Please dont't pay the entrance fee!!!

You don't need to pay the entrance fee (400B) for The National Park because it is a expensive fee and unfair for everybody.

Why you have to pay entrance fee for? The National Park is not cover the whole island. The beach is not won by The National Park.

When they are you for the entrance fee. Please ask them which area is a National Park.Let's them to show you a document to prove it.

Like I said sounds like the entrance fee for farangs, probably free for locals.

Huh? So they really did double the prices for foreigners, did they? I noticed this news (then only plan) on (now ended) 1stopchianmai.com/blog month or two ago, but did not think they would go thru it! :-O

Oh and yes, Koh Samet is very dirty, nothing like national parks otherwhere on this planet...

the last time i was @ samet it was 200b entrance fee , has it doubled in price?

also i was under the impression that the beaches come under the national park because you can camp on them free of charge.

what happened to make you so angry ? i thought it was free for thai ppl to enter anyway. so surely it should be farangs who are angry.

just a thought.

greedy!

that's why my ex and his friend always walk from other direction to not (even) pay 200 baht,lol GREAT!

It is not free for thai, 40thb for thai (before 20thb)

why I am angry?? cuz it is very expensive and unfair, also about business here, if they charge double price here. Maybe some toursit change to go to koh chang instead. that's why!!

like i said, the national park never ever do anything to make koh samet good. only take a money, but what is money for, if they make something for here i will say nothing when the price go up .

where is the money goes?!?

i understand what you are saying but you are complaining about 40 b , i understand this is a lot of money to thai ppl but we are paying 400b now 10 times what you pay.

400b is nearly 6 english pounds, i live in an area of the uk called nottingham , we have a very famous forest here sherwood forest and its very beautiful.i visited it last week the price for entry was 2.95 , half of what i will be charged the next time i go to samet.

i was under the impression that the uk has one of the highest living cost in the western world,so if i am going to be charged to enter places of interest surely it has to be in line with local economy.400b is not cheap to any farang especially those farang who live and work in thailand.

for some strange reason my country dosnt seem to charge foreigners any more for any services,thinking about it im sure its illegal and we cannot double charge. we seem to think eveyone should pay the same.

just a thought

I have no problems as a foreign visitor paying 400B for the occassional trip to SAmet...provided the parks services is doing something of value to improve and maintain the parks. If you say that they are not, then something should be done about it!

As for people who work on the island, they should get in for free. And foreign residents should pay Thai prices IMHO.

National Parks in New Zealand, free for New Zealanders..... and... free for Thais.

Like Friend's said, Samet is not a real National Park. Development is running wild, rubbish is piling up everywhere. There are still pockets of beauty left, and it is close to Bangkok, but time is running out for Samet if things don't change very quickly.

BTW. You can hire a jet boat to take you directly to your bungalow for between 800 - 1000 Baht and therefore get around paying the fee anyway.

This 'foreigner pay a zillion times more policy' sucks.Its pure opportunistic extortion.I remember at the botanical gardens in Jinghong (far south of Yunnan...BKK airways fly there) i noticed the usual foreigner pay $$ stuff going on.Also noticed that armed forces paid the same as locals.So we said we were all military personnel and got the cheapo tickets and no ID demanded.Maybe it was the twitchy fingers.Nice gardens they are too.

the thing is, i'm sure they will still charge foreigners the 400 baht even if they live here and pay taxes just like the thais.

that''s why it's racism and it's unfair.

Actually, whenever I have shown my Thai drivers licence I have got in for the Thai price. No exceptions... yet.

dannyboy77

u got my friend wrong, my friend she living there and not care about ur money. but she is the one who's love that island so much that why she decided to quit job from bkk and move there.

she love where she living and she want ppls to play fair.

i either don't like this rule to cost difference money ... many thai ppls feel also it wasn't fair

but i'm sure ur opponion kinda asss ... I got no **** problem about 40 baht or even i pay 400 baht. foreigner who's living and working here guess they also not that poor.

all I feel just ur word, making ur money sound's more value ????

i'm usually not rude but I'm ******* hate what u say to my friend

i use to like british humor but not sercastic ... don't u know we also do sercastic to some dumb tourist too ?

ii didnt say say that our money has more value i said 400b is too expensive when you consider that it is twice as much as national parks in my country, and seeing as my country is known as the most expensive place to live in europe and probably in the top 5 in the world. i find it offensive when lots of thai think its ok to charge farang more. .was i really being sarcastic or telling the truth?

did i call you dumb , did i swear at friend ?, no i didnt.

its nice to know how you truly feel about "dumb tourist"

it doesnt matter what we say or do we will only be dumb farang with too much money.

i am very sorry if i offended friend but i only told the truth.

when i come to samet in december i will stay away from friend bar no problem.

Nong_sonny

I dont think danny is being rude or even sarcastic in his words.

In the UK many key tourist places are reduced price, or even free, to all regardless of nationality.

The support comes from our national lottery which is in the majority purchased by UK citizens.

Double standards is not allowed and nor should it ever be.

I have just come back from thailand yesterday and had another fantastic time in your beautiful country, but i still resent the double pricing standard.

Nong sonny I can see she is extremely supportive of the park and is upset that the money taken is not going back into the envoronment. From my perspective, that is the crux of her post and I support it.

Now for my 1 satang worth. One cant get away from the point being made that to charge foreigners 10 times the amount they charge Thais, or any amount higher, because they are foreigners is absurd. If the reverse happened to a Thai in another country would there be screams of racism and it being unfair? I think so.

Further, is it fair that if one of the many Thai bilionaires went to the park, and was asked for 40 bt while a foreigner who may be earning practically nothing in comparison to his rich Thai counterpart, is working, legitimately, in Thailand, has to pay 400bt? This is one of the reasons foreigners object to this practice. However the basic underlying issue is it is unfair and is just another example of foreigner exploitation.

One day someone will wake up to the fact that without foreign investment and tourism, Thailand would be, to put it very mildly, in very deep trouble.

The last figures I could find of foreign investment in Thailand shows that in 1999 US$4.2bil was invested in Thailand, thats 1999 and just for one year. There are other countries vying for this money, so why doesnt Thailand welcome foreigners in a better way than exploiting them. Forget the undesirable foreigner, that is not what I am talking about here

Source of figures : http://www.thailand.com/exports/html/country_finvest_stat.htm

What Mike said (my fingers are feeling lazy... no, you can't speculate as to why).

1. The 400 baht fee was approved but postponed - they're gonna charge foreigners 400 Baht from next October, whoever is trying to charge you that now is a scum. Fee for Thais has been raised from 20 to 40 baht already.

2. As Punisher correctly mentioned - Thai driving licence entitles you, farang, to "Thai" price.

Just my 2 cents.

Actually 5km within the island is national park.

But 400B is very expensive.

umm...speak Thai??? It would probably work for me cause I look Thai. But I do find it a rip that there are different prices for foreigners

As I recall, if you can prove you are a resident you don't have to pay the higher fee.

Just a thought.

I wonder how much of that extra money is actually reinvested in the national parks?

To clean them up, and improve the ammenities, roads and infastructure etc, which will in the long run attract more tourists and more money.

None of it I bet!

It will work its way into the back pocket of another greedy politician (yet again).

Nothing like a bit of long term planning eh?

Its not even double pricing, doesnt 10 times the price sound a bit extreme????

Blatant greed, blatant racism spring to mind.

Just another example of the blatant racism foreigners here have to put up with on a daily basis.

The foreigners who live here get sick of it, as people try to rip us off daily.

Its a shame as it just makes foreigners look at Thai people in a bad way.

I have spoke to so many people who will never come back to this country for this reason (including my parents and sisters).

I wont spend my money going to places that have different prices for foreigners.

I will take my money somewhere else.

Wont be going to Samet again then.

Along with the hundreds of other places that have the same policy.

Greed and small mindedness have prevailed again.

I call it shooting yourself in the foot.

So follow my example and boycott and place with two tiered pricing.

well, I didn't mean I mind to pay 40 thb if they development something good here.(Infact I dont have to pay cuz i live here) but i think 40 or 400 thb pay for nothing anyway. I didnt see they work anything . just only going to the boat take the money from the tourist.

I talked with the local ppl who lived on the island before the national park coming. The national park want them to pay rent for the land for them. (but it is not national park's land) it is thier land. Who wanna pay rent for them land? huh?

If they show us what they work somthing on the island. Of course I wont complian anything.

If the expensive entrance fee can control and safe the natural, like make the system about destroy garbage and ****. no pipe into the sea.

make the road better than now, As i was seeing in taxi's broad in the village , they were put money for fix the road. What a national park doing then?

also someone said the national park wanna control the local ppl not building more bungalow.wanna keep the nature. but u know what. they said u can build more bungalow if they pay for rent the land. It does mean they wanna keep the nature, its mean they want money!!

I agree with you " friends" Where the money go for....I will see what I can do in this matter....Let's Thai doing something for the Samet Island. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!