JensenZ

You're wrong though. What personal experience do you have?

The Thai Law doesn't specify Immigration procedures while on bail. When you are charged, you need bail, and you will hand in your passport and lose your visa. It's quite clear that if you are charged, you will serve time if proven guilty of publishing defamation. Before you can be charged, the court will schedule a court mediation session. In my case, a senior judge was appointed. They try to settle cases by mediation, but it's at the descretion of the plaintiff to agree on a settlement.

You're quoting the wrong section of the criminal code. Skip down to Section 328 - Defamation by publication. It's always much more serious if the defamation has been published, such as posting a Tiktok video. It's very hard to get out of it too as there is a public record of exactly what was said. The video would have been watched by millions of people hence the more severe punishment.

It's a criminal offence. When foreigners are charged with a criminal offense, their passports are confiscated as part of the bail conditions and your visa is cancelled. I would probably listen to the advice of the lawyers I hired. Section 328. Defamation by Publication If the offence of defamation be committed by means of publication of a document, drawing, painting, cinematography film, picture or letters made visible by any means, gramophone record or another recording instruments, recording picture or letters, or by broadcasting or spreading picture, or by propagation by any other means, the offender shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding two years and fined not exceeding two hundred thousand Baht.

I've been through 2 defamation court cases. Once as the plaintiff (lost due to lawyer's negligence) and once as the defendent (ended in court mediation)... and then fought a civil case for compensation. 5 times in court in total. I'm not going to get into full details, but you don't know as much as you think you do.

That's the point of this report. It demonstrates the wide range of Thailand's defamation laws. In fact, if you defame the police here, you can be charged too if they were offended and took the time to track you down. It's a criminal offence which carries mandatory prison time and a fine, after which you will be deported. I know of one foreigner who served 2 years for defaming his ex-wife. I defended a charge myself from a neighbour and had a court battle over it. I was lucky to win, but it cost a lot of money and several court hearings. I ended up negotiating a settlement. It's a popular gambit as most people will prefer to settle rather than do time. Tread carefully and take this sh*t seriously.

The only person sleeping here is you...

Allow me to clear up everyone's confusion. Grab Taxi and Grab Food and Grab delivery are one and the same. Motorcycles all have a load limit, and if a passenger puts the load over the limit, he has every right to refuse the business. It's nothing personal. Carrying over the load capacity is dangerous, apart from possibly damaging components. The biggest risk is blowing tyres. I have a heavy friend who I won't carry as a pillion on my bike. I already weigh 100 kg myself. I just tell him we are too heavy and that's the end of it.

I tip Panda or Grab deliverers 20 - 30 baht on the app before they have delivered.

I agree... we don't need the American way corrupting the rest of the world. It's absurd to pay tips based on the size of the bill. If you must tip, it's better to consider how much effort your server made. Why should a waiter who delivers (for example) a wagyu steak worth over 1000 baht get a tip 5 times greater than a waiter who delivers some chicken, considering the effort is the same? Of course, in the US they pay wait staff a low wage and they rely on tips. It's not like that in Thailand and most other countries. I don't tip in any restaurants that charge the 10% service charge. You're a mug if you do. Also, if you frequent the same restaurant, be aware that if you leave a good tip once, you're going to have to keep doing it, so think carefully if you feel inclined (as our American friends usually do) to leave a big tip.

I looked into this a few months ago as before May 11, 2023, a vaccination was compulsory to enter the US. The only places to get vaccinated were at public hospitals. Banglamung and Pattaya City Hospitals both did it on 2 mornings a week. It was around 1300 baht. If you visit these hospitals, they will be able to give you their current schedule.

it has nothing to do with the species. Back in the 1970's in Australia the roads were like the Wild West with drunk driving and speeding at extreme levels. It took decades to get it under control, but that's in a country where the cities are smaller and easier to control due to the way they are built... and where only a small percentage of the population ride motorcycles. Many places have one road in and one road out, so it's easy to set up road blocks. That's impossible in Bangkok. The population of Bangkok alone is nearly half of the whole of Australia.

it's not hard to inderstand the desperation of Filipinos vs Thais. Of course they need money and a lot more people need money than in Thailand. From CIA Factbook: Philippines population: 116.5 million 0-14 age: 36.5 million median age: 24.1 years Living below poverty line: 16.7% (19.5 million) (2018 est) - old numbers and I'm sure the real numbers are much higher) Thailand population: 69.8 million 0-14 age: 11 million median age: 39.1 Living below proverty line: 9.9% (6.9 million) (2018 est) The population distribution is very much younger. Population is much bigger. Poverty levels are much higher. With a much younger population, growing much faster, the disparity will increase quickly. Population growth rate: Philippines: 1.58%. Thailand: 0.2%. Nearly 8 times higher than Thailand.

The NPA were quite active in the area I lived in Leyte. They used to come around asking for donations... and you definitely pay them if you want a peaceful and healthy life. (What's the point of coming on here complaining about "rinse and repeat"... no one is forcing you to contribute. There are new people here all the time, so posts 10 years ago are of no use.) The biggest problem in the Philippines is that the federal goverment has very little control over most of the provinces. The provincial areas are run by weathy families (clans)... they control the police and the courts. They have judges in their pockets. The Philippines is like a collection of lawless jungles. Justice is meted out locally by the ruling clans. Justice is primal. If you rape or kill someone, they kill you - probably chop you up and bury you. They normally remove the heads to make indentification difficult.

Whenever I was living in the province, my wife's mother was very insistent that I never go out alone. Not that I wanted to as there was nowhere to go in a rural town in Leyte. They were dead scared I might find another lady LOL. It happens too as the single ladies in the provinces (read - poor communities) are like vultures around foreigners. There was a recent story about one elderly foreigner who used to go for excercise walks on his own and he found another and moved in with her. It caused quite the stir.

Actually the security guards do practice shooting their shotguns at ranges, so they are not totally useless.

Well, everyone in Thailand thinks my Filipino wife is Thai until she talks. I didn't really want to get into the age old discussion of which is more beautiful as that has been done to death. My wife holds here own very well in that department. A lot of the Filipinos you see in Thailand are working as maids, older with many children back home to support, so you don't see the cream of the crop.

I'm quite familiar with the Pasay area too and have walked around there myself. I specifically mentioned Tondo as a place not to walk. I didn't mean to say you'd get mugged everywhere you walked, any time you walked, but if you did, you might not be writing about it here. It could happen on your next walk. Most people are like you when they go there - happy go lucky - everyone is friendly blah blah, not realizing the dangers lurking around them. I've lived in Valenzuela (Metro Manila) - that's a very rough area. Also I lived in Cavite for nearly a year. A foreign businessman with plenty of money was kidnapped there, nearly didn't make it out alive. I know the story well as my gf at the time used to work for him. My gf from there was kidnapped when I was in Australia. They demanded cash. It was probably a staged kidnapping by my gf and her familiy. She even had injuries to show me. I prefer to be around Thai people. I don't like people in public being too friendly and familiar - it's normally just a ploy to get something from you. You want to hear something strange. My wife is Filipino and she doesn't like Filipinos very much (lived in Thailand now for 18 years) - had too much trouble with them. My lawyer in Pattaya is married to a Filipino for over 30 years. She speaks and reads fluent Thai. When she's out and about and comes across Filipinos (quite a few here in Pattaya) she pretends she is Thai. I asked her, who gossips more? Thais or Filipinos? The answer - Filipinos. When you've been married to Filipinos, and you've lived in the provinces, experiencing the real deal, you learn a lot you'd never know about as a casual visitor. Trust me on this - they are not as nice as you think they are.

You were living a very sheltered life. Their advice not to go anywhere alone confirms the ever present dangers. One of these dangers is the possibility of you hooking up with another lady. There are many areas in the Philippines where you probably wouldn't survive a walk on your own. At the very least, you'd be mugged. Try walking around Tondo in Manila. Of course there are safer and more dangerous areas, but overall, it's MUCH more dangerous than Thailand. It's not even close. One time I was talking on my cell phone and a guy ran up to me and grabbed it from my ear. I chased him around the corner and a gang pulled a gun on me. Another time I was extorted by the police, which ended up costing me 250,000 pesos. (an ex-gf told the police some lies about me and they jailed me with no charge. Had I not paid, I could have been there for months, even years). That was the month I moved to Thailand. I could write a book about my adventures in the Philippines over the many years I lived there and I've lived all over the islands. Life in Thailand is boring by comparison, and that's the way I like it.

There's no problem changing from one agent to another, in fact I did that this year. I got a better price. The "full price" you speak of is the cost of getting a new O-visa after entering on a visa exempt stamp if you left Thailand without a re-entry permit. Who would do that?

They didn't dump some infant. It was their own baby, one she carried for up to 9 months. My sister-in-law had a baby die at birth about 15 years ago. She has a name and she still visits her grave to mourn every year on her birthday. To think this couple dumped their baby in a pile of garbage is hard to fathom. If this story doesn't make you tear up, you're not human.

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Please don't presume to speak for everyone. I'm sorry to hear you've had such a bad run - could you be the problem? I'm doing fine in a 20-year relationship. No complaints at all.

Do you bring them around to your home? That's a no-no in my book - a big mistake. Don't get personally involved with bargirls and keep it entirely professional. Pay for your service, get your service and leave. The less conversation the better for both of you. Generally they become very annoying if they become familiar and start talking about their personal lives. They aren't the slightest bit interested in you or your personal life, which is fine. Don't try to make it something it can never be.

Rich people are usually rich because they take care of their money, and don't throw it around as you're suggesting. The only exception would be if the owner inherited his money and didn't give a damn. Complaining about the cost to repair a Rolls is pathetic. No one would be surprised at the repair bill, especially when all the parts are imported at huge import duties and taxes.