Dying in Thailand

[Andara Bledin]

Apparently, Thailand can be murder on people who aren't natives. Possibly literally.

Article at Wired

Summary: People keep dying in Thailand, likely due to poisoning, while the local police spend more effort obstructing outsiders from investigating than actually doing any investigating themselves. It's not a huge number, but it's been happening for years, continues to happen, and remains "unexplained."

^-.-^

[crashhelmet]

I've been to Thailand a few times. It's not the best place to be if you're a tourist. Especially if you're a tourist with money.

Sure, the beaches and the ruins may be a beautiful sight to see, but like anywhere else you go, always be careful.

There is a huge problem with drugs, prostitution, and slavery there. Not to mention the corrupt government is particularly hard on foreigners. Never take a drink from someone you don't know. Never leave your drink where someone can get to it. Same goes for food.

The somewhat sudden increase in tourism is really making it worse. i almost worry what the backlash will be from idiots that go there thinking they'll get the Hangover 2 experience much like Vegas did.

[ExRetailDrone]

These kinds of stories have been circulating in the expat community in the country I'm in now, because a lot of the expats like touring around Asia, including Thailand, during their vacations. It was a pretty big scare for some people when 2 girls wound up dead earlier this year. My husband and I have been considering visiting Thailand as one of our winter vacation stops early next year, but we're definitely leery about it because of stories like this.

[AccountingDrone]

I agree with Expat - we have been sort of planning on getting a sailboat/motorsailer and traveling before my body finishes falling apart and so I have joined a couple of boat and travel based message boards and have been noticing some disturbing reports of what I would consider out and out piracy happening not just near Somalia, but in the Pacific for those who were island hopping.

I love being told to anchor our sea-anchor 30 miles from an island because the little zodes and small craft they use can't really handle the distance, nor can they track you down as they tend to lack radar ... One guy reported that he and his wife were boarded by 4 men from one southern Pacific island, and they stripped the boat of food, and stuff they could sale, they were trying to get them off the boat and into the zone so they could take the entire sailboat, and his wife reported that she had to really verbally tapdance as the leader of the group was trying to get her isolated down inside the boat and she feared rape. [I would have to go back and find the post, but I believe that she played up menstruation heavily to scare him from attempting it.] but also there are actually a fair number of boats both sail and power that go missing every year that can't really be put down to bad weather or bad skills.

I would go to Thailand, but mainly because I am not a cute young thing, and in the company of my husband - so we wouldn't be flirting with anybody, nor would we be cruising for sex from prostitutes of any gender. Though we would have a second couple with us so we could take turns touristing and staying on the boat. There is also a hell of a theft problem even with people on their boats - one guy reported having to periodically scare away people sneaking up to their boat in the small boats and trying to rummage for stuff in the boats hanging on the davits or by hopping onto the deck, or cutting through the screens on larger portholes.

[Giggle Goose]

My fiance went to Thailand. He got sick from the pills that were supposed to prevent malaria. His parents were working in Mongolia and they went to Thailand for summer vacation. They said they will never return again, can't say I blame them.

[Tanasi]

Back in the early 70's I had to take a big orange pill every day to prevent malaria. After a few months your skin would begin to turn orange. Some guys quit and I'd rather been orange than get malaria. My Dad got it in New Guinea during WWII and he said at first he was afraid he was going to die and then later was afraid he wasn't going to die from it. Lots of other stuff to catch over in that part of the world, I have no intentions of ever returning under any conditions.

[EricKei]

it's been happening for years, continues to happen, and remains "unexplained."

I have found, at times, that things that are "unexplained" such as this, are often that way because someone in power wants them to be that way.

As a (MUCH much milder) example -- One heavily-rural Parish (County) in my state elected a new Sheriff not long ago. He wants to maintain the area's long-standing image as being "virtually crime-free". His primary way of doing this is simply to not publish arrests or crime statistics at all, let alone make press releases, save for those which have already leaked out to major news sources. The main way newsies find out is from two of the major cities in said area, who do actually publish arrests once every few weeks...The reality is that, the crime RATE is not that far behind that of the two biggest urban areas in the state. All of this data is obtainable via FOIA, but this is useless for news outlets due to the time needed to get them fulfilled (as long as 3 three months).

The Sheriff Dept's website, when I recently visited it (I was working for a paper at the time), had an empty "Most Wanted" page, no arrest reports section at all, and a Press Releases page that was just copypasta of major-outlet news reports.