Having my new Thai relatives now , I started look at the situation in phuket a bit differently and recognize very different types of locals. This time we are staying at a house in Mai Khao, the house and some other properties belong to a Thai lady, a daughter of a local fisherman. She is very nice. And very local. A bad attitude I noticed from Burma servers and shop employees. Very unfriendly and unhelpful was a lady from Issan, who made our attempt to ship home some pieces of teak furniture terrible.
There are so many people from other parts of the country working in Phuket, they are a different kind of locals.

On 1/1/2018 at 6:40 PM, pagallim said:

Again, getting it into context, this forum is primarily for Phuket based expats, nearly all of whom avoid the traps and connivances of the tourist areas like the plague, and as such we tend to comment/share advice on it's merits as a place to live and not to holiday.

 

 

Not sure if this goes with your statement.  But, and this is only semi related to my original posting, I find the constant ripping off of tourists to be bad long term business.  For example, taxis had all doubled their prices from the airport to Patong over New Years.  Which is just IMO being obnoxious.  My business relies on the tourist trade and we do our best to give a fair price and not inflate prices to the point of ripping off a tourist who might be on their 1 vacation for the year.  

 

If you milk the cow dry .... 

Just now, kurtmartens said:

Not sure if this goes with your statement.  But, and this is only semi related to my original posting, I find the constant ripping off of tourists to be bad long term business.  For example, taxis had all doubled their prices from the airport to Patong over New Years.  Which is just IMO being obnoxious.  My business relies on the tourist trade and we do our best to give a fair price and not inflate prices to the point of ripping off a tourist who might be on their 1 vacation for the year.  

 

If you milk the cow dry .... 

100% agree but it means absolutely nothing.

I bet many of those tourists have no idea of the normal price anyway.

How much more was transport or a hotel room in New York or Vegas on New Years eve?

Transport may very but on the big picture it goes from what: $20 to $40?

People don't know or probably don't care much.

 

2 hours ago, kurtmartens said:

Not sure if this goes with your statement.  But, and this is only semi related to my original posting, I find the constant ripping off of tourists to be bad long term business.  For example, taxis had all doubled their prices from the airport to Patong over New Years.  Which is just IMO being obnoxious.  My business relies on the tourist trade and we do our best to give a fair price and not inflate prices to the point of ripping off a tourist who might be on their 1 vacation for the year.  

 

If you milk the cow dry .... 

 

"I find the constant ripping off of tourists to be bad long term business." - so do I, and we are seeing the effects of decades of ripping off the western tourist market.  They are simply not coming to Phuket in the numbers they used to.

 

On Phuket, they preferred to rip off the tourists, in the belief there will always be a steady stream of new tourists to rip off, and they didn't care about returning tourists, however, they are now reaping what they have sowed - The Chinese Zero Baht Tourist Market.