Recently the family and I went up to see the progress at the big buddha on the hill. On our way out of the main foyer, my other half decided to buy a small encased buddha necklace for our son. The cute little old lady there told her it was white gold and charged approx 2,500 baht.

It wasn't untill my son decided to bite through the plastic casing and we took it to a shop to fix, that we were informed it was in fact some crappy silver, and not white gold.

Maybe I should have known better - But didn't expect to get conned at such a place.

Let it be a warning to you.

Choppy

A few weeks ago there was a long detailed thread over in 'Issan' about the types of gold found in Thailand and elsewhere.

This link might help you.

2500 baht and your surprised its not gold ???

Amazed how someone can be so gullible. Any rate price should have indicated, and where it was bought.

There's a saying in English. Something about 'money' and 'parted', I can't recall.

Amazed how someone can be so gullible. Any rate price should have indicated, and where it was bought.

Am sure If I had your infinite wisdom I wouldn't have made the mistake. FYI, the encased buddha was about the size of a "micro machine". So at leat the price suited the size, or so I thought.

Not losing too much sleep over it, just thought I would share it with the other gullible readers on thai visa.

The Big Buddha

A great eye sore. Sorry to hear you are not happy about your purchase. The people who donate are responsible for the construction there. Buying anything up there is a kind of donation.

I used to be up there several times on this hill more than twenty years ago, then it was a wonderful place to be.

Now I have to take all my visitors up there, everytime I am getting there I get more angry about what I see there, what they do with nature at this place, in the name of Buddha. I cannot believe that. There is so much money spent, on the other side it is necessary for foreigners to donate money to schools in Phuket to help poor children. This should be the most important thing for the buddhist monasteries to care. Not building such structures.