In more than a decade of traveling, having stayed in literally hundreds of accommodations, I recently had the worst, most absurdly negative staying experience ever at Oyo 570 Seaside Hotel in Khao Tao, Hua Hin, Thailand.
We ended up there in May 2020, coming down to the Thai coast from Chiang Rai. We first spotted Oyo 570 Seaside online on various accommodation sites such as booking.com and Agoda. It was the cheapest choice around the Khao Tao Beach area and looked pretty decent, so we opted for it. Since we were planning to stay for quite some time, we decided to not book online but rather go there and negotiate a better price in person.
Upon our arrival, we were met by a staff who could not speak a single word in English. Communicating over Google Translate, she at first gave us a rate three times higher than advertised online. After some bargaining, we just managed to drop the rate to its online value. We were saving the booking fees both for us and for them, so it was fair enough.
We stayed there for nearly a month and everything was fine: nothing special about the place, but a decent cheap, well-located place to be based at.
Then, one day comes the girl who worked there and asks to take a picture of the electricity meter that was installed in our room. “Whatever, go ahead,” I prompted. Shortly afterwards, she comes with a translated message displayed on her mobile phone asking us to pay a 2,100 THB electricity bill for some three weeks we had already stayed there. “Are you serious?” I objected. “Since when do you pay electricity bills at hotels?”
She insisted that we had to pay because the big boss said so. I let her know that whatever any boss said is none of my concern; and, of course, we won’t pay a dime; the big boss could come and talk with us if they need some further clarification. She accepted that, left, and came back to ask me for my telephone number shortly thereafter. I gave her my number and waited for the boss’s call eagerly to arrive at any moment. But it didn’t.
Only three days later did my phone ring late in the evening. It was a woman calling on the boss’s behalf. She asked me again to pay for electricity. I told her that we won’t and she said that in such a case we need to pay double the rate for the rest of our stay. I told her that we won’t pay anything and she said that in such a case we will be given back our money for the rest of the stay and we will need to leave on the next day; effectively kicking us out after we refused to be ripped off.
I could have well refused; just ignore them and complete our stay normally as was agreed. But the situation felt very strange and I wouldn’t even feel safe that we will find our stuff in the room after, say, going down to the beach for a dip. Plus I felt rather disgusted by this outrageous attitude and didn’t feel much like staying there a single day longer. We got our money back, booked a new place, and got ready to leave on the next day.
Early in the morning, while waiting in the garden with all our stuff packed for the check-in time of our new place, we noted a large group of Thai people who arrived and were to occupy all the property’s rooms, ours included. Everything then made much more sense. They probably just got a request for this large, well-paying group and, after a month of having stayed there, they decided to break our agreement and effectively kick us out just like that. Never have I even heard of something similar. An absolute disgrace for Thailand’s hospitality sector. I would strongly deter any visitors to the area from considering staying at this shameful business.
Furthermore, despite being greedy, the owners don’t seem to pay their stuff either. The young couple that maintained the property was there 24-7, working ceaselessly like slaves, nevertheless, they seemed rather broke and came to borrow money from us, which we had to show quite some persistence to eventually take back, long overdue.
