Believe it or not: Fortune-telling in Bangkok is serious business

For centuries, Siamese of yore looked to fortune tellers for guidance. Little has changed.  Millions of people in Thailand still regularly consult maw du -- ‘doctors who see’ -- to gain insight into everything from love and health to careers and money.

There are a range of maw du in the city: Palm and face readers; those who interpret tarot or playing cards; zodiac astrologers; handwriting decoders; and other sixth-sense seers. High-end fortune tellers command prices as high as 10,000 baht per hour, though on the street it’s possible to book a fortune telling session for as little as 40 baht.

The Kasikorn Research Center estimates that in 2008, Bangkok residents spent more than 2.5 billion baht on fortune tellers and related materials, such as books and DVDs. That figure is up slightly from 2007.

The highest concentration of maw du in Bangkok are located around Tha Prajan pier off the Chao Phraya River. Here, dozens of maw du meet with clients at cramped makeshift stands inside a covered market area on the rickety pier.

Bangkok's fortune-teller plaza has the city's highest concentration of seers.

Banchobe Thepphachan has worked in a remote corner of the Tha Prajan ‘fortune-telling plaza’ for six years. He earns up to 1,000 baht per day, and says about 80 percent of his customers are women, the majority of inquiries he receives relating to love and romance.

Cases aren't always straightforward. Banchobe recalls the time he had to tell a disappointed lesbian threesome that his cards revealed one of them would soon need to exit the relationship.

Across the river, in the winding Wang Lang market, people line up to see 52-year-old Pa-ob Prabnarong. She charges 150 baht per person, though if a customer asks about the fortune of another person, she charges an extra 150 baht, a fee structure that can earn her up to 10,000 baht per day.

Pa-ob says she is often asked how her clients’ children will perform in school, or what day might be best to get married, buy a car or take a trip.

She admits that occasionally she gets something wrong or doesn’t have an answer, recalling the time when a woman wasn’t sure which of her two boyfriends got her pregnant.

Those highly attuned to their sixth sense can gain a large and loyal following. Hutta Lekjit hosts a call-in show on satellite television that he says is watched by millions. He also has a radio show, a column that runs in three Thai newspapers and a popular website (www.huttajit.com).

Fortune-teller Hutta Lekjit hosts a call-in TV show.

Hutta says he realized his abilities 18 years ago as a monk during a six-month meditation stint in a cave. One day, a holy relic inexplicably dropped from the cave ceiling. Hutta says he immediately gained the ability to write ancient Khmer symbols -- with his left hand, no less, despite being right-handed.

Today, he says he can read fortunes based on signatures or the sound of someone’s voice. He sees top celebrities and politicians and earns up to 10,000 baht per session, though he says he gives all of the money from one-on-one consultations to Buddhist charities and keeps only money from sponsors who fund his various media endeavors.

Though many skeptics don’t believe in the supernatural, generally speaking Thais widely accept the powers of maw du.

When Noi Jular, a 48-year-old clothing factory owner, visited a Bangkok fortune teller in January, she was warned that her 20-year-old daughter, a student at Chulalongkorn University, was in danger of suffering a serious car accident. Noi insisted that her daughter not drive and hired a chauffer to shuttle her around.

As it turns out, the driver got into an accident while the daughter was in the back seat of the car, though no one was seriously hurt. This was the first time the daughter had been in an accident in her life, and the fortune teller revealed that had she been driving, the damage would have been much worse.

“Maybe it was a coincidence, I don’t know,” Noi says. “But the prediction was probably real.”