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Tourists’ suitcases end up in the sea during Thailand ferry ride: ‘Crew laughed’
Tourists were forced to watch helplessly after their luggage was swept out to sea during a ferry ride in Thailand.
Tourists were forced to watch helplessly after their luggage was swept out to sea during a ferry ride in Thailand. Alice Zamparelli, one of the tourists on the ferry, captured now-viral TikTok footage of suitcases bobbing up and down on the water.
Zamparelli, from Perth in Australia, was sailing from Koh Tao island to Koh Samui on Sunday when she saw that her own suitcase, along with dozens of others, were swept out to sea. She did not manage to recover her luggage, and nor did she receive proper compensation for the loss.
It is believed that the luggage was not secured properly on the upper deck of the ferry. Due to choppy weather conditions, the suitcases fell overboard.
Watch the video below:
Koh Tao and Koh Samui are two of Thailand’s most popular islands for tourists. A ferry between the two typically takes two hours. However, Zamparelli’s video has highlighted how these ferries sometimes operate without adequate security measures.
(Also read: ' ₹1 lakh for 3 IV drips': Indian woman shares 'hospital scam' experience in Thailand)
Australian tourist says ‘crew laughed’
Alice Zamparelli blamed incompetent crew members for the mishap. “Lost all our luggage (because) of incompetent crew members,” she captioned her TikTok video.
The Australian tourist in Thailand further claimed that crew members refused to provide full compensation for the lost luggage.
“The ferry staff were fully convinced that a suitcase could not be worth more than 20,000 baht when in reality all our belongings would definitely have been around the 100,000 baht range for each of our suitcases
“In Thailand…everything is much cheaper than in western countries like Australia so they almost laughed in our faces when were were explaining the worth of our belongings,” she said.
Zamparelli said she managed to get 50,000 baht as compensation, only through the sheer power of persistence.
“Thankful we were able to get 50,000 baht but it took a lot of convincing and arguing and they finally had to take us inside and pay us discretely.
“No one else got paid as much as us unfortunately even though it still wasn’t anywhere near enough. The only reason we got paid that much was because we stayed there until the very end wearing them down,” said Zamparelli .
