JimsKnight

Listen, this is more than likely a piece of fiction unless he can prove he escaped. Are they any archived newspaper articles from the supposed time of his escape?

All we've got is his word. The likelyhood is he probably was jailed and then deported. While stuck in prison he wiled away the hours dreaming up escape plans.

So I'm 70% convinced it's a bunch of hot air and you lot letting it get you down have really got to chill out and take a few steps back.

I just returned from Koh Tao. Upon returning an ATV to the shop owner they have tried to hit me up for 24K baht for what amounts to a few superficial scratches on an old and piece of crap bike. I refused to pay that ridiculous amount. I did offer 10K baht just to get rid of the situation but that was refused. The shop owner bragged about doing this to other tourist and said she would have my passport BLOCKED and I couldn't leave Thailand. The shop also mentioned that if I dont pay that she can sell it for a lot of money (black market).

We went to the police who did nothing. They made a report but no real action taken. MY wife later called (Thai) and the police told her that this shop will charge at least 4 times what is a reasonable fee. The police report just states that the owner will return my passport when I pay 24K baht.

QUESTIONS:

1. Can I get a replacement at the US Embassy given this situation?

2. Can I be BLOCKED from leaving Thailand?

3. Should I raise this as a security issue (black market thing)?

My options appear to be

1) report to embassy as described above

2) just report as lost passport

Any suggestions or follow up questions are appreciated

This is why I never rent a bike in Thailand, if I absolutely must rent, I hand over my Thai drivers license.

Yes, its a well known fact of life in tourist islands that this happens.

Some happy dutch scammer once tried blagging me with the 'just look over the bike before you rent with the owner in attendance' this is no guarantee either.

Report it as a lost passport, if it shows up you can play it like bogart and deny all knowledge.

The blocking passport thing is an unknown entity, I think they can threaten it, but unless you've robbed a bank or committed a massive crime I wouldn't loose too much sleep over it.

Does Koh Tao even have the tourist police? Its been a few years but the last time I live on KT there were only a bunch of dodgy regular cops from Surat Thani. Believe me, they are not much cop when it comes to actual police work.

The whole threatening strategy I have only seen work only ONCE, but this was a blatent case of theft of a motorbikes kickstart by the 'Fat Mechanic' (Koh Tao) against a man mountain of a farang expat, who mosseyed on down to the mechys workshop and within 5 minutes had his kickstart returned.

He had Thai support with him translating.

So really be careful.

Didn't know you were tee-total naamy!

Twilight Eyes.

So now its time to cut interest rates , and not to intervene in the exchange rate please .

Meddle away if it means the baht weakens is what I say

Kickstart their export revenue and brings home the bacon for the expats (those that have outside funds that is)

SCB does me

Hmmm.

Changing times? Or tempory glitch? !

Trying to impose your concept of what are cultural norms in Thailand to a relationship between a farang and a Thai of significantly differing ages and financial backgrounds is just as questionable as anything else in this thread.

The Thai families I know just would not accept that sex for money was acceptable in any way.

I'm assuming you misunderstood me jd. I'm not in any way claiming Thai families 'accept that sex for money (is) acceptable in any way.' I'm claiming that financial support as an expression of love in Thai culture is far more prevalent and accepted than is generally the case in western cultures. Thus the assertion that 'there'd be no need for money' is somewhat misleading. Yes, there would be no absolute need for money, but if the partner was in a position to provide support it would be (generally speaking) fully expected and given willingly.

mk

Most of the time the families don't know what the girl is doing anyway and she is not going to tell them. Hi-so girls don't do this because they don't have money needs.

Exactly, some ladies I know have openly told me that their parents absolutely forbid farang boy / thai girl relationships. But it still goes on, it just means they are discrete and nobody is any wiser.

Good!

The more support the better

I just asked mine and she said the one who has the decent heart.

When I asked about just on the looks front she basically emphaised that they are all camera monkeys

"also know, and not just from the recently closed thread, that some men assist students with tuition and such in return for a relationship."

lol most of the farang paying girls for a relationship are not doing so with students that is for sure.

Yeah, I msn with a student babe sometimes, her thai bf was her 'first' a few years ago and he paid her 300,000 baht (sind sod money) as he was fooling around with other girls and she was sick of it. No marriage, but kinda like a common law agreement to make up for the fact she's no longer a virgin.

I doubt she's in the bar scene, unless they now have escort quality student bars??

She's pretty independent and does her own thing now, does websites. I think she's make some farang very happy if he met up with her

I actually asked her about how many farang does she think go with students and she said not many, she went on to say that they tended to be company guys on expat packages. But when they go home, they leave the thai girl behind. So that's the way that one often goes.

I think you're getting a bit misty eyed on the whole 'supporting the girl thing' if you want to do it, do it. Don't let the whole westernised complex drag you about. You're in Thailand now, try bring a bit of your own man mate.

It doesn't make you a bad person helping someone else out.

Well its a little bit more expensive, but you know what?

It's not a ball buster and I can still live like the farang rogue prince a lot better here than the UK.

Food is up a touch, fuel is up a touch (but not much).

Digs is still *about* the same.

Flesh trade? I don't know what the hel_l they are charging these days. Probably up a touch or three.

I think if you aren't locked into the 2 week scam you should be ok. Thailand produces its own food still and that counts for a lot.

See, I don't really have a beef with the poor or rich farang who come here, it's when you get a zillion of them flooding the place. So a cull in numbers isn't that bad. But not so much that it hits the more humble workers relying on it as the breadwinner.

So I lament the bar industries decline as much as the next sugar daddy does.

What I do object to is the crazy hotel building going on left-right and center in some cities. Boy, I think they are in for a shock come high season.

Cause hotels do not maketh the city. And numbers are down.

The repeat tourist is starting to drift a little and these tend to be the more travelling backpacker types

It's not high season yet so its just wait and see. Two months is a long time for stuff to start happening if you know what I'm saying.

Ok - Articles like these are part of the reason I dumped my gold last week. The goldbugs are out in force (or should I say sat in their bunkers, with shotgun, bottled water and a pile of gold bars). But outside of the sky is falling crowd there doesn't seem to be much support for gold. The $ appreciation has blind-sided gold. Without the $ driver gold is being sucked under by the great commodity de-leveraging. Seasonal demand is marked down (Joe Public in India, China) due to recession. A surprise there would strengthen price. Next years impending major bankruptcies also could spike Gold up. So the direction is down.

Heh, <starts dancing around with flowers in the hair>. Well I'm out of the bunker now

But seriously I can't wait for gold to come on down! Drop baby drop, I bought 1 oz of gold for the helluv it and can't wait to grab some more.

Cause you know what? It's all part of the cycle, you just gotta time it right

What goes down, must go up

Bangkok - 7

Koh Samui - 3.5

Pattaya - 5

Isaan - 5.5

Phuket - 5

Chiangmai - 6

Anyone know what the thai word is for muse, as in the inspirational kind of muse.

Cheers.

I'm wonerding if muscular men aren't seen as attractive in Thailand because pretty much every 70 year old farmer seems to have a six pack and rippling arms- i.e. maybe it's a sign of labor and poverty rather than wealth? There also seems to be a lot of very attractive women with overweight, often nerdy looking men here (talking about average people choosing mates at freewill here, not trophy wives). Obviously the man's money plays a big role, but excluding that for a sec- I'm wondering if anyone's clear on what the general threshold is- maybe the 'swimmer's build' (muscular and sturdy looking but not toned) is their ideal or if pretty much any flab is ok? Hard to know since most ads don't show shirtless men. My gf says she likes overweight, but maybe she's just trying to stop me from worrying...

You're worrying too much about this, chill out.

In Asia being slim and healthy is more important than the macho-muscle wielding machines back home

Can't win em all man. Go to the nearby 7-11 and get yourself a brewsky.

Just accept such things happen and give yourself a lesser headache.

Umm...it's not quite trouble... but I just wondered...

Thai single woman with foreigner get along.. to go for meals, shopping, talking ..anything as a good companion does.. Can it be?

In western way IMO, intimate activity (OK..I mean SEX) is just a normal practice

But by Thai decent tradition, sex is not freely done without legal commitment.

It's true that nowadays, Thai accept to do this more and more...

But it doesn't mean every Thai is happy to do so..

Read a lot that Thai women say to be just friends, no more than that... foreign guys will just disappear... Why?

Is it weird to be just friend with the opposite gender?

My experience, I have some foreign friends.. some are gud but some..... so, disappeared.

I am not beautiful nor smart woman,

but maybe Thailand had reputation for beautiful Asian girls and also popular in sexing tourisms...

so I often asked for...

I am sick of this..usually enjoy having new friends in every day but this make me.... nearly give up to have foreign friends....

Or am I just too conservative ? Do you have friends in opp. gender? What do you do with them?

Thai tradition for legal commitments prior to sex? Hmm well that can vary according to region, circumstances and personal dynamics.

But yes you are being conservative, like most ladies on TV. Not a bad thing not a good thing.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, such are the ways.

Accept that men and women are different and not the same and you'll go far in understanding this matter.

I only have two English channels from my cable provider and one of them is Fox 'news'. Although I despise this channel I find myself drawn to it. I found that it is a great way of grading my mindfulness and progress along the path. On a bad day I feel like screaming at the television, but on my good days I just find it funny. It is my wish to one day look at Fox without any emotion; that would be real progress.

Sorry, it's just not clear from your post why you "despise" this uniquely fair and balanced news channel w/ all those beautiful, brainy news babes.

Perhaps you're merely a victim of Bush Derangement Syndrome and need counseling. Yet Fox is an unabashedly American channel, so anyone hailing from anywhere near the region of Britain will almost surely grind his bad teeth over it on mere principle.

Eschew the masochism. You do have the BBC (Baghdad Broadcasting Corp) w/ the frumpy, stuffy nanny look and viewpoint--don't you?

I find that the most vocal posters on TV tend to have this tendancy alas. Posts like this are a breath of fresh air

For me the channel is pretty bright and breezy, the newscasters aren't shackled to the rigid doctrine and socialistic left-wing mentality of others like CNN and the Beeb. Instead they can think on their feet and can speak their mind, giving it a more understandable quality. Showing emotion seems to be a dirty word to most other news channels alas.

BTW I'm from Britain and we don't all hate FOX news

Instead we have Sky News (UKs answer to FOX )

I didn't know you could rent and live in closets in Thailand...or even that closets had landlords!!!

Surely he meant 3k a week ? right....?

There are plenty of places in Bangkok and other provinces for 3500/month and less. It's not the most luxurious place but it's decent and livable. What's wrong with that? Who says you have to pay a lot of money to stay at a decent place?

Good thread op. It's rare to hear something nice about Thai people on this forum.

I agree, sometimes I wonder if some of the expat snobs in Bangers actually travel outside the BTS / Subway system in Bangkok, there are some great apartments and townhouses in the big city.

I've got a few 3 - 5,000 baht places lined up.

Hopefully with decent landlords, but you never know

Cheers mate.

Anyone??!!!

Surely some must live in this City?

Or is everyone tucked up in the farms!

Heh, back in the day that place actually was a car park believe it or not!

You could roll up, get out and get off with your girl of choice and drive away again!!!

Crazy times dudes.

Corkscrew, you must be missing the place showing up in daylight to take photos bro

Bloody hope not!

I'm due to land in Bangkok in October!

Hey guys. Anyone know of cheap guesthouses in Sukhothai?

Nothing fancy or special. The 200 - 400 baht range is what I'm looking for.

The websearches just through up the usual overpriced tripe hence the all knowing oracles of expatriatedom who live nearby

I'll be rolling through soon and will be looking at getting my head down for a night or two.

Thanks.