Junglejumbo

I am staying in Patong, Phuket and all 7-11's and other main road convenience stores are sold out of bottled drinking water with the exception of some stores having the small white bottles which are low quality and the water tastes of plastic. However, if you search down the sois to the family-owend shop houses you can still find some bottles but pretty much all of them are the small bottles. If you're a big water drinker like me, it's a bit of a bother. If you're the type that can get by on 3-4 of those small 33ml bottles or substituting with coka-cola which two tourists told me they were doing, then perhaps you'll get by for a while before getting something else wrong with you. Tourists should be aware of the water problem elsewhere in Thailand as the plastic bottles and tops are mostly made around Bangkok.

I've been heading down to Pattaya 1-3 times a year for the past 15 years and over the last few years all the hotels that I used to stay at I've noticed have run down air-conditioning systems. I've tried so many hotels and really can't find one which is quiet or has good air-conditions. I don't want to spend several thousand baht a night in Pattaya, I just want a clean, quiet room and an air-condition that doesn't make an unusual noise and is of course cool enough with a properly working thermastat.  I used to stay in a place called the Nova Lodge for 1,200 baht per night some years ago located at Central Pattaya and this place was great but I assume that this place is no longer as I can't find it.  

I've tried several of the large noticeable hotels around Central and South Pattaya as well as guest houses at Jomtien.

Wonder if others find the same problems or have found a nice place...

At lunch time today I went to Yaowarat Road to sell three gold chains. I intended to check out 6-7 shops for the best price. Of course nobody wanted to give me the buying price on the window which I expected because I couldn't remember exactly which shop I bought all of them although I had kept the two certificates for my two 3baht gold chains and the shop on the certificate happened to be the third shop entered. The second shop had offered me 18,900 per 1 bhat (15.2g) which was a reasonable discount to the establishment's buying price today of 20,100 for gold necklaces (20,300 for gold bars).

I came in and showed the man the 3 baht chain and the certificate. He examined in briefly although didn't weigh it. Then he asked if I had anymore in the small pouch I had placed on the counter which he could probably see inside of and I said yes and placed the other two on the counter. Within a few seconds someone came up from behind and grabbed all of them and rushed them around the corner into the back of the shop. I was a bit shocked as I didn't know if he was a robber but then I realised he worked there.

About a couple of minutes later he returned with all three gold chains all cut up and some of it into very small bits. They must have had some kind of cutting machine in the back. I was taken aback as we hadn't yet agreed on the price.  After I'd come into the shop I'd said that I wanted 19,000 baht per 1 baht as I already had an offer for 18,900 from the second shop I visited.

I was pretty shocked seeing my necklaces which I'd saved for the past six years in pieces (he said he needed to be sure that they were real gold).  Then he said he can only give me 18,600 and if I didn't accept I could have the chains back again. But I said "they're all broken now"; "Who's going to want them now?". And he said yes, that's right nobody would buy them in little bits like this expecially as the hall marks were all gone. I looked again and he was right. The ends of the chain were totally demolished. I then felt that I had no choice but to accept his price which I did because I couldn't see a way out of it. There was no way that I was going to walk out of there with my gold in little bits some as small as a few millimetres.  Also, the 3baht chains were bought from his shop and they should've adhered to giving 20,100 to me but instead they pretended that it was another shop with the same name and I could have all the bits back to go to that shop. This was ridiculous. Even the receipts in the book on the counter were still the same as mine with the same logo,even though I'd bought it some years ago. The guys behind the counter were also laughing at me. They basically screwed me for about 10% of the face-value.

I feel very destressed about what has happened to me today. It's not right that this shop can do this to me. It amounts to criminal theft when the neck chains were snatched away from me from someone from behind. I had no reason to want to accept his price and he should've told me his offer when he examined the first chain.

After I got home I called the tourist police and spoke with two people. The lady told me that I should've asked to change them for new ones after I saw that they were broken....anyhow I doubt this shop is going to do that. Then the male policeman also on the line told me that there is nothing that I could do. Even if I had called the police when I was still in the shop and waited until they came there would still be nothing that I could do as there's no certain proof what condition that the gold chains were in they I brought them in. I mentioned the CCTV's but he said that they don't provide enough detail of the gold.

So, seems that absoultely nothing that I can do except write about what happened here.  Anyhow, I would like anybody reading this to realise that most gold shops do not offer the price on the window. They usually say that you have to pay a fee for labor to melt down the gold (even though you also have to pay this when you buy a new chain) or they flatley try to offer you 5-10% less. However, this is the first time I've experienced a shop actually lying about not having sold me the chain or destroying the logo so that I couldn't query it. In fact, it's the first time that I've ever been cheated like this.  

Incidently, this shop didn't have any customers in it despite it being one of the bigger ones on the street. The others were all crowded.

If anybody wants the name of the shop before going to sell or buy gold at Yaowarat please let me know by PM <email address removed>