Amazing Thailand, What's the most shocking/amazing thing you seen in Thailand?

[CryWolf]

The fish on the balcony after the storm was really ugly!!!!

[kizz06]

Cute ladyboys.

[Showbags]

I think the most amazing this is that the country is still working...all things considered.

[JaiLai]

Men with tits & pussies or chicks with dicks, whichever way you want to look at it.

[fifthcolumn]

Amazed that Pattaya, Chaing Mai, Phuket, Samui and Hua Hin have tourist appeal. Even more shocking, expatriates live there. I think many, many expats are sort of stuck in many of these places. Bought property, can't sell up.

Crimes, scams, traffic, Immigration hassles, crime, scams and crime

[Showbags]

Amazed that Pattaya is considered a wonderful beachside family destination.

Amazed that Phuket is considered world class.

Amazed than anyone has the balls to write 'pristine beaches' in any brochures or articles about Thailand.

[true blue]

going to the toilet,at in laws house,out in the sticks,for the first time,degrading.

[wym]

If you find it degrading then you must not know how to do it right.

It's pretty rare for a family not to have installed a sit-down style throne specifically for you, long before the marriage.

Only think I can think is they're so poor they're waiting for you to pay for the upgrade.

Shouldn't be more than 10K or so in that case, go for it.

Or stay in a nearby hotel from now one, don't listen to your teerak squawking about you insulting her family.

[Showbags]

10k for a toilet...crikey you're flash.

[mesquite]

"Amazing Thailand, What's the most shocking/amazing thing you seen in Thailand?"

It was on my first trip. Can't recall all the details, but it had something to do with a ping pong ball.

Edited January 26, 2014 by mesquite

[edwinchester]

Wifey and a few friends letting the local wat know that they were stopping their donations because the new head monk cranked up the volume on the speakers at 4.30am pissing off virtually the whole village. It took a couple of months but the volume got reduced.

That surprised me.

[mick220675]

12 year old girl with child getting marred to a lady boy.

[Julie H]

Most amazing = Im semi free. Most shocking = the mentality of relatives/friends that come to visit

Edited January 26, 2014 by Julie H

[wym]

10k for a toilet...crikey you're flash.

My first serious teerak saved up the money I gave her for a year and a half and built her family - whose prior total indoor living space was a 3x3m shack with a dirt floor - a nice secondhand teak house for a total of B65K.

I chipped in B7K for the water pump so her little sister didn't need to walk 2K five times a day with a cart full of plastic bottles anyore.

She wanted to have kids I kept saying no, so she gave me six months' notice that she'd be looking for a new sponsor online. During that time she borrowed another B25K to put in an indoor kitchen and sit down toilet.

She paid back around half of it out of her allowance each month (which had got up to B6K by then), then sent me the rest after she'd settled down with her new fellow in the UK. Now very happily married with three kids, we still correspond, all three of us.

She visited me with her whole family last year, they took the whole household out to a nice dinner of moo katat.

True story.

I'm sure some here may find it amazing. . .

20/20 hindsight still regret I didn't agree to have kids with her, she was a good one.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

Up in the mountains above Chiang Mai we happened upon two guys doing some target shooting with .22 rifles.

One guy was shooting at a paper target and the other guy was standing right next to target to call out the bullet strikes. I am talking less than half a meter away.

I just thought yikes. This explains how a lot of people drive the way they do.

[SebD]

Upstairs show in Patpong, excepted?

Never again!!!

I was pretty shocked when, minding my own business, I walked - sandal-footed - between the airport "lounge" and the loo (restroom) outside on Koh Chang and felt something not quite hard and not quite soft underfoot.

I'd trodden on a huge snake that was crossing the same path I was following.

He (she?) turned and looked at me but decided I wasn't worth the bother and slithered off into the undergrowth.

You don't see that every day, where I hail from.

Pretty amazing to me, so I guess it fulfills the criteria (boring as it may seem).

[SebD]

the very worst was a beggar in nong khai with no arms and legs at all just small stumps at each limb .seated on a small stool .i cant imagine how he ended up like this .

very depressing sight that never leaves me .

and the young boy biker in BKK who had crashed and his head was squashed as flat as a pancake with blood all over the road

Similar, seeing a old beggar in a similar state, but not on a stool just lying just about face down to the pavement trying to move along the pavement on his stumps just outside an upmarket shopping mall in Bkk with all the hi so waking around him and I wondered the same, and for the first and only time in my life I put my hand in my wallet and dropped THB 1000 in his cup, if was a "scam" ie he was put there by a "gang" running the beggars I lost USD 30, big deal, but it was the real deal, I really hope the money helped him and the people who take care of him as someone must be looking after him

I have never seen such a pitiful sight in all my life

I hate to rain on your parade and sound cynical but chances are that your 1,000 probably just helped condemn another purchased infant to have his/her arms lopped off (without anaesthetic) as the more disabled and heart-rending the managed beggar, the better the income from none-streetwise wealthy Westerners.

If I'm wrong, it's bad.

If I'm right, it's more bad.

It's bad.

[T_Dog]

Six years ago I was on a bike ride and came across cops picking up shell casings off the highway next to a pick up truck. Apparently a fish vendor had encroached on another vendor's turf and he was killed in his truck while his son sat next to him. Son was unhurt from what the news story said. Was a real eye-opener for what exists on the other side of paradise.

[speedtripler]

theres an old guy on stumps who has no arms and no legs and crawls around nearly on his face

in the dirt outside market on phayoyothin rd begging

very sad but someone delivers him there in the evenings and must collect him again and

probably take the money

no idea how someone could lose all their limbs ,hes the worst amputee ive seen from thousands

but his courage is admirable

[kotsak]

Up in the mountains above Chiang Mai we happened upon two guys doing some target shooting with .22 rifles.

One guy was shooting at a paper target and the other guy was standing right next to target to call out the bullet strikes. I am talking less than half a meter away.

I just thought yikes. This explains how a lot of people drive the way they do.

Similar to this I guess?

[NoshowJones]

Not shocking, but amazing. I saw a Thai man, I would say in his forties, give up his seat on a bus to a thirteen year old girl ( I can tell her age, give or take a year, because of hair short hair and school uniform) and stand for a whole hour on the journey.

[NoshowJones]

What amazes me most is how this same thread gets started every week or two...

Yes, but still interesting.

[NoshowJones]

Cute ladyboys.

Cute?????????????

[kandi]

Not shocking, but amazing. I saw a Thai man, I would say in his forties, give up his seat on a bus to a thirteen year old girl ( I can tell her age, give or take a year, because of hair short hair and school uniform) and stand for a whole hour on the journey.

Sorry but at least to me that's not really anything new. Seen it many times, most people offer their seats to old people, then children and then girls. The more cute the girl, the easier it is, of course.

What amazed me more is when people actually get up for me when I'm carrying something heavy. And I'm in no way old or female.

[NoshowJones]

the very worst was a beggar in nong khai with no arms and legs at all just small stumps at each limb .seated on a small stool .i cant imagine how he ended up like this .

very depressing sight that never leaves me .

and the young boy biker in BKK who had crashed and his head was squashed as flat as a pancake with blood all over the road

Similar, seeing a old beggar in a similar state, but not on a stool just lying just about face down to the pavement trying to move along the pavement on his stumps just outside an upmarket shopping mall in Bkk with all the hi so waking around him and I wondered the same, and for the first and only time in my life I put my hand in my wallet and dropped THB 1000 in his cup, if was a "scam" ie he was put there by a "gang" running the beggars I lost USD 30, big deal, but it was the real deal, I really hope the money helped him and the people who take care of him as someone must be looking after him

I have never seen such a pitiful sight in all my life

I hate to rain on your parade and sound cynical but chances are that your 1,000 probably just helped condemn another purchased infant to have his/her arms lopped off (without anaesthetic) as the more disabled and heart-rending the managed beggar, the better the income from none-streetwise wealthy Westerners.

If I'm wrong, it's bad.

If I'm right, it's more bad.

It's bad.

I would say you are wrong, because they would die quickly through loss of blood.

[speedtripler]

the very worst was a beggar in nong khai with no arms and legs at all just small stumps at each limb .seated on a small stool .i cant imagine how he ended up like this .

very depressing sight that never leaves me .

and the young boy biker in BKK who had crashed and his head was squashed as flat as a pancake with blood all over the road

Similar, seeing a old beggar in a similar state, but not on a stool just lying just about face down to the pavement trying to move along the pavement on his stumps just outside an upmarket shopping mall in Bkk with all the hi so waking around him and I wondered the same, and for the first and only time in my life I put my hand in my wallet and dropped THB 1000 in his cup, if was a "scam" ie he was put there by a "gang" running the beggars I lost USD 30, big deal, but it was the real deal, I really hope the money helped him and the people who take care of him as someone must be looking after him

I have never seen such a pitiful sight in all my life

I hate to rain on your parade and sound cynical but chances are that your 1,000 probably just helped condemn another purchased infant to have his/her arms lopped off (without anaesthetic) as the more disabled and heart-rending the managed beggar, the better the income from none-streetwise wealthy Westerners.

If I'm wrong, it's bad.

If I'm right, it's more bad.

It's bad.

I would say you are wrong, because they would die quickly through loss of blood.

i saw a very cruel documentary about indian gangs blinding and amputating kiddnaped

children to use in their begging gang ,they used a hot poker on them

probably one of the sickest things ive ever seen and the organisers treat it like a normal business

[Soutpeel]

theres an old guy on stumps who has no arms and no legs and crawls around nearly on his face

in the dirt outside market on phayoyothin rd begging

very sad but someone delivers him there in the evenings and must collect him again and

probably take the money

no idea how someone could lose all their limbs ,hes the worst amputee ive seen from thousands

but his courage is admirable

Got a feeling could be the same guy,

[Soutpeel]

But the most amazing thing I see regularly in Thailand after 13 years here, if farangs who arrive on the "banana boat" and literally 2 or 3 years later they are thaier than thai and start lecturing their fellow farangs on all thing thai

[kevvy]

But hey mai pen rai right?

Right.... best 3 words ...

[kevvy]

Why do these topics always have to include "the most shocking" we know all this , so why not the most exciting or the best experience we have had.