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Monday 18th May 2009 - 7pm local time
An update following on from our recent blog here from Chaweng Beach, Ko Samui. Just had a walk down the beach in the evening at the north end of the beach and got offered drugs (Cocaine and Cannabis) twice within 20 seconds. This has been a big shock, but no surprise considering we smelt someone smoking a joint whilst eating out last night. The shocking part of this, is that the people who just offered us the drugs are ice-cream sellers. We won't be buying ice creams at all from them from now on during the day.
Yesterday, we had to take a taxi ride up to Choeng Mon to visit our tailor...by the way, never trust a tailor even though it came as a recommendation. Having agreed a price from the Amari to Choeng Mon (250 Bahts) in a red/yellow taxi, the female taxi driver said she would wait for us while we did what we had to do, then bring us back, again for a further 250 Bahts. This was agreed and we said to her that upon our return to our hotel we would drop our new clothes off
at our room, then jump back into her taxi for a further 100 Baht fare into town down the road. She agreed to wait the two minutes it would have taken for us to go to our room. However, when we got out of the taxi, she saw that a family needed to be taken to Bo Phut, about a 20 minute ride away, so we'd have to find other means of getting into town. When she asked for her 500 Bahts for the journey we had already taken, we politely refused and said if she wants her money she would have to wait for us now. She became disgruntled with this and so we decided to tell her she was getting maximum 400 Bahts after all. So if you're staying near the Amari, keep your eyes out for this short-haired female taxi driver (red and yellow cab) who prefers to dump you in favour of a higher fare off someone else. Its a real shame because we have never experienced service/attitude off Thais before.
We also had another encounter in a supermarket almost opposite Tropical Murphys called 'Saver Mart' where they seriously over-charged us for what we bought. After pointing out the prices on the stickers, they reluctantly recalculated our shopping....and so we didn't get ripped off by almost 300 Bahts.
One more thing.....we've brought our own netbook with us to use whilst on holiday here at Chaweng Beach. We had been using an internet cafe called 'Centre Point' about halfway down the road in town. We popped in yesterday to use wifi for a charge which we understood. However, we were only online about 5 minutes and she said minimum charge is 60 Bahts. When we pointed out that there is no sign up anywhere saying this and that they hadn't charged us this before this much, she too reluctantly backed down and only charged us 20 Bahts. This internet cafe has a small bar outside where we have drunk on several nights previously. However, we won't be spending our money there now.
People here are not realising that as customers we tend to return the day after. Its little wonder that The Islander and Tropical Murphys are running at almost full capacity with customers, as we haven't encountered any problems at all. To add to this is the fact that their prices for everything are very reasonable indeed and to top it off, both offer FREE wifi access, albeit an unsecure connection ( so don't be doing your online banking here..lol).
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Becky Marland
non-member comment
How things change!
Well this blog doesn't sound too good. Ice cream man sells coke and pot....internet cafe try ripping you off and then the tuk tuk taxi dumps you..mmm the thai folk are obviously not remembering that tourists pay their bills!!! Stick with the Islander!! Hope your having a good time anyhow. Love the Symons clan xx