More madness on the roads today as I swapped scooters for the 4th time in a month.
Today’s swap happened early after the owner of the old model went sour on me very fast.
It unravelled after I messaged her saying my scooter contract time was almost up. And did she want to drop her prices considering what a fine customer I’d been, and that someone else was offering a rental at about half her prices.
I’ve been paying 4000 baht / month. Compared with 500 baht / DAY when I got to Rayong. And to the new offer of 2300 baht / month from an operator up the road in big bad Pattaya.
I took a taxi van ( 80 baht ! Rayong to Pattaya ) and songthaew ( 15 baht Rayong south to bus station ) to Pattaya this morning to pick the scooter up.
The attitude here in Rayong is ‘those are Pattaya prices’, and they won’t bother trying to compete. What I think they’ll find is that probably sooner rather than later they’ll be facing extinction as newer nimbler creatures move in with their better-adapted habits.
So during texting about returning the current bike , the owner blew a fuse somewhere. She started complaining that she’d made a mistake renting the bike to me! I’m not kidding. A mistake. One which netted her 4500 baht,including deposit.
She called in a boyfriend, apparently, to translate, but still headway was not being made. Then I suggested she refund me the bond plus days for early return, and she’s suddenly all cream and blueberries. It’s beyond me.
I turned up with a fellow teacher at the school, a level-headed science type, and a fine chap to boot.
She was all smiles.
So am I now. I have a cheaper AND better bike, and no longer have to deal with FrankenRenter.
I rode my fellow teacher back into town to pick his bike back up, and since I was in the ‘hood, had to help myself to a second dinner at the
All’s well that ends well.