Paradise Lost

[Sadiegirl1975]

This is our second trip to Phuket, the first being seven years ago before the tsunami. What happened to you, Phuket? Our resort was very nice, nice and expensive! We stayed at the resort for the first couple of days before venturing out to see what Phuket had to offer. Not much it seems, we expected better. Tuk tuks and taxis cost us a small fortune, so we rented a car. Big mistake, the traffic here can only be described as dangerous and chaotic, not to mention that it takes ages to get anywhere on the island and the lack of any reasonable alternative. What we did see of the island was over developed, billboards everywhere and just a generally run down and dirty look to the place anywhere that was not a resort or a shopping complex geared to tourists. Has no one here ever heard of paint before, do you not have litter bins in Thailand? Some of the smells of rotting garbage or raw sewage are enough to make you sick. From the moment that we stepped off the plane at PIA and had to run the gauntlet of taxi touts inside the airport (this is a disgrace and something I have never seen at any international airport), we felt that we were being lined up to be ripped off. We did not buy anything from any markets or street vendors that did not already have a price on it as we were warned that everything in Thailand is a copy of some sort or another. We rented a yacht for the day to go to Phi Phi, this turned out to be a mistake also. The place was so busy with speedboats flying past our yacht and very loud and noisy longtail boats passing only a few feet from where we were anchored, it just was not a nice day out. Phi Phi is a beautiful island and had a chance to be rebuilt with some thought in mind for ecological and sustained tourism, post tsunami. What I witnessed can only be described as free for all with no planning or forsight. We decided to spend the rest of our holiday in the resort, it was pricey but not in comparison to the restaurants and bars that we did go to outside of the resort. Phuket, what makes you think that you can charge the prices that you do for what you offer, in the future I will prefer spend my money and holidays somewhere other than this Phuket. The cost for a holiday in Phuket is now comparable to a holiday in Italy or France or any other European destinations that are safe , clean and tidy and where the tourists are not seen as marks to be conned. I feel sorry for anyone who has invested here and I feel that Phuket is on a downward spiral to just another Tenerife or the likes. Why travel half way around the world to holiday in place that is less like what we have on our continent. We will not be back and certainly won’t be telling any of our friends to holiday here either. We also found the sex for whole sale business quite seedy and seeing older, foreign men with young Thai girls quite distasteful. Phuket, you are not a top world class destination for us in any way and we feel a bit cheated by our holiday there.

[Patong Bob]

All quite true. I have been going to Phuket for a long time more than you. I lived there for seven years.

Phuket is "paradise lost".

[robbrookes]

All quite true. I have been going to Phuket for a long time more than you. I lived there for seven years.

Phuket is "paradise lost".

Oh dear, oh dear..just as the forum was becoming quite civilised again [ but very boring also] along comes the proverbial cat amongst the pidgeons post

Furious polishing of the rose tinted glasses going on right now by the ''don't you dare criticize phuket mob''

Sit back and await the onslaught .....

[KarenBravo]

To the OP.

It all depends on your time perspective.

Many people that arrived here in the eighties and nineties would have said that at the time you first had a holiday here and loved it, it was already a case of paradise lost.

It kind of reminds me of all the back-backers that followed the ant-trail to Phi-Phi after the movie The Beach was made and then complained about how crowded with back-packers it was

If you really want to take a trip down memory lane, next time go off the island and head north, or, east in Phang-Nga. Loads of unspoilt beaches, but, no internet, or, cafe lattes.

[schlog]

Show time for the boys from Bang Tao.

[OLDAUSSIE]

I first went to Phuket in 1991 so I guess I would see a big difference now.

If you go to any other tourist place in Thailand you will get the same treatment, because the Thai's only think about one thing MONEY.

like dont even try Pattaya if the sex side of things up-set you because once again Thai's only think about MONEY.

[logbags]

I was just talking to a mate about this on the phone. He and his mates travelled with me to Thailand in 2004 before the tsunami. He went back last year and thought similar to the OP. I think he even met "Patong Bob" as he was telling him wanted me to meet him.

My friend said none of his mates have been back and probably won't as they like clubs and found them to be too expensive for what you get. I mentioned 3 other guys already, they got pinched three days in a row by the cops for 300 baht a pop. They spat the dummy and have never been back either.

I think if I didn't have the friends I have there I perhaps wouldn't bother myself but after 25 years it is a bit like home for me no matter how bad it gets. I never go out much anyway anymore so I avoid all the nightime dramas.

It's high time the Thais got their shit together to clean up the corruption etc. I won't hold my breath though. My mate summed it nicely.

He said "Sometimes you just get sick of people trying to rip you off all the time"

"talking to you like your some sucker who actually believes their lies"

He said Thais think we're so stupid but if we stopped coming for even one month they would be crying for us to come back. If we're so stupid why is it us who has the money to spend on overseas holidays?

[backstairs]

Well Happy Christmas. This thread seems to be a variation on a much trodden theme. Somewhere in the archives there are many such cries from the heart.

I have lived here for 4 months now and I am still trying to hold back my judgement. I do moan about the driving to whoever is in the car with me. I do find the litter along the road appalling but the UK isn't far behind. I do search for culture and a bar with no TV or music that is not a Sports Bar.

And yet and yet. I had good and bad today. Bad - laundry not back. Bathroom still unfixed. Someone's car upside down at 6 p.m. on the side walk.

Good - great meal in town. Then a walk through the pleasant atmosphere of the Street Festival on Thalang Road. I stopped and watched 3 women laughing with each other as the hurled trash into the bins.

My jury is still out. I was here 20 years ago and thought then it less pleasant than other places. But hey. The least we can do is hope.

[BlueEasySleep]

The OP has never seen taxi touts at an airport before.

Hard for me to take her opinion on travel too seriously after reading that.

[geriatrickid]

I think the OP summed it up accurately. Sure we can go through the inventory of some of the better places on Phuket, but that's not where tourists are going. They hit the Kammala to Kata area with a large concentration in Karon to Patong. What they see and get in this area is pisspoor.

The Laguna area is the opposite of what the OP disliked (except for the prices. Man, is the Laguna zone expensive. I remember back in the early 90's when a stay at the Dusit was only US$125-$160 a night depending upon the season and no gala surcharges.) I can't stand Patong, and yet I stick close to Patong as my base simply because everything is close by. I can walk to where I need to go.

If I had two wishes for Patong for 2011 it would be;

1. Cross walks with traffic lights, particularly on Rat U and the beach road. and

2. Public garbage cans.

Patong would be so much better if we had a place to put litter.

BTW, consider the fact that almost all of the hotels in Karon are seperataed from the beach by a busy road. There are no pedestrian crossings with lights. If you were elderly or a young family, would you welcome the risk of crossing that road with the speeding vehicles?

So many easy low cost solutions and yet, millions of baht will be spent on decorations or ugly billboards. Would it kill some of the companies to build a pedestrian crossing with naming rights instead of erecting an ugly billboard? i.e. The Buffalo Steak House beach road zebra crossing or the Phuket Hotel Association beach crossing or the Hilton Arcadia crosswalk?

[BangTaoBoy]

Show time for the boys from Bang Tao.

If you are refering to me, I honestly can't be bothered. I've never been on a holiday I haven't enjoyed. I research places properly and then make the best of it no matter how it turns out. If somebody finds Phuket so bad that they didn't enjoy the holiday at all, then they're obviously very poor decision makers.

As for coming straight to a Phuket forum to share their disdain, pretending it's to help others, I will always find that quite pointless. Perhaps their time could be better spent researching their next holiday.

[BangTaoBoy]

The OP has never seen taxi touts at an airport before.

Hard for me to take her opinion on travel too seriously after reading that.

Also planned a trip to Phuket without knowing about the bar girl scene here!! Do you not have the internet where you are from??

It's funny how this person didn't have any reason to join TV before! No questions to ask. No advice to be sought, but was happy to go out their way to join, and make their first post, when they have bad things to say. You look back through TV and there are thousands of one post wonders, who have done the same. Very random, strange behaviour.

[LivinLOS]

Show time for the boys from Bang Tao.

If you are refering to me, I honestly can't be bothered. I've never been on a holiday I haven't enjoyed. I research places properly and then make the best of it no matter how it turns out. If somebody finds Phuket so bad that they didn't enjoy the holiday at all, then they're obviously very poor decision makers.

But the phuket marketing machine presents such a different image.

As for coming straight to a Phuket forum to share their disdain, pretending it's to help others, I will always find that quite pointless. Perhaps their time could be better spent researching their next holiday.

And how do you suggest honest reactions and evaluations are presented so those next people can research it ??

Phuket is slow miss managing its treasures and ruining its own appeal.. Its coral is on the whole dead, the rise of boxy shophouses or nasty white box villa designs (millionaires mile just got a little bit longer ) lining every rd is ruining the visual appeal, while at the same time the population operates cartels, and scams to undermine any last remaining goodwill. It clearly was and still is a beautiful island, but the direction its moving in is not good, and the entire lot falls on local management, corruption and greed.

I recently spent a couple of days and evenings hanging out with a guy up here in CM, he was on vacation from europe where he runs tourist businesses in the canaries, and yet he described cheap chaing mai as being 'far' more expensive than the canaries for everything except accommodation. This shocked me but he was reeling them off 50 baht pints of beer, steak dinners, etc etc etc.. I tended to think of Canaries as Spain like the costas with drunken brit tourists but he made it sound very different. When euro tourists can jump a 50 quid ryan air flight to the canaries, and spend less money, and still get a clean nice beach holiday, thats a problem for the TAT. That said I dont think Phuket will lack arrivals, I tend to think its earnt a place on the map and they will keep coming by default, but that they just wont be the kind of repeat travelers. Of course the bangla rd travellers wont stop coming no matter how stinky and ruined it gets, pattaya proves that.

[madmitch]

BTW, consider the fact that almost all of the hotels in Karon are seperataed from the beach by a busy road. There are no pedestrian crossings with lights. If you were elderly or a young family, would you welcome the risk of crossing that road with the speeding vehicles?

So many easy low cost solutions and yet, millions of baht will be spent on decorations or ugly billboards. Would it kill some of the companies to build a pedestrian crossing with naming rights instead of erecting an ugly billboard? i.e. The Buffalo Steak House beach road zebra crossing or the Phuket Hotel Association beach crossing or the Hilton Arcadia crosswalk?

They installed a couple of pedestrian crossings with lights two years ago. The problem is they are not runniung at the moment with all the roadworks.

Your idea is a good one but a man with a flag is probably cheaper

[barka]

why Bang tao boy..are you always on the defensive about Phuket.. the OP has given in my opinion an honest opinion of what she sees of PHUKET today and she is mostly correct...i have lived here over 20 years, being involved in tourism.. and it has..changed for the worse....and it does not seem likely to get any better...the damage has been done..and only promises seem to come from the governors etc but never any real worthwile ACTION.... IT MAY BE TO LATE TO SAVE IT...It could easily end up like Spain but worse..

[Ulysses G.]

I recently spent a couple of days and evenings hanging out with a guy up here in CM, he was on vacation from europe where he runs tourist businesses in the canaries, and yet he described cheap chaing mai as being 'far' more expensive than the canaries for everything except accommodation.

Can you get a tasty, healthy meal all over the place for around one dollar in the Canaries? From what I can Google, the answer is no.

If both food and accommodation is cheaper in Chiang Mai, wouldn't the Canaries be more expensive in general?.

[AussieKenny]

I used to courier tourists down to Greece, Morocco, Portugal and so on in the eighties and I got so tired of them asking to go where there were no tourists.

I could only tell them, once we went there, there would be tourists.

We need to remember the old saying "Where ever you go, there you are"

As an aside, I wonder what would happen if the powers that be shut down Bangla the same way the mayor in Manila did with the red light area there a few years back?

Kenny

[KarenBravo]

i have lived here over 20 years

Are you sure?

Haven't you been "living" here for a single digit amount of years, but, "visiting" here for 20?

Visiting and living are not the same thing.

[petercallen]

Expensive here, its not Thailand or Thais fault people from the UK and Europe get such a bad exchange rate.

If you think its expensive here try Australia or Singapore

We were in Australia recently touring the north and the only tourists we met were Swiss and Germans.

We are going to Bali next month and it will be interesting to compare the cost of things compared to Phuket

and how we are treated as tourists.

Driving on the on the road here, driving habits are bad, but if you check on the really bad drivers you will

find quite often they are not Thai.

Infrastructure, the local government are awarded funds by the federal government according to the population.

Local government has been trying for ages to get people to register they live here so they get more funds to

improve things but they just wont do it, we all know the population here is a lot larger than the official figure.

We were looking around the north of the island, there is a beach in the national park which is more like

what other tourist areas in Phuket used to be, there is also miles/kilometres of unspoilt deserted beaches

If you have the time drive up and check it out yourself, take the side roads heading towards the west coast

before and after the airport

Things are never going to be the same as they were 10 or 20 years ago its not only Phuket its the same everywhere

[KarenBravo]

Driving on the on the road here, driving habits are bad, but if you check on the really bad drivers you will

find quite often they are not Thai.

Blimey!

What colour is the sky on your planet?

[stevenl]

I recently spent a couple of days and evenings hanging out with a guy up here in CM, he was on vacation from europe where he runs tourist businesses in the canaries, and yet he described cheap chaing mai as being 'far' more expensive than the canaries for everything except accommodation.

Maybe that is his experience, but I have heard from both people living there and tourists that Canaries have gotten extremely expensive, much more than any place in Thailand.

What I find most irritating, is that as soon as somebody disagrees with them the 'realists' accuse the others of having rose coloured glasses.

[BlueEasySleep]

Also planned a trip to Phuket without knowing about the bar girl scene here!! Do you not have the internet where you are from??

Whenever a middle aged farang lady writes a scathing, negative account of her trip to Thailand, the sight of bar girls and men enjoying them is always what it comes down to.

[thecornishman]

All quite true. I have been going to Phuket for a long time more than you. I lived there for seven years.

Phuket is "paradise lost".

Sadly, very true.

I first started to holiday in patong 30 odd years ago. Then there were only about 8 bars total on soi bangla and nothing else. The beaches were pristine and the water was several shades of blue. The kangaroo bar was the first there I believe.and they were truly hospitable. Over the years I've seen the place and the people change for the worse. I spent six months of every year on that island up until 1989 when I decided enough was enough. Now I wouldn't go back even if it was a freeby,no way.

I really like living in this country, but beautiful places to visit are now very few and far between. Thailand is developing a reputation, unfortunately,it's not the one they would like.

[Old Croc]

Joined the forum at 17.04 yesterday and by 17.19 had worked out how to start a new topic and had posted a very lengthy, grammatically correct post critical of everything from go to whoe.

And this from someone who's afraid to step outside their hotel. Strange

[madmitch]

Paradise or not (and I definitely fall into the latter school of thought), Phuket must be doing something right. Thousands of visitors come here year after year. Why?

I live here but if I asked myself the question, would I come to Phuket on holiday if I lived elsewhere, I would have to answer a resounding "No".

So what is it that brings people back again and again?

[saintofsilence]

If a survey was to be done on tourists leaving Phuket asking will you be returning for another holiday I think 90 percent would say no.

[Sadiegirl1975]

Yes I do know how to use a computer and how to post on a forum. It is not rocket science. My apologies to anyone that I may have offended as it seems that I may have ruffled a few feathers. The posts that I have seen in reply are and seem quite genuine and productive with a few not so. This seems to me to be part of problems that Phuket is facing, people that bury their heads in the sand and still say that everything is fine. I think that when you live somewhere for a period of time you become accustomed to what is going on around you and staring you in the face, if you see a pile of rubbish in the same place every day then pretty soon you stop notice it anymore. Maybe I recalled our first trip to Phuket more fondly than I remembered it to be, maybe a little bit older and wiser and not so tolerant of such things. Whatever the case, we both expected better this time and were both disappointed. We stayed at a new resort in Kamala because we know what Patong is all about and that is not really our scene. Just walking around Kamala was very similar to being in Patong, girlie beer bars everywhere, getting pestered to buy clothes and everything else under the sun that we did not want. We did not find any nice cafes or restaurants in the area that we wished to try outside of our resort and like I said in my first post a generally run down look about the place, rubbish, broken sidewalks and no sense of planning. We just found it was more of a hassle going outside of the resort and decided to stay there for the rest of our holiday. Sorry Phuket and Thailand but this will be the last time for us.

[Old Croc]

If a survey was to be done on tourists leaving Phuket asking will you be returning for another holiday I think 90 percent would say no.

You live in Pattaya don't you?

How would a similar survey go there?

[saintofsilence]

If a survey was to be done on tourists leaving Phuket asking will you be returning for another holiday I think 90 percent would say no.

You live in Pattaya don't you?

How would a similar survey go there?

I would estimate 65 percent would say no

[madmitch]

If a survey was to be done on tourists leaving Phuket asking will you be returning for another holiday I think 90 percent would say no.

Disagree entirely.

You just need to look at the number of repeat visitors, something I can see quite clearly, and most of those will be back again next year.

For every tourist that has a bad experience or simply doesn't like the place, there are many more that have a very good holiday, whether staying in a luxury resort or a budget guesthouse.