I´ve mentioned on several occasions that I frequently have trouble of some kind or other when travelling. But I have to say that the trip to Australia thus far has been travel-trouble free. Our flights were all on time, our hotel in Melbourne was fine. Our apartment in Cabarita Beach is everything we could wish for. Australia is everything we could wish for, and more.
Except for the fact that we are currently in the middle of the worst storms and floods this area of Australia has seen for over thirty years (I wonder, sometimes, if someone is trying to tell me something). And I am currently crossing my fingers that Cabarita Beach doesn´t get flooded, too.
Meanwhile, one of the dominant stories in the Australian media over the last few days, apart from the storms, has been about an Australian woman who was arrested while on vacation in Thailand for . . . wait for it. . . stealing a bar mat from a bar in Phuket. Even though she denied it (and friends with her in the bar also confirmed her innocence), she faced up to five years in prison.
Fortunately for poor Annice Smoel the Thai Department of Tourism and the Foreign Ministry intervened (perhaps because they were worried about the effect of this on the tourist trade), and she is now on her way back home.
Australian woman Annice Smoel has been released from detention in Thailand and is free to travel home.
Ms Smoel, who had faced a possible five years in jail for allegedly stealing a bar mat, has been given a six-month suspended jail term and a 1,000 baht ($38) fine for theft.
Officials at the Phuket Provincial Court told AAP Ms Smoel was initially sentenced to six months’ jail but the sentenced was suspended after she pleaded guilty in court.
The officials said Ms Smoel was also placed on a two-year good behaviour bond.
They said Ms Smoel’s passport and other documents, initially held with the Thai Police and immigration, were to be returned to her.
The Phuket Wan website said the fine was paid by the Governor of Phuket, Wichai Praisa-nob who intervened after being contacted by Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and the Foreign Ministry.
Now that´s what I call serious trouble with travel.
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