnessed all the tricks to charge tourists more than the locals, and I used to think that it was fair enough. Tourism being the backbone of our economy, and our Mauritian rupee being very weak compared to the Euro, it felt like a win-win; tourists won't feel the sting that much, whereas every bit counts towards our developing economy.
Now the roles were reversed. I was a foreigner who, whenever asked, would proudly state his country as Australia. The very night that I landed in Thailand, the taxi driver had drooled over me like I was fresh off the boat; at least behind his joke of a poker face. "Ar nou non!" as we say on my island. The Mauritian had landed too.
I did not swap seats.
I looked over my shoulder. From my vantage point in third class, I could see the second class. For more than twice the price, the only thing that seemed special about it was its individual seats. Though already paid for, I did not upgrade to the second class wagon. The teller had taken away my choice of tariff, I wasn't about to let him take away my choice of seats too.
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This is a sharing platform like FB, Instagram and Pinterest. Anyone can share on this platform articles published on blogs, news channels etc. But, unlike FB, Instagram and Pinterest, an article can be shared only once in Dlike. If, as a blogger, you don't share your article on Dlike someone can share and earn Steem and Dlike at your "expense".
There are millions of bloggers who blog daily whose articles can be shared on this platform and the person who shares earns both Steem cryptocurrency and Dlike tokens. Currently very few bloggers know of this platform and only a few share their articles on this platform.
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When bloggers come to know of this platform, you can expect Dlike to do extremely well and its token (which is priced at about 0.0003stem/dlike) could increase in value by even 100 fold or more in, say, 3 - 5 years from today as adoption of the platform increases. Meanwhile, steem cryptocurrency itself can gain in value by about 50x in the same period. Steem was once about $8/steem (during the last bull run), which is about 40x the current price. Hence, 50x its current price is a conservative estimate. That means conservatively your Dlike tokens have the potential to multiply 5000 (100 x 50) times its current dollar value.
I hope I have got your attention to start using Dlike platform.
If you do intend to use Dlike, please follow the rules, in particular, the rule not to copy/paste from the article (if it is your own article, I guess it should be alright to do so) and plagiarize when you write a synopsis of the article in the share.