Davo Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 stumpdog said:It will be interesting to see if this kind of information makes it in to the book travel agents keep that give tourists the real low down on places. 'Thailand has many beautiful Temples and beaches. The local nightlife is good but closes at around 1am. You are required to carry your passport at all times and you may be arrested if you don't. If you are arrested you will sit in a police cell until someone can deliver your passport to the police station for you. So you might not want to think about travelling alone to Thailand. There is random drug testing and you may be detained for 3 or more hours and forced to produce a urine sample into a plastic cup. Any failure or a positive sample could land you a lengthy spell in a Thai jail... Well there's only 2 possibilities. One is that all this bullshit is only temporary. If permanent then it is only a matter of time before it filters out to the general public in which case the Thais will have done serious damage to their tourist industry. (Still listed as their most important industry in most economic summaries.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belem Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I remember when the crackdown of the summer of 2001 happened. Everyone on this board was saying it's just the local police flexing their muscle in an attempt to get more tea money from the bars, and by the time the peak season starts, everything will be back to normal. The last time the Thailand nightlife was normal was the peak season of 2000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I also remembered when people posted the 'facts' they were chased from this board - now at least, they listen and wonder. I have lived in several places where there was always 'action', but systematically when the police began closing one place after another, people stopped going to them. Bangkok could end up like many other places have ended up - only time will tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 MM, would U mind elaborate on which places?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belem Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 MightyMouse said: Bangkok could end up like many other places have ended up - only time will tell. Like Manila in the early 90's when the mayor closed down the Ermita and Del Pillar nightlife districts. Back then the Manila nightlife was as wild as Bangkok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Belem said: MightyMouse said: Bangkok could end up like many other places have ended up - only time will tell. Like Manila in the early 90's when the mayor closed down the Ermita and Del Pillar nightlife districts. Back then the Manila nightlife was as wild as Bangkok. Wilder I'd say. Bangkok was good in the 80's but there has never been anything like Ermita and Olongapo. Things started to change under Aquino. Mayor Lam put the last nail in the coffin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiery Jack Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 mongatu said: Hamokhamok said: My biggest problem with bringing the passport is mainly the problem of keeping it dry. My experience of the carrying anything in your pockets in Thailand is that because of the heat and sweat etc everything in your pockets will be wet. It seems that we are f....d. There doesn't seem to any way around this one. Agree with you about the wetness problem. To avoid that I intend to get a small passport sized ziplock plastic bag to use to carry the passport in. Especially during songkran in Pattaya when every other pissed-up fat asshole of a red-faced falang idiot standing outside a beer bar thinks it's a king of a wheeze to unload 4 litres of cold water from a luminescent orange pump-gun all over your fucking threads. Great. jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Gadfly1 said: What is so troubling about these reports is that it sounds like the police are simply looking for an excuse to harrass and extort money from tourists. If they don't test positive for drugs - and it appears that only 2 out of more than 100 might have tested positive - find something else to extort some money. This goes well beyond the reasonable bounds of any legitimate campaign against drugs. It sounds like extortion, pure and simple. Gents, Perhaps we are missing one of the main reasons the police are being forced into this type of "extortion." Police in Thailand are VERY POORLY paid. It is assumed by all concerned that the police will make their money through "collections," and collecting on vice was quite a lucrative business. Unfortunately, with the crackdown, many of the opportunities to collect have disappeared and the police are left looking for other ways to supplement their income, and, who can blame them as they make very little. The solution, pay them a good wage and then punish those who extort money. Until they are paid a fair wage these petty extortions will continue. Theses guys have to make a living... GS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jxxxl Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Goatscroat, Dont you think though, that exorting money from patrons of places like Q Bar would be so damaging to Bangkok's image that it wouldn't be tolerated by government or tourist officials? Extorting from gogo and specialty bars is understandable because (a) they often have illegal activity on-site and ( no one is sympathetic with their cause. However, venues like CM2 and Q Bar don't fall into the naughty nightlife catagory, even though there's freelancers there. It appears that there is a systematic initiave to drive nightlife out of the Sukhumvit area and maybe Bangkok altogether. And, I think this initiative is being drivin by people well above the police. The govt and tourist officials aren't stupid or blind and I just can't believe they would tolerate this unless they endorsed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Toad Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 To me there are two issues here: Firstly 400 people were enjoying a perfectly legal night out. This was not a girlie bar and the prices are high suggesting that the Tourists in such a place are the high end tourists the CEO keeps talking about. They were effectively held in police custody for no reason for an hour before they took a drugs test. Secondly on the passport issue. Most embassies actively discourage you from carrying your passport. The last thing they need is more lost passports and for that matter the mast thing Thailand needs is more lost/stolen passports floating around. In addition passports are not designed to be carried about all the time. Passports should last 10 years, if rammed on the pocket and abused in bars etc. I doubt the average passport will last 1 year. That applies to all passports including Thai. Yes identification should be carried but nearly every country these days has a driving licence with a photo which is designed to be carried. Or a photo copy of your passport + visa stamps should suffice. This story has run in all the main press in Bangkok and is on all the main webboards. It can only discourage wealthy tourists. Add this to other recent stories and Thailand is beginning to look like a third World dictatorship/police state not a democratic first world country that it seems to aspire to. So not only are tourists put off but investors too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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