FWIW Koh Tao was the worst place I had the displeasure to stay at in Thailand. The taxi basically dumped us in the middle of the jungle because he got pissed off he couldn’t find our hotel and threatened us with baseball bats when we didn’t want to get off. I thought they were leaving us there for their accomplices to mug us. We reported it to a police station that we found on our long walk back where all the cops were dozing off and took no notes of what we were saying. We left that island the next day, it was the lowest point of our trip and a big contrast with everywhere else where people were very nice. Never setting foot on that island again.
To offer a counterpoint, my worst experience in 2 weeks through Thailand was with a hostel run by British expats.
The description of the room was completely different from the room, extremely hot and humid even by Thailand standards, the windows wouldn't lock and could be opened from the balcony (accessible from other rooms), and the room just had bedding: no wardrobe, no drawers, no hangers, nothing (the pictures showed rooms with some basic amenities). On top it wasn't cheap either.
When we raised the concerns, the manager was both extremely drunk and non cooperative, which awarded shitty reviews. We didn't even spend there the night and took the last minute cancellation fee as a loss. They replied with made up stuff about us being violent and threatening.
Despite that, the place had (and still has) raging reviews from bogans, as it has a bar with plenty of beer variety on the ground floor running basically 24/7.
Interesting - I also traveled around Thailand and had basically only good experiences in Koh Tao (the diving there is gorgeous), but a number of bad experiences mainly around Bangkok and Chiangmai (never setting foot there again! :) ). Specific events definitely color our impressions of places!
In Bangkok it was mainly tuk-tuks taking me to places I didn't want to go and many attempted scams (magicians, dealers in jewels, someone pretending to be police). In Chiangmai I had my worst couchsurfing experience, really unpleasant guy who I went to town with and was dependent on (he took me half an hour or so on the back of his motorcycle) and who got really drunk after I asked him to please stop drinking (because of the ride). He told me not to worry because "if we die we die together" and a couple of times gave the impression of trying to leave without me. Then I ended up in another hotel which turned out to be above a brothel and to have used condoms in the room, but couldn't really leave because I had gotten food poisoning.
I also met some really nice people in Thailand, but I do feel it has been a bit ruined by the wrong kind of tourism.
Honest question.. why do you go to countries like these ?
To me it looks like the risk is not worth at all..
Is being in danger part of the attraction or people really underestimate the dangers of third world countries ?
Thailand is actually quite safe. You are going to find a few horror stories but generally, as long as you stay away from the most common scams (which you can find in all travel guides), you will not be more at risk than in first world countries.
One reason Thailand is safer than most "third world" countries is that tourism is taken very seriously by the government. Most notably, they have a "tourist police" that can be called if you run into trouble.
Also note that most "scams" are just overpricing. Sure, it sucks paying 5 times the local price, but when it is 10 times more expensive in your home country, it is not really a big deal.
Got stuck in a common scam, realizes in the middle of it that I was in a scam with my partner. Mistake to tell my partner that we were being scammed. Partner got depressed, wanted to go home. 3 weeks of sad vacation, have never been more happy to be back from vacation than from that one. Could not "forget" the scam, everything afterwards in vacation circled around the scam. Worth to mention is that my partner was bi-polar so an easy target/never been in a organized scam before that everyone you meet for a coupe of hours are part of it. Probably at-least 20-30 people involved. I guess it could be similar to "The Truman show?"
One year later still feeling sad for not able to protect us from it. Have become extremely suspicious of helpful people/sellers. Had issues with buying stuff since the trip. Not the price/money that is/has been the issue. I wished I never visited Bangkok.
Similar as this one, but for suits instead. (Did not plan to buy it, in fact earlier that day I wonder why/laugh at people that did it, just a few hours later I was one of them. Now I understand them an why it works and will continue to work for 20 more years)
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/asia-thailand/...
TLDR; Thailand suppose to be me an my partners dream trip. Was our worst trip, lead to us splitting up and started to have trust issue. Feeling depressed about it, still sad about it one year later.
Apart from the couchsurfing experience none of it was really dangerous, just really annoying.
My reason for going to Thailand was that I had an internship in Australia (I'm from the Netherlands) and I was going to change planes there anyway, so I figured I might as well spend a month in the area. While I didn't like the cities, there were many other nice and beautiful places.
People have different levels of risk tolerance and different interests. I have traveled in a number of poor or somewhat conflicted countries and while it's definitely not always enjoyable, I don't think everything in life is about enjoyment and they were really valuable experiences that shaped my view on the world in other ways. (Not to sound like a disaster tourist - in all cases I was either passing through or working in the area, it's not like I went to watch poverty or conflict.)
It's beautiful, it's cheap such that you can afford a level of luxury you couldn't in the west, and sure the level of petty crime is higher than the west but it's still at beginner-to-intermediate levels of streetwiseness required.
Tourism is huge in Thailand, so presumably it's not like people get mugged left and right. However, ‘tourist places’ anywhere do attract lots of pushy folks doing riskless swindles on easy targets who lose self-control right after landing.
It pays to know what you want, to have a permanent bitch-face and a habit of saying no to everything else.
Wow, it looks like you probably haven't been around these places in the world, so let me tell you that while we like to discuss about bad experiences, these places are 100x safer and more enjoyable than the US, which is why we travel there in the first place :)
Well for one Thailand has a lot of amazing attractions. Beautiful nature, really really good food for cheap, fun nightlife. Sure you get the odd scam or unpleasantness, but it can become a funny story.
I had two run un with tugs on New York city. Family got robbed on Orlando, friends on San Francisco. My wife got scammed at London airport by the officers there.
Tuk tuks are always bad deal/tourist attraction, make sure Taxis use meter, don't take any of their suggestions (girls, jewelery, etc) or accept detours
To be safe, use Grab application,
- no wasting time trying to speak to the driver asking where you want to go,
- no tips (from rounding up the payment),
- no taking you places you don't want to go.
