Thailand – Dangers and Annoyances

Things don’t work too badly in Thailand, but they don’t work too well either. Visitors who are still in ‘Western impatience mode’ will get annoyed by the often slow service, lack of attention and forgetfulness in all but the top resorts, whilst those who have adjusted to the more laid-back attitudes here won’t let such generally minor inconveniences annoy them too much. The standard of English isn’t that high, so doing anything slightly unusual (for example ordering your club sandwich without tomato) can be difficult. Patience is essential.

Thailand is not at all a safety-conscious place: you will see people juggling fire-sticks next to thatched roofs, builders teetering at the tops of wobbly ladders and a motorbike being shared by three people, ridden by a minor with no lights on a rainy night and with the driver riding with only one hand, whilst he chats on a phone clasped in the other. How these people manage to keep their bikes vertical most of the times is amazing: they shouldn’t be on the street, they should be in a circus. If, however, you are tempted to mock or moan then consider that it is precisely this carefree attitude which makes Thais so lovable, so it’s pretty pointless to complain about their laid-back attitude’s other effects. The biggest danger to your health in Thailand is, by far, the roads. Especially the motorbikes, on which tourists die pretty much every day.

Many long-stay Western men come badly unstuck in the country. Whatever problem they had back home, whether it was drink, women or drugs, the laisee faire attitude here reduces self-restraint and causes many to behave worse than they did at home, and in a way that makes it difficult to feel sympathy when they come to grief, as they often do.

Anybody who studies the geology of the matter will have no fear of another tsunami. There will be another one, but it will be triggered further south on the fault-line and thus in a place where the bulk of the Indonesian island of Sumatra will shield the Thai coast. Shortly after the December 2004 tsunami, scientists predicted that the next undersea earthquake would occur further south on the fault-line, which is what happened a year later. The resulting tsunami didn’t touch Thailand and nor will the next one, which will occur even further southeast and so even better shielded by Sumatra.

One of the most admirable aspects of Thailand is the safety with which women can travel around the country, due to the admirably low incidence of physical molestation of foreign women by Thai men. They might annoy a Western woman by proposing too many times, but they almost never pose a danger. Women travelling alone should of course still be cautious. If she is sensible she has nothing to fear. A number of women do come to grief here, but almost always because they ignore the same elementary rules of self-protection that they would take for granted in the West.

This is not paradise. Paradise is a silly concept which is mostly a result of how the perceiver views his or her conditions. Most Thais are much happier with the very little they have, because they are taught from an early age that it is not happiness, but contentment, to which they should aspire. Happiness is a fleeting condition, but contentment is not. Many Westerners have used Thai Theravada Buddhism as a springboard to improved contentment, via ridding their lives of craving and attachment to impermanent phenomena.

It is extremely unlikely that you will have a problem with a snake unless you go hacking your way through the jungle, but you might get bitten by a scorpion.

A year ago I grabbed my shorts off the ‘floor-drobe’ and pulled them on. I knew it had been lazy of me not to hang them up the previous night, but didn’t realise that they had acquired an unwanted passenger. Twenty minutes later I boarded a bus and, just as it pulled away, I felt a stab of pain somewhere extremely tender. “God, what was that?” I thought before rapidly realising that, a bit like a Victorian society host, I had company downstairs. But what was I to do about this, surrounded as I was by a bus-load of people? I shouted for the bus driver to stop, but he didn’t hear me. Well, call me indiscrete, but faced with the alternatives of either making myself a laughing stock or being bitten in the nether regions again, I pulled down my shorts, stood up and shook the culprit loose. He turned out to be one of the little brown ones, rather than the big black fellows. The smaller scorpions hurt you more, as they have venom, whereas the bigger ones just rely on their impressive-looking claws. The remainder of the bus journey wasn’t very comfortable, both because of an unpleasantly numb feeling in usually the most sensitive of spots, but also because of the sidelong glances and barely concealed giggles of the vehicle’s other occupants, who seemed to find it amusing that I had to continually cross, uncross and then re-cross my legs.

Whilst in Thailand, why not visit out one of the country’s currently best three beach destinations:

Koh Lao Liang: http://www.andamanadventures.com/kohlaoliang.shtml

Ao Nang: http://www.andamanadventures.com/ao_nang.shtml

Railay/Tonsai: http://www.andamanadventures.com/railay-tonsai.shtml

If you’re checking to see if it’s legal, and how you plan to punish me, please allow me to explain. I’m a PADI Master Instructor of Scuba Diving, and I spend my working days teaching scuba in Thailand. One of the most rewarding experiences for my diving students’ is shooting great photographs of aquatic marine life.

Making underwater photographs in Thailand has many advantages for divers searching for that ‘perfect shot’;

• Clear blue water
• Warm water averaging 28 degrees centigrade
• Pristine Coral Reef formations
• Established Diving Centers and Scuba Equipment Shops

 
The most popular tourist areas for scuba diving in Thailand are Pattaya, Phuket and Koh Samui. These resorts offer great fun and excitement for beginners and certified divers. Whether it’s vibrant fish life, colourful corals or sunken ship wrecks, the camera won’t stop clicking while you’re scuba diving in Thailand. I’ve captured pictures of Seahorses and giant Gorgonian Sea Fans in Phuket, Black tip reef Sharks in Koh Samui, and World War 11 ship wrecks in Pattaya.

Todays modern camera equipment has changed the way that scuba divers ‘shoot’ fish underwater. The traditional film camera is still used by many diving professionals, but digital underwater cameras have made underwater photography both accessible and affordable to the majority of scuba divers. Learning to Scuba Dive is not difficult for most people who are comfortable in the water, but snapping great photos under water takes novices some time to learn. One of the most important attributes is good buoyancy control. Apart from all the obvious advantages that neutral, relaxed buoyancy has for scuba diving, if you’re trying to compose that image of the tiny yellow blob, commonly known as a Frogfish, being able to hover almost motionless just centimetres away from your subject is what sets you apart from the norm. Also, as recreational scuba divers descend, water absorbs colour. Starting with Red, Orange and then Yellow, and as you dive deeper, you’ll lose Green and Blue. Strobe lights help to restore some of the colour that’s lost, which is how the professionals obtain fantastic vibrant colours from their images.

I fully appreciate that not every diver has a passion for taking pictures of the new world that they’ve discovered. Many divers are more fascinated by ship wrecks, perhaps diving deep or making dives using nitrox (an increased amount of oxygen) but most of my scuba buddies have admitted that they are very keen to share the wonders on the underwater world by shooting pictures of fish and other marine life. With modern technology as a friend, it’s now possible to store and share underwater images with your family, friends and even the general public via social sites and the internet. The dive may have been the most amazing experience that you’ve had, but it’s so much more powerful to share the adventures with those for whom it may not be possibly to try scuba diving. PADI scuba courses teach student divers how to capture and share underwater photographs, and the Digital Underwater Photography course is now available to all scuba divers from the age of ten.

Private scuba lessons are becoming more popular now, especially in Thailand. Taking a dive course with you own private scuba instructor offers exclusivity, the personal touch, and usually more flexibility. So to enrol in the shooting fish course, otherwise known as the PADI DUP (digital underwater photography) course, you do need to be a certified diver of at least ten years old. But be prepared for some underwater fun that diving in Pattaya has to offer. The coral reefs are shallower here than other dive sites in Thailand, and the other advantage is that scuba diving in Pattaya is available year round because the Gulf of Thailand tends to be sheltered from the southwest monsoons that arrive in Phuket from June until October. Pattaya is not a famous diving destination, but beginners and experienced divers will be rewarded with some of the best wreck diving in Thailand. So, clean up the lens, replace the batteries and make sure that you have a watertight seal, because when you dive in Pattaya the camera never lies. You really can see Turtles, Seahorses and Sharks, and the wreck dives will leave you breathless (pardon the pun) as you drift along US Landing Crafts from the Second World War that were intentionally sunk by the Thai Navy for the local Thai divers and tourists on a scuba diving holiday in Pattaya.

Learn how to Shoot Fish in Thailand the passive and harmless way with a private scuba photography course from a Master Instructor at www.private-scuba.com