Thailand Tips #16: Traffic Accidents

In my opinion your best bet in a traffic accident is to offer some money to the other person(s) involved and get out of there quick.

You might think you’re covered by some insurance. You might be, you might not.

Thais assume that the foreigner was wrong in most (any?) accidents. There’s a good reason for that - Thais think you can afford to pay for it, is the general assumption.

Don’t ever run away after an accident as you’ll be caught and beaten AND pay for all the damages, hospital bills. Better to offer some cash - a few thousand baht and wai a few times - making sure everyone is smiling and OK with the arrangement. If it’s a huge crash the police will likely be involved and you’re better off to get a Thai lawyer that speaks excellent English or you’ll be paying for the whole mess.

Remember, the general rule of accidents is that the farang (foreigner) is responsible. You can call the police and plead your case if you like - but I think much, much better to offer some cash and call it a loss. Probably you were doing something that contributed to the crash anyway!

What do I mean by that?

Driving a motorbike on the roads of Thailand for 100,000 km I’ve learned some things about the way Thais drive. I know when to compensate for someone ready to do something stupid because I have to do it almost everytime I drive. It’s part of the safe way to drive in Thailand - know what idiots are about to do and compensate for it before they do it and run you off the road, smack into you or worse.

Another reason to bust out the cash and hit the road again as soon as possible is because if the police DO come there will a bunch of Thais explaining in Thai to the police what happened and you speaking in English attempting to sway someone into believing your perspective.

Good Luck!

Happy New Year 1 Out of 3

Thailand has 3 New Years, this one that just occurred is celebrated the least. Still there were some fireworks and drunkenness to usher in 2009.

I actually stayed up until 12:30am on the 1st, a rarity for me. Chalk it up to an amazing Batman Dark Knight. I was not expecting to be entertained in the least as I thought all the Batmans sucked up to this point. This one was directed by Christopher Nolan. Isn’t that the guy that did MEMENTO and FOLLOWING?

I think so - if not, no worries. Whoever did this did a great job. I rarely get into fantasy type stuff - and this one was good.

I’ve got good things in store for my online projects for the new year. At last count I have 19 websites/blogs. Recently there was a Google Pagerank update and I have many sites with Pagerank 3’s and a 4, a 5 and even a 6 at my blogs - more about that at a later post.

I’ve been focusing a lot on my Youtube Thailand Travel Channel lately. I think producing tons of videos people can watch is interesting - more so than writing, and I’m already writing more places than I’d care to. As luck has it - my PR 4-6 blogs are going to see the most attention.

If you have a blog focused on Thailand that is well made (wordpress or other high-level format) and you aren’t blanketing your site in advertisements I may link to your site from my Thailand PR 6 and PR 5 sites. Just send me an email and tell me about your site.

I wish everyone a great new year… If you blog - put up lots of great content.

Thailand FAQ

I’ve been meaning to do a Thailand FAQ for a long time. There are many questions visitors and expats alike have about Thailand and most visitors I’m sure end up using a TH FAQ before coming to LOS. I wanted to make one that’s useful and that combines not only my knowledge but other resources as well.

Thailand FAQ is a pool of information from a number of sites - and I’ll be adding to it over today and tomorrow as well. There are many subjects that deserve a whole FAQ for themselves. The Full Moon Party was one of them.

If you have written a FAQ about some part of Thailand - the culture, attractions, anything really - shoot me a link and let me see if it will fit with this Thailand FAQ collection.

30 Day Visa Runs now just 15 Days? What?

A Thailand focused website was reporting that the 30 day visa run has been changed to just 15 days from now forward. This affects those that are coming across land and that do not already have a visa.

The purpose of this was stated to: limit the amount of foreigners using “back-to-back” border runs to extend their stay.

Effective immediately, visitors without a visa will receive a visa good for 15 days of stay if they are arriving over a land border checkpoint from a neighboring country.

What a great way to limit the number of days tourists stay in Thailand - especially after the protest shut down the Bangkok airports for a week.

Here’s what I was able to pull off the official site…

Requirements for foreigners applying for a visa:

* Nationals of countries specified by the Ministry and approved by the cabinet. The nationality must be the same as the country issuing the passport
* Entering Thailand as tourists for 15 days
* 1 passport picture 4×6 cm, not more than 6 months old
* No blacklisted person (persona non grata) according to the immigration laws
* Confirmed onward or return ticket within 15 days
* Indication of actual address of residence in Thailand
* Cash of at least 10,000.- Baht (US$ 250.-) per person or 20,000.- Baht (US$ 500.- per family)
* Valid passport with validity of at least 6 months

Thai Immigration is at this web site, it’s in English but is a bit hard to follow. No, it’s damn impossible to follow. Better to weed through the mass of unrelated posts at ThaiVisa forum to figure out what this means for you.

If your visa expired during the protest at the Bangkok airports you just need to show immigration officials your expired plane ticket with correct departure date and they’ll take care of your visa overstay without incident.

Buddhism Section Updated on ThaiPulse

I spent a couple hours today transferring over some of the Buddhist temple and meditation retreat information from the old TP site to the new one (www.ThaiPulse.com). There are many photos - probably 50 or more of Wat Suan Mokkh, Wat Pah Nanachat, Wat Tum Sua, Wat Tum Sang Phet and then if you really want to knock your self out you can see either the photo section of the old ThaiPulse site or see some of my photos up at Flickr.

My Thailand Photos at Flickr.

I think I have 600 photos of Thailand there at the present and in the process of uploading another 7,000 approximately. No I’m not uploading all my junk shots - these are my better than average shots.  The first photos you’ll see there are my beer bottle temple photos of a cool Buddhist temple in Sisaket’s countryside.

Here’s a better link that goes straight to my Thai photo sets so you can choose for yourself what you want to look at: Thailand photo sets

Your Digital Photos Aren’t Worth ANYTHING

I had a weird experience the last couple days and it got weirder today.

I wrote a small company on a very small island and told them I liked one of their photos they use on their site. I also told them I was writing an article about the island and would mention their small business favorably and put a link in the article linking to their site AND another link on the photo with credit to them and a link back to their site if they would allow me to feature the photo in the article.

This was not for ThaiPulse incidentally, but no matter - could have been for any site.

The girl co-owner, a Brit, writes back that she couldn’t let the photo be used without charging for it.

I thought she didn’t understand so I wrote again to clarify everything. It’s in the best interests of her business to be mentioned - didn’t she “get it”?

She got it, at least she thought she did - but, in the next email back she wrote again - that the article is worth more with a photo and she’d need to charge for it.

Let me explain further. The shot has nice color. That’s about it. It is only about 400pixels by 250 and not high resolution by any means. Anyone or a monkey could have taken the photo - it’s just that the perspective seen is from high above the ground.

I have access to Getty images for free. I have credits at Dreamstime.com enough for hundreds of photos - basically free. Or, if you equate credit to dollars - I have the $3 it would take to get a photo of the island from the same or much better perspective.

I like to help small Thai businesses that I like, that I believe in. For free. I don’t make any extra money writing this article, I’m paid a salary at the place I was writing for. It’s not freelance… anyway…

Your digital photos (and mine) are not worth squat in today’s market. Everyone and their kids has a digital camera and are capable of turning out remarkable photos. Gone are the days when I worked in New York City as a photographer and spent hours prepping a scene or a model to take photos that were worth something more than $3 at Dreamstime. Those days are WAY gone.

Apparently someone is still telling the world they can make money with their digital photos. It’s a novice way to enter into online sales of some sort. Something everyone can do to have a business online. Everyone wants the easy money online.

There isn’t any easy money in digital photos. Not even if you put together 100 photos that make people fall down semi-comatose and suck wind for 10 minutes because they can’t wrap their minds around what they just saw.

I have 700+ photos online at stock photo agencies. I know how to shoot a photo. I have some good photos. I was a professional at one time. I make about a dollar a sale on my photos - high resolution shot with amazing care and precision.

A dollar.

The best photographers in the entire world are putting billions of photos online at stock agencies because that’s where the buyers are. Not NYC, not Chicago and L.A. They are online and they want a photo for about 3 dollars.

The best chance anyone has for making money on digital photography these days is to make all of your photos “Creative Commons” licensed (see flickr’s CC info) and put your credit in the form of a URL directly on your photos so that some people will come back to your site.

That’s about it. There’s too many calendars. There’s too many coffee mugs with photos. You’re aren’t anything special unless they’re naked people doing weird stuff. Even then, there is such a glut of por—-n online that those photos too are dropping down to the couple dollars a shot rate.

Digital video is another story. Creating something unique digitally is another story. Writing stories - is another story.

Digital image money making is dead.

If someone writes you to say they are writing an article about your town and they are mentioning your business in the article - favorably, and with a link back to your site from the article, and the writer would like to use one of YOUR photos in the article WITH a link back to your site. Count them - that’s 2 links.

You should: (multiple choice)

A.) Tell the writer your photos are not free and you will charge him for them.

B.) Understand that you are getting free advertising and offer the writer 25 more photos you have that you haven’t posted online yet.

C.) Tell the writer you have enough people coming to your small business, but thanks for the thought.

D.) Write back as fast as you can, “YES, USE MY PHOTOS, THANK YOU FOR THE LINK AND MENTION!” and quickly invite the writer to use your service gratis for a 2-day stay if he’ll write 2 more articles about your business over the next couple weeks.

E.) Go back to watching Thai soap operas and thinking about how to make your skin whiter.

Gifts from Thailand: Thai Buddhist and Buddha Amulets

Often times visitors to Thailand return to their home country and realize that they didn’t buy any gifts for some loved ones because they were having too much fun here in Thailand. Happens a lot.

Here is a Thai Buddhist amulet site that is genuine and can help you out by sending your chosen amulets to any country in the world (I think) for just $9 per amulet.

There are currently 17 different Thai amulets available, about 10 with gold cases and the others made of brass, bronze, and copper.

There are good luck amulets - all are blessed by Ajarn Jumnien and guaranteed authentic.

Jae (Jay) Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Thailand

It’s that time of year when the Jae parades scare the hell out of the tourists.

I covered the Chinese Jae Vegetarian festival last year (I re-posted that on this new blog yesterday) and wrote my impressions of it. I added some photos and videos which you can find below - but this year I’ll abstain as many expat bloggers cover it already - and cover it well!

Already I saw that Jamie in Phuket had a great post about it for 2008’s festival activities - so I’ll refer you there:

Jamie Monk Phuket Blog covering Jae Festival >

Phuket is where the festival started apparently. He talks about it a little bit, but then links to the main site for information about the Chinese Vegetarian Festival here >

Here are some tame photos of the Jae participants in the festival from last year.

Here are my crazy photos from the Chinese Jae Vegetarian Festival in Krabi for 2007.

Here are 18 videos from Chinese Jae Vegetarian Festival in Krabi, 2007.

12 guys cutting tongues and dancing	Bloody group, guy with sword piercing cheek
Guys dancing while firecrackers go off around them	All sorts of Jae parade walkers
Guy with serpent carving through cheek and others cutting themselves	Kids walk near bloody men
Very crazy group cutting themselves, children just 3 meters behind
Monkey man 1	Monkey man 2
Man licking blade	Hard sword licker
Kids and women walk in Jae parade	Guys possessed
Guys screaming, women following	Bloodiest guy
Guys and girl with pierced cheek	Bicycle frame piercing

Should Expat Teachers Hit the Thai School Children?

I live on a soi where two tiny girls of 3 and 4 get beat with a stick on a daily basis. These poor girls are hit over and over and over, AND OVER sometimes for up to 10 minutes. In fact, the older boy of about 12 yrs has been hit for 20 minutes hard, for something as simple as not walking the dog. I haven’t seen Thai parents hit their kids much over the years but these two are not shy about it at all - in private or out in front of their home.

While teaching English in Thailand you might become a little frustrated at the seeming complete lack of respect for you as a teacher, a person, and what we term in the west as an authority figure. You really aren’t any kind of authority figure in Thailand as a foreign teacher of English and the kids have probably already shown you that.

You can of course set yourself up as THE BIG DOG and that’s one route you can go. Some teachers look at it like this… Why let the kids do whatever the hell they want? I’m going to maintain control and treat the classroom like a boot camp. This technique works in the sense that the teacher has a rather easy time teaching. There isn’t much clowning going on because the teacher is so strict. There isn’t much learning going on either because the Thai kids don’t learn in a classroom environment where there is not much leeway to be themselves. Yep, for Thais they need to be able to be themselves in and out of the classroom or they aren’t learning. If they aren’t having fun then it isn’t considered school.

School is outrageously fun to Thai kids. It should be anyway. There are few Thai teachers that are very strict, those that are usually are over fifty years old and have had enough. They can’t deal with the clowning so they’ve either adopted a “learned helplessness” role like Pavlov’s dogs, or they’ve demanded respect in sync with their age which still goes far among Thai kids in the northeast though not sure about the south and Bangkok areas.

The problem foreigners face when they arrive in Thailand to teach Thai kids is that the school experience is ENTIRELY different. Basically there is no real control of the kids without the military dictatorship classroom style because the big picture is something else entirely.

What is the big picture?

The big picture, as Brunty has found out repeatedly and not yet fully resigned himself to is that the Thai kids will pass your class regardless of what your point of view is as the teacher of your class. They will pass and they might even pass not only with a D (1), but they might pass with a C or B (2 or 3)! Thai school administration works magic with the grades and reports you give the kids each term. Some might call it voodoo.

The kids understand their education system a whole lot better than you. Each jackass boy that insists on clowning around in your class day after day understands the game of the Thai education system really very well. It’s the foreign teachers that don’t ‘get it’. As teachers you really need to get it and live with it because contrary to what most Americans, Germans, Brits, and Australians here to teach think - you cannot change the Thai system at even one school to make it better or more along the lines of the educational experience you received in your home country.

Who are you to try anyway?

Foreigners have a way of coming to Thailand and expecting Thais’ to act American, German, Swiss and everything else but what they are - Thai. Who of us, as a teacher in America would listen to a foreign teacher from Thailand about how we needed to lighten up the atmosphere of the classroom so the kids can learn?

Why would we? Should we? Should Thais listen to you here?

They placate you and then go about doing the same thing they were doing before you set foot in their country - and will continue it long after you leave. It’s Thai ways.

So this brings me around to the subject of hitting the Thai school children in the classroom when they’re really raising cane and you’ve stood them in a corner or whatever your usual method of discipline is.

Thais live according to face. While some kids, most kids, can be effectively controlled with using face losing techniques, many are immune or at least seem to be. They may go home and create play dough witch dolls of you they run bamboo slivers through and play screaming rock hate music that they scream into ‘your’ doll’s face to deal with the grief you gave them in class.  But, these kids exist - there are always some kids that are just absolutely uncontrollable.

Should you hit the kids in the classroom?

In America as most know, this isn’t possible. In the Catholic schools it was done even in the 1980’s… not sure about now but I think it’s safe to say that’s been phased out due to fear of litigation from parents.

In Thailand it’s commonplace. There are some (few) teachers that bring a paddle into the class. Those classrooms are pretty damn quiet you’d notice. You’d also notice that the teacher enjoys quite a bit of respect gained from the threat of whacking someone across the back of their thighs or lower back.

I’ve seen the director of a government English program whack some kids. She didn’t play around, she hit them good- boys and girls alike. The kids resigned themselves to it. They knew it was coming and each stood in line (she had a queue).

Girls and boys would cry. These were 13-16 year old Thai kids. Some were tough boys and she knew it and really swung it with some speed. I’d watch through the tinted office window and she might hit them once or 5 times. One kid got 10, he wasn’t in such good shape.

I saw teachers hit 5 year olds on the head and knuckles with rulers, pencils and aluminum markers. It worked wonders in some, and others were still victims to their own wild id impulses and never did grasp the simple concept that loud outbursts or hitting others led to getting whacked. Usually the boys were much worse than girls.

Is hitting the kids going to make teaching easier for you as a teacher?

Yes. That’s the reality. It will make it easier to get control of the kids. You might even be able to control the whole class that way. They likely haven’t been hit by their parents EVER in their lives. Thai parents don’t typically hit kids, they let them run willy nilly all over creation and ‘anything goes’ seems to be the parenting style. It’s different from the USA - is it wrong? Not to me. It’s great to see kids doing whatever they want, wherever they want. Outside the classroom.

Inside the classroom I’d like to see things change but I’m not naive enough to think they will in my lifetime. I don’t believe strongly enough in the educational system I was brought up in to attempt to force it down Thais throats. How presumptuous.

I notice that most foreigners don’t assimilate into the country. They bring their own country with them and try to make everyone else conform. It’s ludicrous for one person to try to enforce a completely different lifestyle and reality on 65 million inhabitants of a foreign country they are visiting.

Some Thoughts on Thailand

I don’t regularly post here anymore. A couple hundred people reading my observations about the day is nice - but man, as most bloggers in Thailand are figuring out - it doesn’t pay the bills. Unless you’re going to be controversial as hell - or get a thrill about writing your online journal and sharing it with the world everyday there’s no real point in blogging full time in Thailand.

The rewards are few.

That said, I write for my family who still read this blog and so I can read it later when I’m back in the USA and hating life. The screwy stuff Thais’ did here will seem like nothing compared to the crap America slings. I know.

I met a guy from Phuket the other day. We spoke in Thai. He really doesn’t like Phuket at all. He was born there, grew up there. He hates what it has become. I told him at first - oh - you are lucky to live there. He said, “lucky why?”. That started our conversation about the horrible place it has become for him.

Too many Thais. Too many farang. Too much traffic. No culture. No Traditions.
Thais are very selfish. Consumed with making money to live. Focused on themselves, not others. Not ever their own kids. Parents whore out their daughters. Their sons. Their ladyboys. Everyone’s on drugs.

If there’s an accident - nobody cares, they look the other way sometimes.

Constant fights all over town. Drug wars, thievery… rape. Murder.

He was really sad about the state of Phuket. (around patong and phuket town)

It made me think of the Hawaiians - when I first got there in 1984 I had Hawaiians hold up big knives in the windows of their car as I rode by on my motorcycle. Why did they threaten me - what did I do? I was a white guy (haole) in their world. I was military too - which was worse in some ways. The USA basically took Hawaii with some smooth talk about protection and big money for those who ran it.

Some Thais’ in Phuket, Ko Samui - other places that have been destroyed by visitors, feel the same apparently. I think they’d better move - Patong isn’t getting any better anytime soon.

Just something I noticed.

There was something else I wanted to comment on - oh - rice.

I noticed that our favorite restaurants (all of them) have changed the excellent rice they used before to something low-grade. It sucks. What is Thailand doing with rice that it has shot up to a world-high? And, why?

There’s more rice in Thailand than any country in the WORLD. It exports more at least - yes? I’ve heard that somewhere. Anyway - we’re feeling the pain here in Thailand too. Low grade rice! The horror of it…

Oh yeah, gasoline is going WAY up too. We’ve had an increase of 4 baht per liter lately… that’s about 12 cents. Supposedly it’s going up another 5 soon. Jeez. Glad I don’t have a car or worse, a truck.

One more thing… If you haven’t been reading Brunty at http://isaanstyle.blogspot.com you’re missing a lot of action - jesus that guy constantly churns out interesting stuff. Today a review of the kids rape little girl incident that is making the rounds. The other day - Brunty kills his neighbor’s new car scratching chicken. Couple days before that Brunty fends off horny Thai guys at an outdoor concert at the village. There’s non-stop action at that blog man. It’s always interesting. GO SEE IT! I vote Brunty the best blogger in Thailand. Nobody else gives a piece of themselves like he does. Nobody says it like it is like he does. Nobody writes from the heart like he does. Really - I’ve read a hell of a lotta blogs in Thailand - mine included - nobody is telling it like Brunty (Jason).

Ok I’ll come back in a couple weeks. I’ll likely change the home page here back to an index because really there will be nothing here in the short-term.

Some other Vern sites:

http://www.FarkedLife.com
http://www.AimforAwesome.com
http://www.ThaiPulse.com
http://seemlessness.thaipulse.com
http://www.JoysThaiFood.com
http://www.BlogBombs.com

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