If you read the web, particularly one specific website we won’t name (thaivisa.com)… whoops, then you’d assume that Thailand is a dreadful place to visit, full of hate-filled ex-pats who reside in fear and loathing of, nicely, everything. According to many, the sky is more doubtless to fall in at any moment and every little thing in Thailand is simply too expensive, too corrupt, too scorching, too chilly, and too harmful.
Here are seven well-liked myths some ex-pats prefer to hold touting.
The TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand) make up the tourist arrival numbers
This has been a well-liked conspiracy concept for many years. As the numbers of tourists continued to rise, so did the remark “they’re making it up”. With no evidence to back their claims, keyboard warriors, seemingly sad that there’s a rise in the number of vacationers coming to Thailand, claim passionately that the TAT is just inventing numbers to appease their bosses.
It should be talked about that the TAT doesn’t run around counting heads but get their figures from the Thai Ministry of Sports and Tourism which collates the statistics from the Immigration Department reports.
Meanwhile, the airports get busier, add new terminals, extra flights arrive, new motels get built, new vacationer points of interest open, new condos get constructed and folks scream about long immigration queues.
The TAT has assured us, over the years, that the strategies used for amassing vacationer arrival knowledge have been the same for 20 years and that the figures are audited. The danger the TAT would have of being uncovered to fraudulent numbers would be a significant loss of face.
However, if you’d favor to believe ‘CrankyPattaya’, ‘BritRoot’ or ‘TratTrash’, then go for it.
Strange are getting too expensive in Thailand
And issues are getting dearer around the world. It’s known as inflation. The rises in costs for meals, companies in goods in Thailand can partly be defined by the rise of tourism to the country with well-liked places having higher leases than in the past as the worth of the property in vacationer areas rises.
Whilst you possibly can pay 300+ baht for a pad thai in a vacationer area, locals can still get the same meal for beneath 50 baht. Is the price larger than it was 10 years ago? Of course.
The variations in costs between the popular vacationer magnets and the outlying areas of the nation continue to turn out to be extra obvious although. If you’re going to stay in Pattaya, Phuket, or Sukhumvit Road, then you can see many prices have risen along with the popularity of the areas and the rising real property costs.
You have a high probability of dying on Thailand’s roads
According to figures from the World Health Organisation, Eritrea has the most number of street deaths (with 48.4 deaths per 100,000 residents), Dominican Republic – forty one.7, Libya – 40.5, Thailand – 38.1, Venezuela – 37.2. So Thailand has, statistically, the fourth most harmful roads on the planet. The statistic seems unhealthy.
But whenever you factor in that 74% of these deaths are folks on bikes, typically also drunk and never sporting a helmet, it’s not as bad as the numbers counsel, if you’re not in the high-risk categories. But IF you’re not drunk, wear a helmet, ride responsibly or travel in a car, your possibilities of getting killed on the roads are a LOT lower. Whilst the statistics still look really awful they’re closely weighted in opposition to younger males between 16-24.
So if you don’t fall into the ‘at risk’ classes that make up a very excessive majority of deaths on Thailand’s roads, then you’re in less hazard than the world average. That’s still not adequate but it puts Thailand’s high rating into perspective.
The Thai government don’t want us to remain here
In latest years there have been further levels of paperwork put on the appliance for visas for long-term stayers within the Kingdom. In the past, some of the necessities had been overlooked or sorted out by way of, Ummm, negotiation. At the identical time, the Thai Government has announced many different modifications to visas and introduced Smart Visas and BOI visas, aimed toward encouraging expert professionals to reside and work in Thailand.
All this while the exchange charges for many currencies have turned unhealthy, particularly for UK, European and Australian citizens, so their pensions or offshore investments haven’t been stretching so far as in the past.
Most of the modifications come in the type of enforcement of existing rules and a general ‘clean up’ of procedures at Thai Immigration offices. There have been many improvements, well… makes an attempt at improvements, alongside the method in which as well – things like drive-thru providers.
Bottom line, should you think it’s tough to reside, work and stay in Thailand, simply check how tough it’s for a Thai citizen to move to your nation.
All ex-pats sit in bars and date bar women
In the Nineteen Eighties this will have been statistically prevalent. But the type-cast ex-pat dwelling in Pattaya, Patpong, and Phuket has changed radically prior to now 30 or so years. Now ex-pats come from a a lot broader range of countries, settle here for so much of different causes, are youthful, many have families, and are more likely to be working right here than retired. And you’re unlikely to see them sitting in a bar chatting up bar girls (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
But previous perceptions die-hard and the standard Thai ex-pat continues to be thought to be white, older, and enjoys dating younger Thai bar ladies. Statistically, it is a tiny proportion of the 300,000 or so ex-pats considered living and working in Thailand in 2019.
Staying in the Kingdom without a job, with restricted funds and no health insurance is becoming more and more advanced. But you’d discover that situation in most components of the world now. Should you prefer the protection of a medical health insurance coverage to protect you from these unforeseen eventualities, there’s a whole host of companies willing to write down you a coverage in a matter of minutes. The specialists in Thailand are Regency Assurance, catering to ex-pats and vacationers alike.
The Thai government is a dictatorship
We’ll tread a little carefully here. Thailand’s fraught experiment with democracy, because the absolute monarchy was abolished back in 1932, has been fragile. Lots of coups, lots of Army tampering, and tons of elections. Thailand now has the doubtful distinction of being the world’s solely current Military-led government. But is it a ‘dictatorship’ within the historic use of the phrase? Probably not.
The NCPO, the Army-led National Council of Peace and Order, took the reins of presidency on May 22 2014, in a bloodless take-over from the civilian-elected authorities.
But the Thai Government is in good company in and round South East Asia. Laos and Vietnam are both run by communist governments (with steady capitalist economies), Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy run by a pacesetter who has been seen to manage the ‘elections’ by suppressing political dissent. Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy however has suffered ongoing political division and nepotism, and extra recently an increase in religious tensions that cripple the government’s ability to govern. Singapore is extra of a household enterprise than democracy – the southeast Asian financial miracle of the twentieth century. Brunei is run by a Sultan who has recently introduced features of Sharia law into the Sultanate – no elections there. Myanmar is a quasi army-run dictatorship. Etc, etc…
Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea are the only relatively stable Asian democracies however they are few and much between.
So Quadruple ‘election’ and ‘democracy’ ought to be seen in a wider framework of pan-Asian politics. Bottom line, there aren’t tanks rolling down the streets or troopers standing on road corners toting weapons. In the Wikipedia Democracy Index, Thailand falls into the category of ‘hybrid regime’ and that’s in all probability about right.
There’s NO Freedom of Speech in Thailand
Whilst there are many delicate, and a few less refined, limitations on Thai media, you will notice strong debate and editorials printed in Thai and foreign-language media any day of the week. It’s a uniquely ‘Thai’ sort of media however there are a quantity of well-documented cases of people who’ve dared to tread over the grey line.
Going to a Thai media scrum is about as strong as you’ll find wherever on the planet and the questions fired at politicians, often cloaked in very well mannered language, can cover nearly any issue. There are a quantity of ‘no go’ subjects in Thailand and that’s a cultural factor that takes a couple of years to totally understand. But, believe me, the Thai media is a strong a half of the continuing political and financial discourse of the nation, regardless of the various perceived or real restrictions. Like many different things in Thailand, in relation to freedom of the media, TIT.
The Thaiger has by no means been contacted by the police, the Army, or authorities officers to debate or remove anything we’ve printed..