Tourist's Arrest Scary Experience

[ozzydom]

There seems to be a fair bit of the old "Holier than Thou" attitude among the posters here, the girl was obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time, big deal, a fair cop is a fair cop, do the crime ,pay the fine. get on with life.

I am sure not one of you preachers ever paid tea money or bar-fined an under-age (knowingly or not) b/g or broke one of the many laws of which we farangs have no knowledge. And little pigs sprout wings and fly.

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Ozzydom, Your a guy after my own heart. But let's give the cop some credit he had a tough choice to make from the many ladies of the night, underage bar hostess, and counterfeit good pedlar's.

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Agreed BB, poor buggar probably had to get a collar and resorted to the old eeny,meeny miny mo method.

[bangkokblue]

Yeah, 5000-1 shot. A simple case of not upsetting the apple cart when there's a cherry to be had.

[Kerryd]

....does anybody know of such a place on the internet that provides information to travelers on the laws that they will encounter in the countries that they will be traveling to?

format could be something like the following:

name of country

drinking age?

gambling allowed?

age of consent?

smoking allowed?

crime statistics?

safe to travel to?

embassies?

etc.....

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Check the Department Of Foreign Affairs (or what ever, in your home country).

In Canada we have this site:

Foreign Affairs Canada

Some of the topic headings are:

1. INTRODUCTION

2. ATTENTION

3. SAFETY AND SECURITY

4. LOCAL TRAVEL

5. NATURAL DISASTERS AND CLIMATE

6. LOCAL LAWS AND CUSTOMS

7. ASSISTANCE FOR CANADIANS ABROAD

8. ENTRY/EXIT REQUIREMENTS

9. MONEY

10. GENERAL INFORMATION

[SweGuava]

I agree with a lot of the posts here. You are in their country YOU should abide by their laws.

Of course we shall abide to the Thai laws when in Thailand, but, you can't possibly know each and every one. Using common sense is often a good way, but I don't see how she could know that she was illegally entering a pub if there is no sign outside telling the legal age, and nobody checking ID's, just letting her in.

In my opinion it must be up to the establishment to clearly state what the age limit is, and also to check customers ID's at the entrance.

Well, TiT. Got to remember they run the country and not everything you do in your country means they have to do it in theirs.

I have no problem, what so ever, living by the laws in what ever country I am living in or visiting, but I didn't know that you also have to like and agree with every single law in that country.

[lingling]

What would this singaporean say if a tourist came to singapore with a pack of chewing gum in his pocket?

[amarka]

hi,

yes have to agree

she broke the law. the cop did his job. what else happened?

amarka

There seems to be a fair bit of the old "Holier than Thou" attitude among the posters here, the girl was obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time, big deal, a fair cop is a fair cop, do the crime ,pay the fine. get on with life.

I am sure not one of you preachers ever paid tea money or bar-fined an under-age (knowingly or not) b/g or broke one of the many laws of which we farangs have no knowledge. And little pigs sprout wings and fly.

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[LadyinRed]

The father is probably amazed at how 'the law' (concerning legal age of drinking) in Thailand is different from those in Singapore.

To use one's country's laws as a 'standard' does not make him/her ignorance of the other country's laws.

Thailand often tries hard to potray itself as some developed-world-power in Asia, it's no wonder people had the idea that entertainment laws are more or less on par to those of an actual, recognized, developed world such as Singapore.

If father and daughter don't travel often out of Singapore much, then yeah, this incident sucks, tough siht, sorry.

If they are frequent travellers, they must be wide-eye amazed by the hoopalla of this whole incident. But aint we all?

[expatinasia]

I wonder what the rest of the story is. With hundreds, thousands of tourists, why did this girl get arrested? What was she and her friend up to, to get noticed by the police?

Years ago, a documentary crew from the US videotaped US teenagers entering Mexico for the express purpose of getting drunk. When one young man was told by a police officer to tone his voice down, the kid's response was, "You can go &lt;deleted&gt; yourself. I'm an American and I have my rights!" Sure enough, the kids' vocal outburst landed him in jail. However, as a young, naive, upstanding young lady that she is, I'm sure she did absoltutely nothing...

[singa-traz]

What would this singaporean say if a tourist came to singapore with a pack of chewing gum in his pocket?

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Nah, It's not against the Laws in Singapore, for anyone to bring in a pack of chewing gum .... but a luggage full of it .... maybe ...

[dr_Pat_Pong]

What would this singaporean say if a tourist came to singapore with a pack of chewing gum in his pocket?

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nothing now. the chewing gum law got repealed

[bkkexplorer]

Who's right or wrong? We could go on and on about this. In the end, it just looks bad for the tourism industry here...

[RDN]

.. in Singapore ... its also a mandatory jail sentence for consentual adult oral sex.

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Just crossed Singapore off my future travel itinerary

[moebius]

Who's right or wrong? We could go on and on about this. In the end, it just looks bad for the tourism industry here...

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Always a nice little blackmail line ...what a bunch of bullsh*t. One whiner begets more whiners.

Sounds to me like someone fishing for their tea money back...the only real fact that matters is the police actually applied the law. They didn't kidnap her. So what's the big deal? Just a wealthy bit in a tiff because the less wealthy didn't hop to.

Whah...

[Freddie_fly]

After reading all 7 pages of replies here, I am in two minds about my answer.

on the one hand, Ignorance of the law is no excuse, in any country at any time. This really should be common sense, especially for Singaporeans who have some extremely restrictive laws, and are very happy with an esentially draconian government which they continually vote into power.

On the other hand TIT, and there is the whole can of worms !!

I regularly see people under the 20 year age in bars here and they are rather blase about the law. 24 years ago a Shuffs bar (soi cowboy) dancer who I had dallied with introduced me to her daughter who had just started working at the same bar, after taking the young lady home I was rather shocked to find she was only ** (this in the days when Pattanakhran road wasnt so built up and there were often police checkpoints at 2-3 in the morning).

In answer to many other posts,

I have found many Thai Tourist police speak very passable english, certainly here in pattaya.

Dont worry about the oral thing in Singapore, it has never been enforced, if it was then the four floors in orchard road and all the tall 'girls' out by the shell station in Changi village would be out of work.

chewing gum aint a crime anymore, but not flushing the toilet still is (how do they check this?????)

As for Tourism and the thai mentality, well you have to understand there are two types of Thai people, the first is the small minority in Tourism areas who are genuine, and welcome you, and even become your friends. The second type is the large majority in Tourism areas who welcome you and pull out the check-bin.

You will meet extremely nice people all over this wonderful country who are totally genuine and will go out of their way to help you out (including pulling out their wallets) unfortunatly as a farang, you will also meet large numbers of people who smile at you for only one reason, whatever they can get out of you.

When I lived in mabtaput in 1988-91 I would travel up to pattaya once a week to buy from the stores there, invariably on the way home I was stopped by the same Highway cop who knew my car and would pull me over with a big smile on his face and tell me I was speeding, 150 baht later I would drive off and he would say "see you next week". At least he smiled while he took the money, Indonesian cops took it and gave you a heap of attitude too.

So whats the conclusion??, unfortunatley for all my pontificating, I'm still a falang, even though I have lived here longer than in my home country, so all I can say is you have to work with the system (in this case a corrupt one) because its all you have. Enjoy the moment when you can wind down your window and shout "Som Nam Na M^^&*F^%$$" at some idiot who has trashed his 500 series merc while totally pissed, or delight in the hostile look you are given by the policeman who just made a stupid remark and didnt know you spoke thai, as you politely point out his error.

Freddie

[dr_Pat_Pong]

.. in Singapore ... its also a mandatory jail sentence for consentual adult oral sex.

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Just crossed Singapore off my future travel itinerary

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Me too ( and George will give it a miss too ... once he finds out )

[britmaveric]

.. in Singapore ... its also a mandatory jail sentence for consentual adult oral sex.

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Just crossed Singapore off my future travel itinerary

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Me too ( and George will give it a miss too ... once he finds out )

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Think they are looking to get rid of the that law - a copper was sentenced 20yrs after a prostitute snitched on him with the oral bit.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

.. in Singapore ... its also a mandatory jail sentence for consentual adult oral sex.

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Just crossed Singapore off my future travel itinerary

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Me too ( and George will give it a miss too ... once he finds out )

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Think they are looking to get rid of the that law - a copper was sentenced 20yrs after a prostitute snitched on him with the oral bit.

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How many years for having a solo wank ?

[Pattaya_Fox]

.. in Singapore ... its also a mandatory jail sentence for consentual adult oral sex.

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Just crossed Singapore off my future travel itinerary

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Me too ( and George will give it a miss too ... once he finds out )

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Rumour has it that the words `open wide` can only be used by dentists.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

[venturalaw]

I thought it was common knowlege that the legal age for drinking here is 20, just like it is in the US. Oh and btw they drive on the left here. And the power is 220V 50HZ. [mostly...] Oh and guess what - you can be thrown in jail for being drunk or possessing alcohol in some muslim countries. Or even caned for doing graffiti in Singapore...

Anyone who goes to a foreign country and claims ignorance of even the most basic things about that country is, well, ignorant!

As for not understanding what she had to sign, did she never think of calling a translator? There's thousands of them in BKK. The mother had to wait an hour and a half - plenty of time to find one. Call the embassy for a start, if you don't have the number of one handy. Again, basics.

The legal age for entrance is clearly displayed at almost all pubs, discos etc - written in plain English and Thai usually. Maybe she went to one that didn't happen to have such a sign, but the OP doesn't say how long she had been in TH - surely she had seen at least one such sign at another place? Then going on to say the pub owner should be responsible - well he probably is about to be shut down for 30 days and/or fined...

Sounds like the mother is looking for anyone to blame except her precious little daughter - what a great example to set, instead of teaching her to be responsible for her own actions.

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Very well stated.

I completely agree (however the drinking age in the US is 21). It is unfortunite that some parents incourage lack of responsibility in their children thereby furthering many of the social problems that exist today.