If you are looking for the perfect souvenir monk to come away with on your holiday to St David's, please make sure you use an officially licenced monk vendor.
There are number of monastic touts roaming the St Davids area and you will be able to spot them clearly because they are usually wearing a large trench coat and stood in the car park by Porth y Twr offering people reasonably priced monks for sale.
A lot of people who come on our St Davids comedy walking tours understandably want to take a little piece of St Davids home with them. Many of them wish to buy their very own little monk, which although not strictly illegal is not considered ethically great. But many innocent people have recently been fooled into thinking that they have bought a genuine little monk only to later find out that they have purchased a guinea pig in costume. This is very upsetting for people who have come to this beautiful corner of Wales to experience an authentic Pembrokeshire holiday experience only to come away with a guinea pig that they thought was a monk. It is easily done!
There is a man who sells these “monks” in the car park of Porth y Twr, one of five original car parks in the city of St Davids. He wears a trench coat and usually has a really obvious fake beard and sells them out the back of his van in a briefcase, so he looks more official. He is always there after 7pm each night when we finish our walking tour and we keep getting emails the following week from guests who say they bought a monk off this man and it turned out to be a guinea pig. They are usually very disappointed. One woman called our HQ and spoke to our intern Sebastien and cried down the phone to him for 4 hours when he had other things he had to be getting on with. It was very inconvenient but we sympathise with people’s pain.
The man is very convincing to people who don't know any better. Before anyone even asks he whips out a "certificate of authentication" which claims that he is an officially licenced souvenir monk vendor called Shaun Garcia. To the untrained eye that sounds pretty legitimate but unfortunately if you do a quick internet search you will find out that anyone can download one of these certificates if you know the right people and can afford to pay the £30,000 fees upfront and are willing to travel to Belgium in order to meet a guy who sells the certificates (he also throws in a briefcase for no extra charge).
One of our recent guests on the walking tour has made it their mission to warn others before they make the same mistake. Thank you to Angela Furlong from Cardigan for taking the time to share your disappointment with us and make the accompanying poster. We can only hope that others can learn from your mistake.
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