The Expat’s Thailand Survival Guide – Chapter 1

What do you do when you get Bangkok Belly? Where do you buy your favorite foods? How do you break up with a Thai girlfriend?

In my time living in Thailand I’ve had to find the answers to these and many other questions, so I thought Stickman readers might find my solutions helpful. Just remember, there is always more than one way to do anything, or anybody, here. What works for me, may not work for you. Don’t give up. Be creative. You’ll soon get the hang of living here.

Let’s start at the beginning. When you first arrive here and try that delicious Thai food off the street sure as the Thaksin is unusualy rich you are going to end up with the dreaded:

Bangkok Belly
If it’s a simple case of the runs, head to your local pharmacy with a Chinese looking pharmacist and ask for a bottle of ‘Yah Tok Bet’. Literally translated, this means ‘fishing pills’ because the original pill bottle had a picture of a fisherman on it. But the Thais always laugh because it also means ‘female masturbation pills’.

However, don’t worry about that. You still have to take these pills. Open the bottle and take a sniff. Man! They are really foul smelling!!!

They smell like your worst hospital antiseptic smell nightmare. But shake out 5 or 6 of the little black round balls and swallow them with a good gulp of water. Within 10 or 15 minutes you will be running for the loo and after that your problem will be gone.

However, if you have a more serious case of the squirts, then it’s time for sterner measures. Head back to the pharmacy again and buy 5 days worth of Amoxycilin antibiotics. But don’t do this if you are allergic to antibiotics. Ask the pharmacist for an alternative and let him guide you.

Take one capsule every 6 hours if you are small bodied, and 1 cap every 4 hours if you are normal giant farung size like me.

Taking a taxi
There’s nothing worse than getting into a taxi with Thai music or the news turned up full volume. I’m a musician, so Thai music is pure torture on my ears. But there is a simple solution. Buy a bunch of name card sized CDs and burn your favorite music tracks onto them. Then always carry one or two with you. Before you get into a taxi, pull one out and ask the driver if he will play it.

I’ve lost count of the number of CDs I’ve given away as I’m getting out of the cab because the driver really liked the music. In fact, you may not even need to give him a tip. Just tell him to keep the CD and he’ll be wai’ing you until you are out of sight.

But if a taxi driver won’t agree to play your music, smile, say thanks, and flag down another cab. There are so many of them, why put up with an uncomfortable ride?

I’ve been in old rattletraps with gaping holes in the floor. Always select a new looking taxi. They will be much more comfortable. The airconditioning might even work!

Where to buy those little comforts
Where is it most economical to shop for groceries? If you want to save money, then Tesco Lotus often has the best prices.

I love cheese, but most of the supermarkets only sell that processed crap that’s not fit for human consumption. The two best places to buy real cheese are Carrefour and Makro. Carrefour sells small blocks of a wide variety of cheeses. Carrefour also sells a lot of processed meats and great dried sausages; salamis, and so on.

But if you want to save money on cheese, go to the Makro dairy section. They should have 1-kilogram blocks of Cheddar or Parmesan cheese for sale. The last couple of times I went they were selling two kilo blocks of Cheddar for about 560 Baht. Great value. While you are there, grab one of their specials advertising sheets. My daughters are often models in them.

There’s only one caveat; you have to become a member of Makro to shop there, and they usually require you to present company documents with your application. But once you are a member, you can go shopping once a month or so and stock up on bulk quantities of groceries.

I know, I know. What about Villa, Foodland, and Fuji where all the real expats shop, you are asking? Sure, you can find everything you want there too, but at much higher prices. Shop where the Thais do and you can enjoy Thai prices.

Breakin’ up ain’t hard to do
That little angel you picked up somewhere a while back has gradually grown horns and now breathes fire and brimstone. Time to get rid of her. But these girls are like flies around shit. They keep buzzing around. So what to do?

Are you ready for a move? Because that may be the only way to get rid of her. Here’s how you do it. You wait until she announces she’s going to visit her family, or she has to go on a trip somewhere for a couple of days. Thai girls are always going somewhere!

Then you pack up everything you own and move out and as far away as possible. You don’t want to be in the same neighborhood, or she’ll find you.

Change your mobile phone number, too. You don’t want her calling you to lay her guilt trips on you, or worse to scream down the phone and call you all the names you probably deserve.

That’s the easy way. There are other ways:

1.    Bring your new girlfriend home one night and let the old one catch you in bed together. Of course, you may be in for a real good fight, but she will move out if you are lucky. Not always though. I’ve had a couple of girlfriends who actually loved me more after I tried it, so this method is not always guaranteed.
2.    Announce that you have to move because you lost your job and you don’t have enough money to support her until you get back on your feet. Suggest she returns home to live with her family and you will call her. This worked very well for me once. The poor girl still calls me up occasionally asking when I will take her back; and we broke up ten years ago!
3.    Start complaining about everything she does. If you go out, embarrass her by acting like a loudmouthed boor and make her lose face. She’ll soon get the hint and suggest that the time has come to part ways. Why would she stay with someone she can’t love any more?

It’s never easy breaking up with any woman, and Thais are no exception. But with a little creativity, you are sure to find a way that is probably better than anything I have suggested.

Pampering Yourself
We all like to look good, but where do you go for a decent hair cut that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? First, stay away from the trendy salons. And definitely stay away from the Thai barbar saloons where they only know one hairstyle: I call it the bullet head look – bald back and sides with a bit of hair on top. Since I have very little on top, this style definitely doesn’t work for me. I need something else. Instead, look for a local ladies beauty salon. If you have a Thai girlfriend, go to her regular salon. You can have your hair cut (even styled) for about 60 to 100 Baht. I even get my finger and toe nails trimmed every couple of weeks for just 80 to 120 Baht. Great value, especially as I have a persistent ingrown toenail that the girls are expert at digging out.

Dealing with traffic cops
As long as you don’t go round shooting someone, robbing banks, or dealing drugs, about the only time you will have the misfortune of dealing with the cops is if you get pulled over for a driving infraction. Despite the reputation Thai cops have for demanding money, they rarely stop you unless you really have transgressed.

These are a couple of tricks that might work for you.

First, don’t speak Thai. If he can’t speak much or any English, he will be at a disadvantage as he struggles to tell you what you did wrong so that he can steer the conversation to an on the spot fine. If you pretend to be the super dumb farung he might get so tired of trying to communicate with you he will tell you to drive on without even paying one Baht. Remember, the longer he wastes time on you, the more fines he is missing from other drivers. It doesn’t work all the time, but it does enough times to be worth a try.

All on the spot fines are negotiable. Never accept the first overture. If he starts out absurdly high then you have plenty of bargaining to do. A cop might start by asking for 50,000 Baht. But with persistance you can get them down to 200 Baht. The standard ‘fine’ for Thais is 100 Baht, and 200 Baht for farung. Some cops may not go below 500 Baht. In that case, smile and pay.

Anyway, if he starts high offer him just 50 Baht first. He will be flabbergasted, but he should start reducing his price. You should stay at 50 Baht after he comes down the first time, and then come up to 100 Baht after that. Eventually, he will concede and accept the regular fee.

Another method is to only keep 1,000 Baht in your wallet. Despite their corrupt practices, the cops are honest enough that if you offer them 1,000 Baht, after the bargaining is finished of course, and they can’t change it they will not try to take the larger note. If he complains that you must give him exact change, hold up your wallet where only he can see it and show him the empty money compartment. He will understand and more than likely wave you on your way without paying anything.

There is an accepted protocol for handing over the money. You fold it into a small square, and as he hands you back your license you make sure the money is slipped under the license so that he can take it without anyone seeing. The on the spot fine is illegal, of course, so he doesn’t want anyone to see it. Paying a small fine now is better than wasting half a day down at the cop shop and paying the official fine, which is always at least three times more.

Smile and be pleasant as you conduct the negotiations. Never lose your cool. It’s a game you have to play the correct way. Lose your temper and you will get an instant ticket, meaning a long and frustrating trip to the cop shop.

If you know a high-ranking official, flash his name card when you are pulled over. That will get you waved on immediately, after a suitable double take that you, a mere farung, should know someone so high up the ladder. But this only works if your ‘friend’ is very high up.

Picking up non-BGs
Plenty of ordinary Thai girls would love to go out with a farung, but they don’t know how to meet one. I get requests from my nieces and other lady friends all the time to introduce them to a nice farung. Since I don’t know anyone I would unleash on these poor unsuspecting ladies I have never done it. And all my good farung friends are married.

But there are ways for you to meet good Thai ladies.

First, you have to dress and look the part. Thais are very conservative, so avoid looking like you have just finished beach combing. Good grooming, and clean, tidy clothes will create that first good impression.

Do you speak any Thai? Learn. The more you speak the better. When I met my wife she didn’t speak any English. I had to chat her up in Thai.

Where do you meet them? Almost anywhere you can interact with them. For example, department stores are great. They employ hundreds of girls, some of them real stunners. Make like you are interested in the goods they are selling and lead slowly into the big question for a date. Don’t rush. But do show you are friendly and non-threatening. Smile a lot. Laugh, joke, put her at ease.

Dealing with officials
They are a fact of life here. There is no getting away from them. The results of your meeting with them depend very much on how you comport yourself. There is nothing obsequious about giving a ranking official a deep Wai. To do this, put your hands together as if in prayer. Move your fingertips up to your chin, or even up as high as your nose, and bow your head before you give or take any documents. I had the chief of Immigration actually compliment me on my very polite Wai. She loved it, and she is always pleasant to me now as a result.

You can almost guarantee that the first lot of paperwork you take when visiting an official will never be enough. They pride themselves on finding another document you have to supply. I always take a briefcase stacked with every possible document I might need. Make triple copies of everything too. Sign every copy. If it’s for your company, make sure you have your company stamp in your briefcase too.

When the official demands that ‘missing’ document, all you have to do is calmly open your briefcase and produce it.

Documents you will need to have copies of include, but are not limited to:

1.    Copies of your passport pages, including picture page, entry stamp page, any pages with additional stamps for special reasons, such as foreign currency transactions. In fact, it’s probably easier to just copy every page.
2.    Copies of your work permit. Again, copy every page.
3.    Copies of your marriage and divorce certificates.
4.    Your wife’s housing registration
5.    Certified, translated copies of documents from your embassy. For example, letters certifying that you are one of their nationals (use when applying for a driver’s license)
6.    Copies of your educational certificates, including transcripts.
7.    Any other document you can possibly think of.

Remember, the rule is the more documents the better. Shower them with documents. Strew them all across the desk. Make a show of stamping them officially, and signing them. This will impress them, and perhaps they will forget to ask for that one document you didn’t bring. But I wouldn’t bet on it. there’s always another document you don’t have, isn’t there?

If you have young, cute kids, take them along. Thais love kids and officials are suckers for them. They are much less likely to give you a hard time if they love your kids. I always knew kids had a purpose in life. But I didn’t find out until I came to live here.

This is longer than I expected, but I have covered some of the most important basics. I’ll try and come up with another list after this. And if you have any questions about something I haven’t covered, drop me an email and I’ll include the answers in the next chapter.