Overall I would say that I am a fan of Thailand and Thai people, but off late the dictatorship in the country is making Thailand the democratic dumpster of South-East Asia.
Why have I came to this conclusion? Well for a long time Thailand has been the dictatorship that despite being as bad as Myanmar no one has wanted to talk about. More pressingly of late though has been the anti-foreigner actions of the country, as well as the democratic dumpster element that is now seeing people that write a bad Trip Advisor (link external) review being threatened with or actually being arrested.
But of course and much like anything else there are of course nuances that need to be taken into account.
Farang in Thailand are not always great
If you are not on TikTok you might have missed the whole Tom Birchy business. I will try to summarize rather than go hell for leather on this, but he is a very loud Brit that has done quite well with business here. I personally find him entertaining, but his antics have basically made all expats in Thailand look bad.
This includes a posh guy who he outwardly said he did Coke with getting into a spat with him, as well as a Mockney gangster reporting his passport stolen and grassing him up. All a bit lke a bad soap opera and also not exactly making me proud to be a Brit.
This kind of behavior in part explains why the Thais are not all that foreigner friendly, but it also shows a high level of hypocrisy too. They want the money, but without the hassle. The land of smiles? Seemingly only until you have purchased something.
The democratic dumpster of orison for opinions
Thailand famously has some of the strongest defamation laws, as well as Les Majeste, which not only means not being able to talk bad about the King, but also his dog…
With this in mind I will be careful what I say as I often use Thailand as a hub, but will say that I have heard from others – which I obviously do not agree with, that the love of monarchy was a construct to fight Thailand’s home grown communist insurgency.
This is all very well, but when this spreads to holiday makers facing jail for voicing an option about a hotel, or restaurant that they visit then you have to question if things have gone too far.
And I feel that this, as well as the passive aggressive way that the country tolerates foreigners, rather than ever accepting them that will eventually lead to an incident with the military that will see expats exodus en-masse.
And sadly no amount of Digital Nomad visas or the like will change this reality….