Dangers And Annoyances In Thailand

[snamos]

I'll start this off with a few of my favorite annoyances.

Water on the floor of all toilets in Thailand....Buckets filled to the brim with water and plastic saucepans for adding more water to the floor (maybe its the whole hong nam name??)

Fly's hanging around ones feet...and a lack of fixed and powerful electric insect zappers anywhere

7-11 shops having 3 cash registers. WHY????? I have never ever ever seen more than 2 being used (and that is extremely rare) despite the fact there is allways 5+ staff. Also it can be 355 am in the morning and someone will be paying an electricity bill, and naturally there will be a problem with the cash register. So your 5 second purchase ends with you leaving the item on the counter after a 30 minute delay

3 wheeled traffic makers (salaengs). The hot embers of the BBQ frogs being cooked on the back of the salaeng flying off into your face can be distracting

Little family owned Inconvenience stores that dont sell anything but Yaa dong. Especially when you are desperate for toilet paper

Having to hear people say tuk tuk and taxi 4000 times a day when you are walking around with a helmet and keys in your hand (I think this might have something to do with the women of Thailand saying "car" after each sentence....maybe an obsession with vehicles in this country??

Fire crackers going off next to you as your riding your bike, more so at especially at vegetarian festival time

Sand - on the road, and sand flying off the back of trucks (why water for the toilets and not for the trucks?) This only applies to motorbike riders

And my favorite one of all. The river of water that has been constantly flowing through Patong over the road just near Simon cabaret for the last 5 years. I think the governor of Phuket should build a bridge there...and even a foot bridge over the top of the vehicle bridge. The river could be named "Klong Patong". And the bridge could be called "Sapahn Simon" and the footbridge could be called "Sapahn Tao Tang Katoey"

This is just meant to be some light humor for all of us here who get frustrated in our daily lives.....Im sure there will be some funny comments!!!

[Wellington]

`Could become an endless thread; so much to add,

but I'll just put in one besides agreeing with all yours!

On the ferry from Donsak to Koh Samui, once needing the loo and finding an enormous standing turd on the pan edge.

as it was quite hard must have been there sometime!.

[onnut]

`Could become an endless thread; so much to add,

but I'll just put in one besides agreeing with all yours!

On the ferry from Donsak to Koh Samui, once needing the loo and finding an enormous standing turd on the pan edge.

as it was quite hard must have been there sometime!.

How do you know it was hard? Did it stand up to you!

[Wellington]

`Could become an endless thread; so much to add,

but I'll just put in one besides agreeing with all yours!

On the ferry from Donsak to Koh Samui, once needing the loo and finding an enormous standing turd on the pan edge.

as it was quite hard must have been there sometime!.

How do you know it was hard? Did it stand up to you!

It was already standing with a slight limp

[BangTaoBoy]

None of those things really bother me. The only thing that annoyed me for years, and was the hardest thing to come to terms with was the atrocious standard of driving. I used to look at it logically, and tell myself that just 30 years ago this was a tiny fishing village with dirt roads. To change so much in such a short time, it's stupid to think that the people would keep up. That coupled with people coming from other rural places, driving among so many cars for the first time, is always going to cause problems.

Never the less it still took a long time before I could accept that other people could do something so badly that I find so easy. Now just a little shake of my head, a little mutter under my breath, and I move on happily to the next near miss half a mile down the road.

These days the only thing I find tedious are threads like these.

[Old Croc]

And my favorite one of all. The river of water that has been constantly flowing through Patong over the road just near Simon cabaret for the last 5 years. I think the governor of Phuket should build a bridge there...and even a foot bridge over the top of the vehicle bridge. The river could be named "Klong Patong". And the bridge could be called "Sapahn Simon" and the footbridge could be called "Sapahn Tao Tang Katoey"

Has that been going on for five years!

I've only been driving through it for four months and was wondering when someone would fix it.

It's not the water that annoys me, it's the fact that all other vehicles, including all the big, tough, 4wd's, apparently need to come to a complete halt and select first gear, before tip toeing through an inch of water and past a couple of potholes.

Between Karon and Kata there's more places, where different road surfaces have been joined and small bumps created, which could conceivably throw a truck clear off the road if you didn't stop before negotiating them.

[KarenBravo]

1. The need for shop attendants to use a calculator to add 10 Bt and 30Bt.

2. The need for shop attendants to then check the same sum a least three times on the same calculator before giving change.

[stevenl]

And don't forget that if you pay they use rhe same calculator to calculate the change for a 40 baht payment.

[thaigerd]

...and if your bill is 310Baht and you pay with a 500Baht note and a 10Baht coin they are very confused!

[ScubaBuddha]

And my favorite one of all. The river of water that has been constantly flowing through Patong over the road just near Simon cabaret for the last 5 years. I think the governor of Phuket should build a bridge there...and even a foot bridge over the top of the vehicle bridge. The river could be named "Klong Patong". And the bridge could be called "Sapahn Simon" and the footbridge could be called "Sapahn Tao Tang Katoey"

Has that been going on for five years!

I've only been driving through it for four months and was wondering when someone would fix it.

That has been there since I first came to Thailand 9 years ago. The strange thing about that "river" is sometimes after a good rain, it's dry! And sometimes after long dry periods it's flowing!! It must be gray waste water. Not good because there is or was a pothole full of that water half way through it that I am positive a certain Fortuner driver was aiming for as I passed the other way on my bike. F*^ker.

[keestha]

The calculator thing - it is only a matter of quality of the education system. Abstract thinking - a thing like calculating 190 minus 70 out of your head - is something you have to learn. Thai people I am working with are often amazed I do a lot adding, multiplying and so on without a calculator - but it is just that I was trained to do this at primary school, they were not so lucky.

What bothers me more personally, is that most Thai people have never learned to read a map - and if you cannot read a map, street names do not make much sense. Easy to explain which street you are talking about if this street has a clear landmark ( a big hotel for instance), but if anything sticking out is lacking, it can be difficult.

[pmgthailand]

After using the restroom, you wash your hands and then there is nothing to dry them with, or there is a manky old towel that looks like it hasn't been washed in years or there is an electric hand drying that doesn't work.

Edited October 22, 2010 by pmgthailand

[petercallen]

The only thing that really gets up my nose is the fake charity collectors

They give you a receipt with no carbon copy for records.

The last one my wife donated to claimed to be collecting for Sunshine Charities a similar name to Sunshine Village

If you are going to donate do it to the charity directly concerned in person not to these scam merchants.

[Wellington]

After using the restroom, you wash your hands and then there is nothing to dry them with, or there is a manky old towel that looks like it hasn't been washed in years or there is an electric hand drying that doesn't work.

And worse; there are lavatories in Jung Ceylon, nice clean floors and good tiles; so in you go to do what you came for and then.....wow....no paper,

so you have to struggle into the basin area where there is a roll and take enough and hope no-one comes in when your trousers are down`

[geriatrickid]

Foreigners that use public toilets to poop. Seriously, can't they wait until they get back to their room, or make No. 2 before leaving the room? Who uses a public toilet to poop anyway? The lavs at jungceylon can get smelly when the fat guys get going. It is extremely disquieting to hear the explosions coming from the stalls. All I want to do is to take a whizz without the gas attack.

Why oh why do some people walk down Bangla barefoot and then end up at some restaurant propping their filthy black foot on a chair?

The Sinkhole of Bangla. Word up to the geniuses. Covering the hole with a burlap bag isn't going to fix it.

Foreigners that grab at Thai women assuming they are all hookers.

Thai hookers that grab at foreign males assuming they are all looking for boom boom.

My Thai friends that assume that all foreigners are desperate to get into Thailand and that we should be honoured to pick up the bill.

My foreign friends that think I am having sex 24/7 or I am hiding some sort of depraved secret sex life.

I could spend all day on this thread.........

[Boater]

...and if your bill is 310Baht and you pay with a 500Baht note and a 10Baht coin they are very confused!

and they will also talk through the calculation out load

[snamos]

Yes the calculator issue is a good one. The old krueng kid lek. I would love to be a calculator salesman in this country. The lack of cash registers is strange too.

I forgot to add my other pet hate...... Lime in my beer.....just because it has a clear bottle doesnt require it to have lemon or lime in it. I have learnt to say no lemon in my beer about 7 different ways and in 4 different dialects and it still doesnt work. Ive gone back to Tiger beer out of pure frustration. Maybe bar owners around Phuket should band together and try to stop this practice....as lemons (or are they limes??) are getting quite expensive now. Maybe an big public opinion poll in the Phuket gazette about fruit in beer...to see where everyone stands

[samtam]

Mail Boxes staff stamping "AIRMAIL" on my airmail envelope, with its pre-designed AIRMAIL logo.

[stevenhb]

These things really bug me:

Public toilets:

1) Never able to find a proper toilet when I need it most(I'm talking about the one that has a seat not the squat /hole in the floor kind).

2) Having your nuts scrape against the toilet bowl of the squat style toilet (This is only when you need to use it in an emergency).

3)Having to clean your ass and nuts with a bowl of water after using the squat toilet.

4)Going to wash your hands after using the squat toilet to find there is no <deleted> soap,ever.

On the road:

1)Locals who drive up the wrong side of the road and get angry at me when I'm driving down the road in their way and I'm on the correct side of the road.

2)Locals giving a silly smile when they almost cause a serious accident.

3)When people come flying past me( bike's or car's or trucks),almost taking me,himself and others out just to get a few seconds ahead and turn left down a road about 30 meters ahead.

4)Trucks,Cement trucks,Buses and other very large and unroadworthy vehicles who come cruising past me in the right hand lane while I'm cruising at 120 km/h in the left lane.

General:

* Asking locals if they understand what I'm saying or asking them for and they say YES.(They understand) Only to find out later that they don't have the foggiest <deleted> clue about waht I've just asked them.

*Always trying to save face but ironically always losing face by making silly decisions and doing incredibly stupid things.

I have lots more,.................

[BangTaoBoy]

Foreigners that use public toilets to poop. Seriously, can't they wait until they get back to their room, or make No. 2 before leaving the room? Who uses a public toilet to poop anyway? The lavs at jungceylon can get smelly when the fat guys get going. It is extremely disquieting to hear the explosions coming from the stalls. All I want to do is to take a whizz without the gas attack.

I know you old boys don't need much sleep but I didn't realise you crap less as well when you get older.

If you are out for the day, miles from your hotel are you really expecting people to hold on for several hours after they've just tried som tum for the first time?

My pet hate is actually the opposite. People (fully grown men, could understand if they were 6 years old) who walk past an empty row of urinals to go and lock themselves in a cubical to p1ss all over the seat that someone (like me) who craps in public toilets when he has to, will want to sit on some time in the future. What's with that?

[Old Croc]

Foreigners that use public toilets to poop. Seriously, can't they wait until they get back to their room, or make No. 2 before leaving the room? Who uses a public toilet to poop anyway? The lavs at jungceylon can get smelly when the fat guys get going. It is extremely disquieting to hear the explosions coming from the stalls. All I want to do is to take a whizz without the gas attack.

I know you old boys don't need much sleep but I didn't realise you crap less as well when you get older.

I certainly don't crap less now that I'm older and it certainly doesn't always happen to order.

Generally those old guys who crap at a certain time every morning and not again for the rest of the day were in the armed services for a lengthy period. They are taught when to crap and when not to.

[ableguy]

Tesco check out tellers counting the change ten times before giving it to you, and when they do if any coins involved they balance them on the till roll receipt before handing them to you. The record for me which involved two notes and two coins was eleven times, mind you she was chatting on her mobile.

[ableguy]

The calculator thing - it is only a matter of quality of the education system. Abstract thinking - a thing like calculating 190 minus 70 out of your head - is something you have to learn. Thai people I am working with are often amazed I do a lot adding, multiplying and so on without a calculator - but it is just that I was trained to do this at primary school, they were not so lucky.

What bothers me more personally, is that most Thai people have never learned to read a map - and if you cannot read a map, street names do not make much sense. Easy to explain which street you are talking about if this street has a clear landmark ( a big hotel for instance), but if anything sticking out is lacking, it can be difficult.

Maps do not mean much in Thailand never found one worth a dam_n so street names are irrelvaent.

[tolsti]

Yes the calculator issue is a good one. The old krueng kid lek. I would love to be a calculator salesman in this country. The lack of cash registers is strange too.

I forgot to add my other pet hate...... Lime in my beer.....just because it has a clear bottle doesnt require it to have lemon or lime in it. I have learnt to say no lemon in my beer about 7 different ways and in 4 different dialects and it still doesnt work. Ive gone back to Tiger beer out of pure frustration. Maybe bar owners around Phuket should band together and try to stop this practice....as lemons (or are they limes??) are getting quite expensive now. Maybe an big public opinion poll in the Phuket gazette about fruit in beer...to see where everyone stands

They are limes and it seems that due to the Meximerkin thing of drinking from the bottle as opposed to using a glass, someone decided that beers like Corona tasted better with a wedge of lime stuck in the top. It probably took away the rust taste from where the cap fits on old stock. The lo and behold it became fashionable and never wanting to be behind the beer bars adopted it. Firstly it was just Corona but the San Miguel introduced their Light and now everyone does it. I like limes, for me it is a flavour of Thailand and am not opposed to it in San Mig Light, but if it isn't then I'm not bothered either.

[snamos]

Limes went into beers in mexico because the bottles were so filthy there it was like an antiseptic. San mig light has been around for many years in the philippines and its basically a poor mans beer....about 12 baht a bottle....here it is considered boutique.... i just dont like the default lime in beer attitude....the staff should just balance the thing on the top....dont ruin the flavour by squeezing it in the top so you dont have a choice.

Yes the calculator issue is a good one. The old krueng kid lek. I would love to be a calculator salesman in this country. The lack of cash registers is strange too.

I forgot to add my other pet hate...... Lime in my beer.....just because it has a clear bottle doesnt require it to have lemon or lime in it. I have learnt to say no lemon in my beer about 7 different ways and in 4 different dialects and it still doesnt work. Ive gone back to Tiger beer out of pure frustration. Maybe bar owners around Phuket should band together and try to stop this practice....as lemons (or are they limes??) are getting quite expensive now. Maybe an big public opinion poll in the Phuket gazette about fruit in beer...to see where everyone stands

They are limes and it seems that due to the Meximerkin thing of drinking from the bottle as opposed to using a glass, someone decided that beers like Corona tasted better with a wedge of lime stuck in the top. It probably took away the rust taste from where the cap fits on old stock. The lo and behold it became fashionable and never wanting to be behind the beer bars adopted it. Firstly it was just Corona but the San Miguel introduced their Light and now everyone does it. I like limes, for me it is a flavour of Thailand and am not opposed to it in San Mig Light, but if it isn't then I'm not bothered either.

[snamos]

Also another 2 things that bewilder me is:

Falangs wearing Buddhas around their necks (complete with linen shirts)

And every local male in Phuket has a whistle stashed on their person.....which they will produce and blow inceasantly whenever there is an accident or a bus pulling out of a driveway or something similar. Everyone who drives past just ignores them. Similar behaviour can be witnessed by Colnel Somchai at Chalong circle everyday or Security Guard second class Sombat at Phuket airport arrivals and departures

[snamos]

Thats called stage fright......I usually go to the cubicals but i lift the seat and aim carefully

Foreigners that use public toilets to poop. Seriously, can't they wait until they get back to their room, or make No. 2 before leaving the room? Who uses a public toilet to poop anyway? The lavs at jungceylon can get smelly when the fat guys get going. It is extremely disquieting to hear the explosions coming from the stalls. All I want to do is to take a whizz without the gas attack.

I know you old boys don't need much sleep but I didn't realise you crap less as well when you get older.

If you are out for the day, miles from your hotel are you really expecting people to hold on for several hours after they've just tried som tum for the first time?

My pet hate is actually the opposite. People (fully grown men, could understand if they were 6 years old) who walk past an empty row of urinals to go and lock themselves in a cubical to p1ss all over the seat that someone (like me) who craps in public toilets when he has to, will want to sit on some time in the future. What's with that?

[keestha]

And worse; there are lavatories in Jung Ceylon, nice clean floors and good tiles; so in you go to do what you came for and then.....wow....no paper,

so you have to struggle into the basin area where there is a roll and take enough and hope no-one comes in when your trousers are down`

My problem is the opposite. From childhood on, I have been using water instead of toilet paper. So it pisses me off, when there is only paper in the toilet, like for instance at Tesco-Lotus. They are trying to be modern having just paper and no water, as is customary in the west, but 97% of the customers are Thais and other Asians who would prefer to use water.

It is even worse when in a no water toilet staff forgets to replace used up rolls of toilet paper, because they use water themselves. This leads to a no water/no paper situation, so that you have to resort to ripping pages out of your notebook or your passport.

[iSabai]

Wow. Now I'll have to remember to bring my passport whenever I visit Tesco...

[stewyk71]

Went back to Patong for a short break from Nth Thailand and my first day I got the three least favourite things happen to me

First - Suit salesman bangla rd "Hello Boss" want a suit ? ME - No thankyou Suit man-Want a haircut ? (I'm have a shaved head) ME - No thankyou Suitman- fuc_king farang

Second- bangla rd timeshare lady on a bike (ugly English old Lady) She says you here on Honeymoon ME - No Her- You must be gay then ME - Looking at you yes i am F**** you

Both happened day time in the afternoon

Finally - Night time walking home alone here comes the drive by Ladyboy attack First they are nice then they go for the pockets to rob you and then they try kick the crap out of you

This happened at 11pm

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