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IS Thailand Safe?

By Wally, Created on: 08/11/2008, Last updated on: 07/12/2008

» Thailand is relatively safe, many of the statistics you cite are largely Thai-Thai. All countries have areas best avoided, Thailand is no different, but for the most part I think it is quite safe. Mind you this will vary depending whether you are in Chiang Mai or Pattaya.

• Sean Moran commented : red at me, here. I have been visiting and living here for over 44 years without undue problems IF I keep my nose out of other peoples problems. When I first came here, the price of a killing was $100.. Now I think it has gone up to $5 or 600. Keep to your own affairs, live long and prosper.[/quote:1vt5whvb] Funny that, but when you wrote "...Safe For Whom? ", I first read it as "Safe FROM Whom?" If you're 6'4" and 350lbs and you're walking across a footbridge over the thanon to the skytrain and you see a friend down in the street below and you get excited and wave your arms up in the air and jump up to say hello and you accidentally put your fingernails through the insulation of a 440v 3-phase overhead cable and electrocute yourself and unconsciously tumble over the edge of the bridge and down towards the macadam, and there happens to be a young family of five who can't afford a car yet riding back from the market with a week's supply of shopping on the back of an old Yamaha stuck in traffic at the red light below and you fall on them, you could hurt the poor little kiddies, couldn't you? I'd have to agree that the ONLY place I feel unsafe in Thailand is riding on the bike into or out of Bangkok, and it's the one place in the World where I'd always take a taxi and leave the bike back up in Nonthaburi, except on those odd occasions when I'd have to ride through Bangkok on the way out of town, or back from the train station once. Funny thing is, I never get lost in a cab, and I never get lost on the bike north of Chaengwattana, east of Samut Prakan, or west of Ratchaburi, day or night, I never lose my sense of direction in a new soi, but every single time I've had to ride through the Big Mango on a bike, I've continued to do some kind of 360 act without fail, and think I've made it to Ratchaburi until I pass by the Victory Monument again, or think I must be just crossing the railway line on the way to Sattahip, and then do a lap of Chitralada Palace, and happens every single time I try to find my way through Bangkok on a bike in a hurry. Always have the Michelin mapbook and the Lonely Planet right there in the top rucksack, but no matter how easy those maps make it to find your way around the Chantaburi markets on an overcast day, it just don't work for me in Krungthep. It's safe, but it's not much fun at all when it takes me all day to ride from Pak Kret to Bang Kapi.

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