A tourist was left furious after watching her own luggage float out to sea during a boat trip in Thailand.
Alice Zamparelli, from Perth in Australia, was sailing from Koh Tao island to Koh Samui on Sunday when she watched dozens of suitcases, including her own, be swept out to sea.
In a video she posted on TikTok, passengers’ belongings were seen bobbing up and down on the waves.
Alice blamed ‘incompetent crew members’ for the debacle – and was left stunned by the response of boat staff when they were alerted to the foul-up.
It is understood that the suitcases were not securely stored on the upper deck of the speed ferry, and because of the rough water conditions, ended up falling overboard.
Alice said she got back 50,000 baht – equivalent to around £1,100.
When one user, who said they were on the same boat trip, asked whether Alice recovered her luggage, the tourist replied: ‘Nope, got that 50,000 baht though after five hours of tears and broken English.’
In the comment section of her video, the tourist wrote: ‘We were just very persistent. Some people didn’t get any compensation and other[s] also missed their flights.’
She also said: ‘The ferry staff were fully convinced that a suitcase could not be worth more than 20,000 baht (around £470) when in reality all our belongings would definitely have been around the 100,000 baht (around £2350) 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.
‘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.’
The ordeal shocked social media users, who were left desperate for a ‘story time’ explanation.
One said: ‘What colour was your luggage? Because I’m at the beach at Koh Samui and I think I see suitcases in the ocean.’
Another said: ‘And to top it all off, animals are going to eat all that plastic and clothing!
‘It will pollute the sea even more than it already is.’
A third wrote that ‘we got the catamaran to Koh Tao yesterday and so grateful [our] luggage was inside the boat’, while a fourth simply said ‘sending prayers’.
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