Guest lazyphil Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Johannesburg PD could teach him a thing or three?I still have yet to feel any fear in bkk rightly or wrongly fly (sure you?ll tell me I?m wrong!) even went back to my mrs old slum we recently moved out of to greener pastures?other citys I visited like Joburg or Lima left me feeling pretty nervous. I?ve got my rose tinted specs on in los though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 i would not compare bangkok to jo'burg. well, not yet. but i have been at some very frightening situations (for me) here, like recently a wild drive by shooting just a few hundred meters away from me. my missus had several times escaped some citybus because rival technical school students started shooting inside the bus. i have been at some gangconflicts where weapons such as machetes were used. i have to admit though that i spend nowadays most of my nights out in thai areas with thais. go and have a look through some of the sois in the suburbs leading to lower middleclass mu bans somewhere around 2 or 3 at night... have a look at the policestations and have a look at what sort of weapons they confiscate every night. i have had countless thai friends being beaten up and robbed at gunpoint on their way home, especially recently. rape is a national sport. the last one i know of was last week, sixteen kids were involved in raping the shit out of a 14 year old girl - everybody says she was lucky 'coz help came already when only two blokes were through with her. 5 of the blokes were caught so far, age of 13 to 16. happened in the outskirts. so far we foreigners are not directly targetted. very little is written in english language newspapers about those incidents (don't ask me why, it's beyond me :. but just look at the thai news every day... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straycat Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 you know, only a couple of years ago I never saw or could even realize what Fly is describing...I would probably have written it off as bullshit or exaggeration... that is no longer the case: I've been spared of seeing too much actual blood shed though (but I've seen some). The main thing however is that I can spot danger today in a way I just couldn't fathom not too long ago. There are a few things that make the average farang think Thailand is a safe spot: 1) they mostly move around in areas that are a) heavily policed and heavily populated or visited by other farangs 2) if they're not in clear cut farang areas, they're in a more 'up-scale' thai spots (let's say any place where a night out would cost more than a couple of hundreds to 1000 + bahts) and 3) the average farang do not understand what is spoken around them and, more importantly, most often cannot interpret outright hostile behaviour as such and 4) thai thugs look nothing like the western equivalent. having that said, i do still feel relative safe in BKK - but there's certainly areas I'd avoid at all costs and I'm much more aware today of what's going on around me. i've been taken by surprise by sudden outbursts of violence so many times already that I actually can't really truly relax night time in my own neighbourhood (and it's not a very bad neighbourhood you know). a good thing in face-to-face-situations with thai youth gangsters though, is that we as farangs do not seem to inspire to crime or hostility most of the times. i've spoken to thai thugs on a couple of occasions and I've been been either largely ignored or met with nothing else than 'politeness'. but god knows how much longer that is going to last... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 I take your and flys points--Thai thugs are hard for me to spot unlike at home plus my language barrier doesn't help. I still stand by my idea bkk is relatively safe--I've spent reasonable time in a bkk slum where my mrs comes from and never once felt unsafe--a few years back when I was in Lima two of my friends were robbed and knifepoint on consecutive nights in tourist areas--I was scared to leave the hotel after this (back then the Shining Path were up to no good also). In Jamaica you are unwise to leave your hotel compound due to violence. My mrs does maintain that los is dangerous though but then again she thinks my driving is--both very harsh comments ::--stats will of course say otherwise about bkk as I'm sure it is a violent city--I'm just an optimist about los Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fidel Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Hi Fly, so far we foreigners are not directly targetted This may be the case in Bkk but here in sleepy little Hua Hin we've just hit the end of a three or four month period of frighteningly regular attacks on foreigners.... around 30 foreigners severly beaten in that period. The last one was a friend of mine, a 76 year old guy who was attacked while driving home on his motorbike... suffered a busted forehead/eye and a fractured skull. The police hauled in 10 guys last week. Not sure how many were charged. I know that the ex-pats here had started to feel nervous..... and some started to arm themselves. I know I haven't felt completely safe recently. I've also seen/heard about other violent incidents between Thais. A drive by shooting near my house, a guy shot dead in a karaoke bar near my house, a guesthouse getting shot up in town and another guy shot dead near my new house. Someone followed some people who had mugged someone in town out to where I live.. and they got themselves shot for their efforts. A woman who's a friend of another board member here was shot a few months back while driving home. The police in Hua Hin rarely patrol outside the centre of town and rarely patrol within the town after 11pm. I know that many people have visited Hua Hin will think the above is bullshit but it's 100% true. Who would have thought? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Sounds grim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 >>>a good thing in face-to-face-situations with thai youth gangsters though, is that we as farangs do not seem to inspire to crime or hostility most of the times. i've spoken to thai thugs on a couple of occasions and I've been been either largely ignored or met with nothing else than 'politeness'. but god knows how much longer that is going to last... <<< very well put! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 most slums apart from some areas in klong toey loc 1 are perfectly safe, especially if people know you stay there. the most violent areas are the huge lower middleclass suburbian mu bans. and, as straycat and you mentioned, thai toughs are very difficult to spot (even for me). they do not appear as dangerous, not like our western counterparts. i have some friends here you would think they are some really cool babyfaced yougsters, but see them in a fight... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 i have heard about those incidents in hua hin. they are worrying, and i hope that pattern is not going to catch on. police starts getting a bit stretched now, so expect in the future incidents of extreme police brutality which is supposed to act as a deterrent. i have heard from police contacts that youthgangsters are going to be dealt with a lot tougher than before very soon. i am afraid though that this will only further the cycle of violence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
june11 Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 This thread would be interesting if it was comparing bangkok with manila (where almost every single business, including fast-food places..... has an armed guard often with a shotgun, and some streets are lined with guards with shotguns...if there are alot of businesses all in a row). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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