It’s been a wet old week here in Bangkok.
Happy Songkran, Thailand!
What with the mass exodus from the capital as people visit their families around the country, it’s been a pretty quiet week.
Aside from the occasional drive by tuk-tuk spraying.
We can’t be the only ones to love the lack of traffic in Bangkok over Songkran. Of course, the heightened rate of road accidents isn’t an ideal trade-off…
But Songkran isn’t all that’s been entertaining and enraging Bangkok this week…
News
Man behind smelly feet farang viral video speaks out
A certain video from Thailand has been making international headlines this week — a man filmed a foreign woman putting her supposedly very smelly feet up on a seat next to his head during a van journey and keeping them up there even when he asked her to remove them.
Narong Thaopanya, the 21-year old who made the video, spoke to Khaosod this week explaining that while he certainly didn’t expect the story to go viral, hoped that shining a light on this behaviour would encourage tourists to think twice before exposing their putrid feet to all and sundry in such an obnoxious manner.
Japanese tour scam sees thousands of Thais stranded at Suvarnabhumi
This week also saw a package tour scam on an epic scale — a thousand Thais were left stranded at Suvarnabhumi airport after signing up to a budget tour of Japan, which turned out to be bogus when the tour company never turned up. Later research found that WealthEver, the tour ‘company’ behind the scam, were never registered as a company at all and deleted their Facebook page too.
The tour had been advertised as a too cheap to be true, 6 day tour to Osaka with luxury accommodation and access to Universal Studios theme park, priced between 9,000 and 20,000 THB.
The wet and wild old days of Songkran
A great collection of old photos here from Songkrans past — some dating back as far as the 70s and some good ones from the 90s on Khao San Road.
Blogs
The lost souls of the Full Moon Party
Another interesting photo collection here, this time from Vice and covering the Full Moon Parties on Haad Rin on Koh Phangan, which the author aptly describes as: “Club 18-30 for English, German and American kids whose parents are richer than the average.”
Some photos are funny, some a little tragic, others almost concerning. A great collection.
Dear fellow travellers, stop embarrassing the rest of us
There’s been a lot of focus in the past week on so-called ‘begpackers’ — the travellers who come over to Southeast Asia from the West and consequently beg, busk or sell knick knacks to further fund these travels. This blog is one of many responding to these people, asking that they stop giving a bad name to all Western backpackers and tourists.
They also mention the other common faux-pas of travelling here: namely not wearing enough clothes away from the beach and losing their tempers.
Forum Threads
How to socialise in Bangkok as a farang woman
This week we learned about what happens when a Western woman asks the ‘Pub’ section of Thaivisa how to best socialize with new people in Bangkok, avoiding bars and pubs. While there are a few good nuggets of advice here, there are also some horribly inevitable glimpses into some forum members’ psyches and attitudes towards western women. The original poster is asked what type of shape she is in, told to take up cooking, and delivered a suggestion to move somewhere else. Cracking.
What to do if your landlord wants to keep your deposit
A Reddit thread here exploring an annoyingly common occurrence in Bangkok — what to do if you suspect your landlord wants to keep your deposit at the end of your rental contract. Some of these suggestions seem a little better — and more legal — than others, but it might be useful to look at your different options if you’re in a similar situation.
YouTube
The calm before the storm. #Krabi #Thailand #Songkran pic.twitter.com/FUrlpzlOQv
— Jerome Taylor (@JeromeTaylor) April 14, 2017
Songkran new year greeting from American chat show host Conan O’Brien #Thailand #Songkran pic.twitter.com/SGqvBo9bpA
— Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) April 13, 2017
Taken from Samantha 🤣 pic.twitter.com/t8dw8VHoDM
— UneFille en Vacances (@Prangie) April 13, 2017
☀️☀️☀️ pic.twitter.com/l7vMvUruwR
— Stickboy Bangkok (@StickboyBangkok) April 11, 2017
And that’s been The Week On Sukhumvit — see you next time!
Featured image is by Joe Stump (CC BY 2.0 licence)
