No1Britguy

Thai friends told me that a common way cab drivers rig the meter is via the radio - somehow they push some button, or turn the knob in a certain way, and it makes the meter go faster.

I would assume it would work the same in Thailand, unless there are no govermental bodies to do checks on meters.

I have flown China Airlines several times over the last year. I have always had great in flight service. When you call reservations in BKK, you get through straight away as well. I would choose them over Thai any day of the week.

http://www.airlinequality.com/Airlines/CI.htm

OP you seem like the type of person that looks into things for a long time before you act on them. Thats a good thing. If you feel you have alot of common sense & have lived a little then YOU will be fine visiting Thailand & as smokey pointed out, you are now well aware of some to the scams and stuff that go down here, so you are miles in front of alot of other first timers.

Go for it, you don't want to live life from the insides of a cotton filled box, do you? Theres also heaps of other great countries in the region, have you considered Vietnam?

Good luck to you, hope you enjoy

Thank you for your comments guys, I do tend to think things through and always like to do a little research on places I visit.

I have never been a victim of scams myself, maybe due to common sense and being very street savy.

As for living in a cotton filled box I like a few bevies the same as the next guy and I'm one of those that like to go off the beaten track, not a beach person myself, I would like to visit The bridge over the river Kwai, Angkor Watt amongst other things, and have back packed around Europe 4 times.

I think my post was in part just to give others a sense of reasoning of why tourism is down, not only for people that have visited but for first timers such as my self.

After reading comments left by others I have concluded I may have been a little hasty in my posting and will keep to my plans to visit in sept.

Many thanks.

Perhaps if you feel so bad about the place you would be better going somewhere else.

Don't forget though, no-where is perfect !!!

Welcome to Thai Visa by the way, I see your a newbie - Pattaya_Girl.

For many years I have contemplated visiting Thailand only to end up visiting either America or Canada which I have done several times each.

Don't get me wrong with my post, I don't have a gripe with Thai people in general but it is just the bad experiences I read about on here and other forums.

As you quite rightly said, no where is perfect but at the same time, when visiting Canada or America I never had a bad experience nor the people I met have ever tried to scam me, be they taxi drivers, waitresses, or anyone else, that's not to say it can't happen but it seems more prevalent in Thailand, but when you give me advice saying if I feel so bad about going there then go somewhere else, if we all took that line then there would be no more people going there would there?

I think better than saying "if you don't like the scamming, the corruption and rip offs then go somewhere else" you should be saying that the goverment need to stop the actions of a few spoiling the reputation of Thailand and it's people therefore encouraging tourism which means jobs and prosperity.

Just my thoughts.

I sometimes browse the forum because It has a lot of useful information for first time visitors and even seasoned travelers.

My first trip to Thailand or LOS(I'm not so sure the later now applies) is in september but I am seriously re thinking my holiday due to the fact that all I ever seem to encounter is stories of scams and corruption ie: the King Power duty free shop lifting scams, and the taxi scams and the gem scams..........I could go on.... and tips for this tips for that etc.

I was wondering if anyone from the Thai tourist board ever look at forums like this and take on board peoples concerns.

It seems that Thailand is so prosperous they don't need tourists and therefore driving them away through corruption and scams would be no big loss, Oh and I nearly forgot , the amount of foreign "suicide" rates in a place that supposed to be fun is a real cause for concern for me too.

Somehow I don't think I will be taking that trip to Thailand in sept, maybe better to go to a country that is less concerned about ripping off the very people that pay their wages(us tourists) and go to one where there is a genuine feeling that you are welcome instead of being seen as a walking atm ripe for the picking.

hi, i just arrived in Thailand a few days back and not quite familiar wtih Thai laws .is there anything like reporting or registering with the police with 24hours after entering Thailand. the reason why i'm asking this is that some other countries do. pls let me know your thoughts.

What police state has such laws? Certainly not Thailand. The police stations would be a little crowded if all of Thailand's millions of tourists had to register at a police station, don't you think?

glazier done the same thing with the tampa bay buccaneers, took em over , first year won super bowl then won bugger all over the next 10 years only putting up ticket prices by bout 50%(not my words but words of a very good texan friend of mine) and a note about why we take offence at the americans calling it soccer is that when the world cup was held over there the usa wanted(or rather tv wanted) to have the game played with 4, yes FOUR quarters.. so they could stuff loads of advertizing in of which F.IF.A. were having none of it. thing is, the diseise of the american games i.e greed and massive salaries has spread acorss the ocean to our shores now and the game is now run as businesses, the money men have hijacked our working class game to thie own ends....p.s..... I am not anti american as I have loads of good m8's from there and i'm sure you are just as pissed off as we are with our and your greedy "stars" bleeding sports dry.

pps... a game of american football is 90 mins if you don't include the 3 hours of advertising.

works just great at boardroom meetings too eh?

And while it's only called "football"(refering to your rugby/handball type game) inside america and the ratio of people around the world ,which is about a couple of billion to your couple of million call it footie (refering to our beloved footie)then so shall it remain so.

p.s give it up m8, you're flogging a dead horse at this stage plus the fact as you said yourself, you are probably outnumbered about 10 zillion to one lol

I just say it as it is m8, it's internationale and if you look up languages it's not only the french that spell it that way. it still don't change football in to soccer m8, it seems your name suits you well wally.

hello all, I'm new on here and have been looking at this thread with mild amusment, please endulge me for a moment while i put this little debate/argument to bed once and for all for our American cousins out there, as many ,well most know that the world governing body of erm, the game is known as F.I.F.A (FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION) please note the word FOOTBALL in there, and NOT soccer so the day they put the letter S in to F.I.F.A i shall call it soccer but until it happens (which will be never) it is and always will be called FOOTBALL.

I do hope this clears it up for some less informed people out there,

it's called football not soccer.

yours..... No1brit