Category — Thailand

I just watched the first episode of the new British television series “Big Trouble in Thailand“. I have seen some posts on Thailand forums arguing that it will keep tourists away and others that say it will only encourage more people to visit.

We often hear of reports how the police are corrupt in Thailand, but in most cases the foreigners involved in the incidents were drunk and out of control and pretty much all of their own doing. The warnings for drug use in Thailand are pretty clear.

The exception is the jet ski incident where a British marine rents a jet ski on the beach at Phuket, and the operator claims he damaged it. He demands 40,000 baht for repairs. There’s a stand off when a senior marine tries to negotiate a lower fee. He ends up having to pay 35,000 baht to the jet ski operator.

It’s probably a good idea not to ever rent a jet ski, but the same trouble can happen with motorbikes or cars. A young girl is caught by police for drug possession and faces a couple of months in jail, because she cannot pay the fine.

The program also feature the foreign tourist police volunteers. There seems a lot negativity towards them by other foreigners, but watching the program they seemed to do a good enough job. In the case of the drunk Australian guy he probably would have ended up in a police cell, if they weren’t there to assist. They helped call his father, who came and picked him up.

If you saw the program, what did you think of it?

I have just written an article When is the best time to visit Thailand.

I hope it helps people decide when they should visit Thailand.

Annice Smoel aka. “the beer mat lady” has pleaded guilty and got off with a small fine for stealing a beer mat from the Aussie Bar in Phuket.

Crikey had a good wrap of the story from the media’s perspective:

Are we so prejudiced nowadays that any Aussie who is arrested for a misdemeanour in Asia is front page news? The beat up about the Melbourne “beer mat mum”, Annice Smoel, suggests the Australian media will grab any chance it can to condemn the authorities — particularly the judiciary — of our Asian neighbours.
The Daily Telegraph’s headline on Tuesday summed up the tone with “Beer mat mum faces Thai jail hell.”
As we all now know, Smoel received a suspended sentence and a fine of just $40. She walked free from court and is reportedly on her way home this morning. The sentence was a mile away from the potential “five years in jail” mooted by the media over the last week.

I am sure the Australian Women’s Weekly magazine are writing the check now for her story. For the people that wanted her theft to be dealt with more harshly, you will just have to be satisfied that she will be called the “Phuket Beer Mat Lady” for the rest of her life.

An Australian tourist and mother of three children, Annice Smoel was arrested in Phuket, Thailand for stealing a ‘bar mat’. She says one of her friends put the mat in her bag as a joke. When undercover police confronted her in the bar, she left the bar, but police caught up with her and she spent the following two nights in a holding cell.

Typical outrage is going on from the Australian media, including 3aw.com.au who have some interviews with her Australian lawyer, Annice herself and her husband. Australians always seem surprised when they get caught for something overseas, that the government doesn’t come running to get them out of jail.

It is a sad story – a fun night that goes completely wrong, but she now has to face the Thai justice system. Since the story has now broken and international media have picked it up, it will be interesting to see if this will help or hinder her case. She faces two to five years jail time.

There are already talks of Australians planning to boycott visiting Phuket.

I got a taxi yesterday and the driver said something about a nightclub in Bangkok. I had no idea what he wanted to say and found it pretty odd me being in Indonesia that a taxi driver was talking about a nightclub in Bangkok. Only later did I find out about the tragedy at a nightclub in Bangkok, leaving over 60 people dead and 200 injured.

I had never been to the place, but I have been to plenty of discos, bars and nightclubs all over Asia that are potential deathtraps.

Most bars in Japan are reached by elevators and probably nothing more than a tiny stairwell for an emergency exit. In Tokyo there are so many tall narrow buildings with different bars on every level. I have been in some bars that were packed and if there was a fire or earthquake, it would be impossible to escape.

I celebrated New Years here in Indonesia and while they don’t have the problems with alcohol like in Australia, people were letting off firecrackers all over the city. It was fun, but you can sort of understand why they were banned in Australia.

Not sure if it was exactly the same boat, but on the same route I took to get to Langkawi from Satun in Thailand caught fire. Fortunately no-one was injured in the fire.

In Friday’s 3.45pm incident, 67 passengers, including eight crew members, had a narrow escape when the ferry caught fire in the middle of the sea.

The ferry, en route to Langkawi from Satun, Thailand, was carrying 59 passengers, including tourists from Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Canada and Thailand. – Bernama

Source

After eight days Bangkok’s international airport will reopen this Friday and will be fully operational around a week later. It is good news for the some 200,000 travelers who have been stranded in Thailand, but the tourism industry will be set to lose millions of dollars.

The closure is going to stay in people’s minds for some time. Most people only get a few weeks vacation each year and they don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars going somewhere, only to have their vacation interrupted.

The protesters got what they wanted and at least it all ended fairly peacefully. The problem is that a precedent has now been set and if a particular group isn’t happy with the government, they know what they have to do.

Thailand’s Prime Minister has been found guilty of vote buying at the last election and has been banned from politics. This is basically what the protest at the Bangkok airport and government house was all about. Flights like they are now slowly resuming.

But is it over?

I doubt it very much. Thailand’s politics are still in a mess and there is a good chance that the current government will still be able to come back in some form, possibly leading to more protests and mayhem for the country.

I caught a bus to Satun today in southern Thailand and a ferry to Langkawi Malaysia. Apparently all of the resorts are full here because of people leaving Thailand.

Even if the airport gets going again, this years high season for Thailand is going to pretty dead. At least 1 million jobs in tourism will be lost.

I stayed here last year and really enjoyed the place. Much more low key than the island resorts in Thailand and the food is great, with lots of variety.

I caught a ferry this morning from Koh Samui to Surat Tani and then a mini bus to Hat Yai. It has been a pretty long day of travel, but the scenery driving through southern Thailand is interesting and different to the north. There were quite a few people busing it to Singapore and one German girl was heading to Phuket to catch her flight home, now with Bangkok airport still closed. From Koh Samui to Singapore it is a long bus ride to catch a flight. The weather hasn’t been great the last couple of weeks, so I am sure some people haven’t had a great holiday in Thailand.

I sat in the front of the mini-bus on the way to Hat Yai. Out of the blue, some cows and calves started crossing the road. The driver slowed a bit and then a calf made a dash across the road coming from the right side of van. It all happened in slow motion and the driver didn’t even hit the brakes. We hit the calf with a thud and the driver kept going. The front wheels went over what felt like a speed bump and then driver started to slow. You could hear the calf squealing as it was dragged along under the bus for around 15-20 meters.

I didn’t know how we would get it out and I started to feel sick with the thought of it. The driver moved a little bit forward and miraculously the calf jumped out from under the bus and took off. Fortunately, it escaped to the road side without getting hit again.

It poured rain for the rest of trip and windscreen wipers weren’t working. I looked across at the dashboard and saw that the speedometer and gas gauge weren’t working either. I buckled in and noticed a little while later that even the driver fastened his seatbelt.

We made it to Hat Yai in the pouring rain and I checked into a nice hotel across the bus station that even has free wifi, where I am writing this now. I am thinking of going to Songkhra which is about 20km away from Hat Yai and spend my last few days in Thailand before heading to Malaysia.

Despite some hope that the airport would reopen this weekend, I strongly doubt that much will happen this weekend. The first clash between protesters and police, earlier today saw the police having to retreat.

More people seem to be joining the protest and on television today, I saw a woman who brought her two small children to the airport. It is unlikely in this situation that the police will use violence to break up the protest. Numbers could drop again by Monday as people return to work.

Since the police and army are reluctant to really try and break up the protest, perhaps something politically really has to give for the madness to end.