In the past, I have been one of the people who complain about the higglers on the beach. Have had trips in years past where it seemed like every time we started to walk, it was an almost non-stop barrage of people trying to get our attention, sometimes even standing in our way, not taking "no thank you" for an answer, and getting aggressive when we tried to move on... so much so that I had a group of guys ask me if I was scared - and when I said no, they said "you should be" and continued to follow me until I stopped at a bar. At times it was so bad, it would make my wife so upset she would stay at the hotel and not want to leave the hotel grounds, and then not want to return - it's the main reason we hadn't been back in 3 years.

This trip, the first day or two we got a lot of attention from the higglers, and for the most part a "no, thank you" was enough to move on... one or two talked **** as we walked away, but that was it. The "Remember me" guy (who I had not met and didn't remember) didn't react kindly to me telling him that no, we hadn't met... but after the first day, we were able to walk just about anywhere on the beach and while we were approached multiple times, it was no hassle to just say no thanks and keep moving. It was much improved over years past. I even had a couple interesting conversations, and ended up spending a good bit of time with Dokta Kush talking about the state of Ganja in JA and the USA. I didn't buy anything, and wasn't pressured to. (I did check out his wares and was somewhat impressed - but I'm not gonna pay $10 US a gram in JA, no way).

I didn't see any police presence to cause this, but our trip was a lot more relaxing than the last one. Already looking to return later this year - hopefully there's been a change and it wasn't a fluke!