Good Place, But a Little Greedy

We stayed for three nights in a very attractive, spacious and comfortable 3rd floor room. Booked on Agoda, this set us back $28/night. The room featured a frdige, whose mini-bar prices were reasonable. The view from the balcony was spectacular. Ao Noi is a lovely area, with dramatic limestone peaks at each end of the bay. On the days we were there there were noticeable swells, with an occasional wave big enough for a spot of body-surfing.

The included breakfast was minimal -- coffee/tea/cocoa and toast with margerine (ugh!) and jam. However, on request, and for a bit extra they'd whip up fried rice, eggs or fruit.

When we booked this room we hadn't actually realized how relatively isolated the place was. We soon realized that we really needed to rent a motor-scooter to get around and to get to dining options, esp. in the evening when running the gauntlet of dogs would have been an ordeal. Aow Noi Sea View's scooter price was a bit high, at 300 baht/day, but there didn't seem to be any cheaper option in the vicinity..

We put a total of about 28 km on the scooter. When we left, the owners gave us a ride into town. Since both owners -- man and wife -- came in the car, I'm confident that they were coming into town anyway. So I was startled when, upon arrival in Prachuap, we were told we owed 300 baht for the 6 km ride plus the petrol we'd used in the scooter. I protested that we probably hadn't used more than a liter of petrol and Khao (the wife) promptly dropped her demand to 200 baht, which made me think she knew perfectly well that her first ask was a rip-off. Honestly, at 300 baht scooter rental and given how little we drove it, they shouldn't have charged us for petrol at all. And given that they were coming into town anyway, they shouldn't have charged us for the ride.

So a generally good experience was a bit spoiled by a sense that the owners were trying to squeeze more than was fair out of us.