Many years ago a friend was busted when his cannabis stash was discovered at a hotel in Bangkok. We suspected that his lady friends dobbed him in. He got 18 months probation. Luckily his wealthy friend was around (on holiday from the UK), to stump-up the 100,000 Baht needed.
When I worked in Saudi I had a digital thermometer that showed inside and outside temperature, it was often:
Inside: 21.0C
Outside: 47.6C (The outside sensor was positioned in the shade).
I've seen temps reported as high as 54C for Kuwait.
Not saying that it happened here, but a 'golden-rule' that I learnt in Thailand was that you should never take 2 girls from the same bar (on separate occasions!). Who were once best friends will become sworn enemies.
I was 20 when I made 3 visits to Thailand in 1985/86, and I had to work lots of overtime to fund those trips.
When I started working in the oil industry in 1997 I was able to subsequently spend 20 year living there.
I remember that during my first visit to BKK in 85/86 traffic wasn't really an issue there, 24/7/365 (and you haggled before getting into a taxi, no meters).
...lucky that you got your leg over in Dubai then?!☺️
Bahrain is a similar kinda place, many Saudis wipe themselves out in car accidents on the way to/from Bahrain.
I used to talk to an old Thai taxi driver at the hotel where I lived. He said that when he was a kid (probably the 1950's), Songkhran lasted for 1 day, and it was just sprinkling water on people, not buckets and water cannon. I expect that mass tourism has made it what it is today.
A few times over the years I would be drinking around the corner from Soi Cowboy on Songkhran day and one of the girls would walk in and say "falang boxing" (fighting).
When drunk people start throwing stuff at each other there's a high chance that things will go wrong. It's not just water, it now has to be a bucket of ice-cold water.
May 1,2,3, why those dates?
Many years ago it took me 2 hours to get through immigration at Swampy.
Fastest ever was at D M, earlier 2,000's, plane to taxi in 11 minutes!
Just wait until there are protests as we are seeing in Spain and other places. I saw recently that the ratio of vistors to residents in Phuket is 118:1.
I suspect that in years to come totally visa free entry could become a thing of the past. Reducing overtourism and denying entry to undesirables being an upshot of it.
Patong has long been pretty much the same thing as Pattaya, Soi Cowboy-on-the-beach, such places attract the dregs from all over the world (some good people there too).