I recently had to evacuate the condo where I am currently living due to the floods and my wife and myself decided to check into a hotel down town for a couple of days. We had heard that a lot of the hotels were offering a reduced room rate for people who had to escape the floods. The hotel we wanted to stay in was full so we went to another hotel near her shop in Pratunam. We were told that the room was reduced to 900 THB a night for flood evacuees. This was expensive but a good price as the hotel rooms were quite expensive normally. The receptionist then informed us that, because I was a farang, we would have to pay 2000 THB a night. My wife and her friend explained that I was an ESL teacher in Thailand, that I lived in Thailand, that we were married, that I paid tax and had a work permit and also that I was affected by the floods. No go. The price was 900 THB if you were Thai and 2000 THB if you were a farang.

I have experienced prejudice before when paying more than Thai nationals to enter tourists attractions. I have presented ID and so on, but this is piece meal. Some places give you a reduced price and other places don't. This is a different situation. I wasn't able to return home and I was pretty angry that I was not offered the same price for a room as a Thai national. A rich Thai person, who earns far more than me, would get a reduced rate to stay at the same hotel simply because that person is Thai. We are both victims of the same disaster afterall.

My suggestion is, if you find yourself in the same situation, let a Thai friend book you into the room at the reduced flood rate and make yourself scarce until they get the key.

Another example of profitering I encountered was a car park. They had put the price up to make as much money as they could from people parking in their car park overnight by charging 300 THB a day. They have since increased that to 700 THB. That's aimed at everyone regardless of if they are Thai or a farang. A disgrace!

Greedy people