Phra Nakhon Khiri and the Question I Asked the Ticket Seller
I went to Phra Nakhon Khiri, the historical park on the hill above Phetchaburi town, on a hot afternoon in February. The view is one of the better ones in central Thailand – a 19th-century palace, three hills, three temples, the town spread out below. I was there with Thai friends. I had been talking all morning about how much I love Phetchaburi and why I just moved to Cha-Am. Then I got to the ticket booth.
The Sign at the Booth
Phra Nakhon Khiri Dual Pricing Thailand
The sign at Phra Nakhon Khiri lists two prices. Thai citizens pay 40 baht. Foreigners pay 200 baht. Five times the local price. There is no senior discount, no resident discount, no permanent-resident discount. If your face does not look Thai, you pay the foreign rate. This is not new. Dual pricing exists at most national parks, royal palaces, and historical sites in Thailand. It is not hidden – the sign is in English and Thai. What is new, for me, is that after 21 years here, after permanent residency, after paying Thai income tax for over a decade, the sign still gets to me. It got to me that afternoon.The Question I Asked
I was there with Thai friends. They had paid 40 baht each. I walked up to the ticket seller – politely, not aggressively – and asked her one question in Thai. “Yutitham mai?” It means: Is this fair? I added a few examples. What if women paid 200 baht and men paid 40? Yutitham mai? What if ladyboys paid 200 and other Thais paid 40? Yutitham mai? Why me? I am a permanent resident. I pay Thai taxes. I have lived here longer than some of the staff. Yutitham mai? The ticket seller said nothing. She was not the right person to argue with – she does not write the rules, she sells the tickets – and I knew that. The point was not to win an argument with a 23-year-old Thai woman doing her job. The point was to ask the question out loud, in Thai, in front of Thai friends, in a place where the question rarely gets asked. I want to be honest. Most of the time, I pay. I pay at Wat Pho. I pay at the Grand Palace. I pay at the historical parks. I pay at the national parks. I do not make a scene. I want to see these places, the surcharge is annoying but small in absolute terms, and the line moves faster if you do not argue. The difference at Phra Nakhon Khiri was that I was not a tourist. I was a permanent resident having a Thursday afternoon out with friends. The dual price reframed the entire visit. Suddenly I was not a friend showing his Thai friends a place I love. I was a foreigner the system had decided to charge five times more for the same view.The Argument for Dual Pricing
The official argument is that Thai citizens fund these sites with their taxes, so they should pay less. It is not an unreasonable starting point. Many countries do something similar – French museums offer EU resident rates, U.S. national parks have annual passes, Egyptian sites distinguish nationals. The difference in Thailand is the size of the gap and the lack of a residency option. A 20% local discount for taxpayers is one thing. Charging foreigners 5x or 10x the local price, with no exemption for permanent residents who pay Thai income tax, is something else. I have paid more Thai tax in the last ten years than most tourists will ever pay in entrance fees. The math does not really work.
What Phra Nakhon Khiri Is, If You Ignore the Booth
For all of that, the place itself is beautiful. King Mongkut (Rama IV) built Phra Nakhon Khiri in the 1850s as a summer palace. It sits on three hills. The western hill has the palace and an observatory. The central hill has Phra That Chom Phet, a Sri Lankan-style chedi. The eastern hill has Wat Phra Kaeo Noi, a smaller version of Bangkok’s Emerald Buddha temple. You can walk between them. There is a tram if it is too hot, which on most days it is. Monkeys are everywhere – entertaining for fifteen minutes, less entertaining when one tries to take your water bottle. The view of Phetchaburi from the top, on a clear day, makes the climb worth it. The historical park is genuinely one of the better day trips from Bangkok or Cha-Am. It is also one of the places where the dual pricing sting bothers me the most, because I love Phetchaburi and I want to bring people there.The Bigger Point
This is not a complaint post. I live in Thailand. I will continue to live in Thailand. I am not leaving over a 160-baht surcharge. The point is more about yutitham – fairness – as a value. Thai culture talks about it often. The country prides itself on hospitality. The foreigners who have invested their lives here, who married Thai partners, who built businesses, who pay taxes, who sit on Thai school boards, who run Thai law firms – most of us are happy to pay our share. We are also paying attention to the difference between paying our share and being told that, no matter how long we live here, we will always pay five times more for the same hill. There are easier solutions than abolishing the system. Permanent resident discounts. Long-term-visa discounts. Tax-ID-based concessions. Other countries figured this out. Thailand could too. The ticket seller did not have answers for me. She was not supposed to. The question is for the people above her – and one day, a sign that says “Permanent residents: 40 baht” would make the view from the top of Phra Nakhon Khiri even better than it already is.
Practical Information: Visiting Phra Nakhon Khiri
- Where: Phetchaburi town, central Thailand. About 2 hours by car from Bangkok, 30 minutes from Cha-Am.
- Entrance fee: 40 THB Thai / 200 THB foreigner. Tram up the hill: small additional fee.
- Best time: November to February – cool season. Mornings before 10 a.m. avoid the worst heat.
- Watch: The macaques. Do not carry food in your hand. Hold on to your water bottle.
- Combine with: Khao Luang Cave (10 min away), Phetchaburi old town palm sugar shops, lunch at the local market
- Dress: Modest for the temples (covered shoulders, knees). Wear shoes you can walk in.
