Originally Posted by Elgrande
Well, where to start.
Just got back from phuket, last time was 3 weeks after the tsunami. I have been to phuket 6 times.
I first landed in Krabi and spent a couple of days, from there, I took the boat to Phuket. Finding a decent hotel in Phuket turned out to be a nightmare, the island was full. I finally managed to find a 4 star hotel in Karon, which was very nice, but a bit overpriced for the hotel, in any event, I didn’t complain, however, just about everything else surprised the hell out of me.
It seems that the Thai people in Phuket quickly forgot the tsunami and shifted gear at full speed, which included overpricing, lower standards of service, poor attitude, smaller portions of food and in general, greedy money grabbing maniacs.
My first impression was that Phuket is rapidly changing – for the worst and the way they are continuing, it won’t be long until people decide to change their destination.
I have many friends in Phuket as well as other areas, farangs and Thai, they all say the same thing. I was totally shocked by the increase of prices for just about everything, from the sunbeds on the beach, to jetski rental, to a beer and just about everything else.
Food portions are smaller, you won’t find a orchid on your cocktail drink anymore, nor will they offer you free fruit after your meal, even if your bill is more than 1000 baht, small things that make a difference and to them, cost nothing, but all these things combined, it’s easy to notice the standards dropping. Even the wetnaps that they would offer you before and after eating at a restaurant – those are gone too.
To add insult to injury, their attitude towards tourists, the Thai business owners, badmouth tourists in their native language (I speak Thai and can understand very well when they speak) and make fun of the tourists.
If it wasn’t for the tourists and the good reputation that Phuket once had, there’s no way in hell that most would have returned after the tsunami, they would have opted for another destination, other than Thailand – perhaps Burma, which is opening it’s doors to tourism and is expanding – probably something like what Thailand was 15-20 years ago.
It’s not hard to go somewhere else, other than Thailand, but if things keep up the way they are going, it won’t be long, the day will come that the Thai people will see a great reduction in arrivals and income generated from Tourism.
I was staying in Karon and most of my beach days were at Kata and Kata Noi – both these beaches are now filthy, the color of the sea in the middle of both beaches is brown and smelly. The Thai people have not or cannot manage their sewage system and now, with the 100% capacity that the island is facing, sewage is spilling into the sea at an incredible rate, some much so, that in a couple of years, the beaches will resemble the beaches at Samui, cloudy, murky and dirty.
Ever since I first went to Thailand, I fell in love with Phuket and everything it had to offer, but things have changed, sure, everything changes – this is evolution and the world is becoming a smaller place and easy to circumnavigate but at the same time, each place should protect it’s uniqueness and treasure it, otherwise, it’s something that you put aside and move on to somewhere else.
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