"...stay away from their duty free shops (all "King Duty Free" owned by the same guy and very overrated / overpriced)"
"Keep an eye on your bill in restaurants. Most of them DO have a 10% service charge (tip)"
"Although tipping is not expected or required, it is a nice gesture to leave a small amount, when you receive good service, particularly as salaries are low"
"I found a lovely little tourist help shop called 'Phuket Surprise Tour' at 188/2 Had[patong, Thaweevong Rd.... and a lovely lady with the name 'Boom' told me they closed down - she knew it well. I have Boom's card - you can email her on arunya28_8@hotmail.com if you would like to. if anyone reading this would like some good tour advice in an airconditioned shop, go check this one out. Very friendly, great English and they have all the tour info sitting right there (and they don't hassle you at all)"
"That walk between Bangla down to Patong Merlin area is a nightmare. Last time i stayed there i did it 2 or 3 times for some shopping and thought I'm glad I'm not staying this end anymore"
"> halve the price and work your way back up...
Are you serious?
I found: get a price from them, and then laugh or pretend to be insulted at their price, and start to walk away... when asked for your price, put in 10-20% of what they put, then work up e.g. if you offer 10% they'll probably offer slightly less or just half it straight out, then you offer maybe 15%, and they'll start to get into that range pretty quickly, but you have to be firm. Don't be a afraid to walk away, they'll just yell at you how low they're willing to go to try and snatch the sale. Try again elsewhere, and push push push, you can quickly work out the limits of how low they'll go on a particular item, then you can make them go one lower than that :)
If you paid half what they originally said, you paid too much. If you paid more than half, you paid even more :)
Also, I tended to give my business to those that were more fair with the haggling and starting price"
"There are many tour booking kiosks all over Patong and elsewhere. I just turn up and compare prices. You pay whatever you agree and the agent organizes everything. They are very reliable"
"I generally paid probably around 20% of their asking price, sometimes 10%"
"If you are meeting someone from a different culture for the first time, apply these general rules: