Selling Thailand to the World: How do the Non-Travelers See Us? [S7.E33]

Greg 00:00:04 And on this episode, we discuss how we can cut through the clichés and sell Thailand to folks back home who might not know much about it.

Ed 00:00:13 So if you've ever wondered if Thailand truly has everything for everyone, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:36 Sawa Dick wrap and welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 on an aimless jaunt in an unknown country and long story short, has ended up with the most boring traditional life of anyone in my family.

Ed 00:00:51 That's great. You went on an adventure and ended up being Homer Simpson.

Greg 00:00:55 Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I'm just saying. Come on. My family's going through some stuff. Most members of my family have of dealing with stuff, and I've got a very traditional, comparatively boring life compared to them. So I guess it's a good thing.

Ed 00:01:08 So you so you went around the world to become a boring family man?

Greg 00:01:11 That's right, that's right.

Ed 00:01:13 That's a type of adventure achievement unlocked.

Ed 00:01:17 And I'm Ed Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract almost 24 years ago, fell in love with the pea soup of Bangkok humidity, a visceral reminder that I'm not in Kansas or Ohio anymore. So I never left my bank.

Greg 00:01:33 I was one of the only cities in the room, not the only city, but it's definitely a city that you can taste when you come out of the airport and you're just like, oh, it's.

Ed 00:01:39 I just, you know, as I mentioned on the bonus show, I, you know, I arrived in Bangkok from the States at 6 a.m. this morning, and it's just you just step outside and I'm like, okay, I'm I'm not in Kansas anymore. This is not this is not the United States. I'm in a totally different climate. I can feel it.

Greg 00:01:55 That air is just it's just dense. Dense with water.

Ed 00:01:59 It is thick. It is thick. All right. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show.

Ed 00:02:04 Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics. On this week's bonus show, we chatted a little bit about my trip back home from my high school reunion, which we'll get into in more detail in a few minutes. Here on the main show. More thoughts on dealing with aging family members while living overseas, and a few discussions about the dissolution of the Move Forward party and the removal of Prime Minister. At least you can say that Thai politics is never born. No doubt to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 700 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:03:03 That's right. And as always, if you have a comment or show idea or just want to say hi, head to Bangkok podcast.com and click the little microphone button on the bottom right to leave us a voicemail.

Greg 00:03:12 We'll play on the show, reach out and say hi. We love hearing from you. All right, on this episode, we get some juice from Ed's recent visit back home for his high school reunion. Now, I know this was a long time ago in the early internet dark ages, where information was a bit more difficult to come by than it is now. But when I came to Thailand, pretty much all anyone knew about it was that it was in Asia. That, and of course, the never ending stereotypes the red light districts, the lady boys, the monks parties. Hello was well into my time here before people stopped asking me if I spoke Taiwanese. Now of course, this here podcast that we're on right now exists precisely because of that. Anyone who lives here know that there's so much more to Thailand than cheesy cliches, but we wondered how much of that has filtered down to the regular folk back home who have not traveled a lot. And how do you sell Thailand to different types of people who are into different types of things? Now, seeing as our editor was just there, we thought it'd be interesting to discuss.

Greg 00:04:11 I haven't been back home and talked in depth with people about Thailand in quite a while, but, you are the most recent one of us to head back. And what do you think of this?

Ed 00:04:20 Well, first off, I'd love this topic. I, I have to admit, I don't think Thailand is for everyone. If we're just being perfectly clear. You and I have talked before about how there's really just not much like high culture in Thailand. So if you want high, you know, if you want world class Broadway plays, maybe world class museums, you're you're not going to get that in Thailand or Bangkok. But to be honest, there's not many other groups of people that can't find what they want here. Okay. Maybe surfers. So we don't have really good surf, but you know, being back home and chatting with, many different people, totally different types of people. I really came to the conclusion that I think I could sell Thailand to almost anyone, so not anyone. But Thailand is much broader than, as you pointed out, the cliches.

Ed 00:05:12 Everyone knows there's everyone knows there's nightlife here. and maybe good food and maybe temples. You know, those are the classics and maybe beaches, and all those things are true. But, you know, you know, as, as the podcasts attest to, there's just a lot more here. So I did have some experience at my reunion and also during my whole trip, you know, pitching Thailand to some of my friends who who've never been here. But they're not they're not interested in the clichés.

Greg 00:05:44 That's really interesting. And I'm glad to see people have evolved. And I'm, of course, of them. I'm assuming that, you know, all things are equal here. But man, I remember when I, when I was first coming here and I told people that I was coming to Thailand. Now, this also might be a side effect of living in like the redneck cauldron of central Alberta. but, I mean, I remember my my buddy Jordan at a party. He was like, you got to watch out for those lady boys, man.

Greg 00:06:05 They look like you can't even tell. Like, you gotta be. You gotta. You gotta be careful, man. Yeah. And then, you know, my my boss at the time, he was sort of a character, a real funny guy. And he's like, so, when he, When are you going to China? And. Randy. Randy, I'm going to Thailand. Hey. Same thing. You know, that's the kind of mentality that I was dealing with, right? And so, yeah.

Ed 00:06:24 interesting. I wonder if, I do think Thailand's, image in the world today is a bit more sophisticated. Those cliches do exist. I think, you know, my friends. So first off, I've had a bunch of friends who've come here, and so they already have a basic education on it. But that's an interesting question. And I'm sure that the Tourism Authority of Thailand, this is the kind of thing that they should be working on or have data on. But I do feel Thailand is more well known now on the world stage than it was before.

Ed 00:06:55 I mean, I'm, I'm hoping things have gotten better.

Greg 00:06:58 I'm hoping so too. I assume they have, and I think part of that is just the spread of the internet. Just it's just way easier to find out. That's right. More information faster than it was 25 years ago.

Ed 00:07:09 Now, in all honesty, I did have one ladyboy conversation when I was home, so it did come up. So it is the it is the perennial topic that comes up. So I did have one ladyboy conversation, that's all. but in general, I ran into a lot of people, you know, I was at a high school reunion, but then I also saw other friends. And, so at the high school reunion, you're seeing people who are not necessarily up to date with you. So it's the first time in a long time I've been hanging out with people who were like, oh my God, you live in Thailand, what's it like? So I haven't had to do that in a while.

Ed 00:07:44 So there were a bunch of people who were just curious. and I don't remember any of them, like dropping any of these cliches on me. but then there were some other people I talked to who were interested in coming to Thailand, but maybe the normal things that they knew weren't enough. And so I found myself in a, in a position of trying to convince them that, no, you really do want to come to Thailand.

Greg 00:08:09 Now, is it because they they it's not that they actively didn't want to come to Thailand. It's just they had no interest in coming to Thailand.

Ed 00:08:17 Yeah, well let me okay. I'll give you some examples. I got a, I got a few examples here. okay. One example is, I've got a couple friends who are hardcore outdoors people, you know, they, they, have spent their careers as a working for the US Park Service, so they're just serious outdoors people. And, it's true, like, in talking to them, they didn't necessarily want to necessarily want to do outdoor stuff when they go on a holiday.

Ed 00:08:44 I mean, that's what they normally do, right? but, there's a lot of places you go, go to for great beaches. I mean, like, you know, Thailand's got a great beaches, but we've said many times there's a lot of places around the world that have beautiful beaches right?

Greg 00:08:58 Right. Sure. Beautiful beaches, friendly people. Good food. Yeah.

Ed 00:09:01 Yeah. I mean, in the US, obviously we've got Florida, but we've also got the Caribbean and then we've got Mexico and you know, so if you're an American and you're like, I want beautiful beaches, I don't think it would make sense to come all the way to Thailand for that.

Greg 00:09:13 Fair enough. Yeah.

Ed 00:09:14 So I, I was I was trying to explain to my friends that Thailand has incredible outdoor experiences, whether it's things like, probably maybe jungle trekking and that type of hiking would be number one. But it's also like up north northeast, especially if you go into Lao, there's things like whitewater rafting, there's mountain climbing, you know, there's a lot of, like, just serious outdoor experiences that would be different than the outdoor experiences in the States, right?

Greg 00:09:46 Yeah.

Greg 00:09:46 There's a lot of good camping here. That's right.

Ed 00:09:49 Camping for sure.

Greg 00:09:50 Rock climbing, kayaking, rafting, trekking. Yeah. That's right.

Ed 00:09:54 trekking I think would be, especially for people familiar with, western forests and western wildlife. And if they really like the outdoors, if that's what they really want to do, I think that's something that a lot of people don't know about Thailand. I mean, they might know that Thailand is tropical or that there's a lot of jungles there, but they might not know that there's a hiking community and there's there's, companies organizing tracks. And you you could you could get lost if you want. I mean, not that you would want to get lost, but, I mean, you could definitely spend, you know, you could go on long treks, five days, seven days, ten days if you wanted to.

Greg 00:10:31 Right. Totally. I wonder if if I, you know, funny. When when I first came to Thailand, I always heard the word trekking, and I'm like, why do they call it trekking? It's just hiking.

Greg 00:10:40 It's hiking. What's the difference between trekking and hiking? So I think actually trekking is almost is a cliche in and of itself, because it's just part of so many package tours now.

Ed 00:10:51 Yeah, I don't, I don't know what I think for some reason I think of hiking as being more of like a few hours, but to me, like a trek. To me, it just sounds longer like we're going to do a three day thing and we're going to camp. I don't know, that's just what I think of as a trek. But, so that so that was the first case where I was pitching maybe something non-conventional to to, some friends. my other example, actually has to do with one of my sisters who is fairly well traveled. It's been to Europe a lot and has access to like, the Caribbean for beaches and, what my way of selling talent to her was pointing out, like the extensive amount of pampering you can get in Thailand. So we did a show recently on, you know, is Bangkok better for people in their 50s or in their 20s? Right.

Ed 00:11:42 And I think that, you know, when we talked about 50s, man, this is a great place if you want to go to a spa, if you want to have someone to take care of you, whether it's all those cosmetology treatments, skin treatments massages, like all of that. I don't even know what to call it. Luxury, luxury spa stuff. I mean, it's yeah, it's out of it's out of my wheelhouse. It's not my thing. But it's like when I mention this, you know, my sister's eyes lit up like that's. That would be something that she she would enjoy. you know, she, she can get that elsewhere, but I think your money would go much further for that kind of stuff here. And then plus you also have the beaches and that stuff. and so I don't know, is that a tie thing? When people think of Thailand, do they think of high end pampering?

Greg 00:12:33 I mean, in my experience, no. But again, right.

Greg 00:12:36 Redneck cauldron of Alberta.

Ed 00:12:40 I mean, there's so many five star hotels, I forget, I think you and I talked about it once, but aren't there something like 15, five star hotels in Bangkok or. It's some insane number? You know, I would have guessed there's seven, but I think there's there's a lot more than that. And then, of course, you go down to one of the beach towns, you go down to Phuket, there's insane resorts down there, right? Insane, insane high end resorts.

Greg 00:13:00 I just can't imagine any of the shit kicking cowboys I went to high school with going, I can't wait to get to Thailand, get some mud facials going on. I don't think it's going to work like that, but.

Ed 00:13:10 Well, you're going to have to come up with your own way to sell Thailand to them. Like, I'm just I'm just telling my stories now.

Greg 00:13:16 You know, I could sell I could sell Chokshi Farm. It's a real working, like cattle dairy farm, right? Heck yeah.

Greg 00:13:22 Cowboy stuff like that. Go up and have a lasso contest, I don't know.

Ed 00:13:27 Okay. My other example is this, I was talking to my niece and nephew who are in their 20s, and, people do know people do know that Thailand is a backpacking place, but it doesn't seem to be quite as well known as those cliches you mentioned. You know, people I feel like that's maybe like level two Bangkok knowledge, you know, where someone, someone might have heard of cows on road. But if you're a young person who wants to travel on the cheap and you want to meet other young people from around the world. Bangkok might be number one in the world. Like it doesn't necessarily have to be on Kawasaki. But I feel like this is just a hub for travel for young people. So a ridiculous number of Europeans like on their gap here. Sure. and it's, and, you know, Bangkok has to be the world capital of like, hostels where you can, you know, get a room for 2 or 300 baht a night.

Ed 00:14:27 Right. And, and okay, so I'm not saying this is this is not some hidden secret about Thailand. A lot of people know about it. But to me, it's not on that list that people think about right away, you know, so, so so I think if you're if you're a young person in their 20s, a lot of times I think of people in their 20s as they don't have a lot of cash, but they're curious and they want to see the world. I don't know, I might put Bangkok number one. I mean, I know you could do the same thing in South America, in Europe, but Bangkok has that jumping off point to like so many different points in Asia. Right. And plus also it's like that's also if you want to if you just want to meet people and party and drink cheaply, then Bangkok's got to be up there.

Greg 00:15:14 Yeah. And you said it really well on, on when we were guests on on our Friend Pilots podcast a few weeks ago.

Greg 00:15:20 But, you said Thailand is is strange enough to be, like, clearly different, but it's not so strange that you can't find familiarity in everyday things. So it's a comfortable place to get started. Yeah.

Ed 00:15:32 I mean, yeah, I mean, thanks for reminding me of that. But this is one of my favorite things about Thailand is that, it's that it's, it's different enough to be interesting but not so foreign or it's not like an it's also not a place where where foreigners aren't welcome. Right? You know, it's just it's got it's got the perfect mix of exotic ness. But then again, Starbucks and McDonald's as well.

Greg 00:15:56 Right. So it's interesting. So it seems to be you're saying that like it's kind of kind of coming from both ends here. So on one side. people's general knowledge of Thailand has probably increased and it's become sort of like this less mysterious, less cloaked in cliches and weird stories. But I hope so. But at the same time, people don't know how broad its appeal is because it can appeal to anyone.

Greg 00:16:23 So it's sort of like attacking it from both sides. People are less ignorant of it, but they're also still not sure like why they should go there. What's there for me? You know.

Ed 00:16:34 Right now this is kind of random. So this didn't actually come from this trip, but it came from a conversation I had with someone else a couple of months ago online. And this also, it's not some deep secret about Thailand, but it's, it's, it's again, maybe second tier thing. It's the amount of things like yoga and meditation in Thailand, like so, you know, not every person wants to come here and party. Some people want to do yoga retreats or meditation retreats. And, you know, we've talked about it with, prop hand it before. There's all kinds of that stuff going on all over Thailand. So you can you can pay money and do kind of high end ones at nice resorts if that's your thing. but then there's very cheap and essentially almost free, you know, meditation and yoga retreats going on as well.

Ed 00:17:25 and I wonder, you know, it's just I, I, I don't follow the way that the Tourism authority of Thailand, I don't follow the way they, they pimp Thailand. But of course, I do come across commercials now and then or they're ads and I don't know, I never see this kind of stuff. Like does the tourism authority pimp like rafting and and like jungle trekking, do they do that? Like, do they pimp? Do they pimp yoga retreats? I don't know, like, do they do do they do that.

Greg 00:17:56 Yeah, I don't know.

Ed 00:17:57 I mean, every time I, every time I see a tourism authority, the ad, it's like beaches or temples or like monks walking around with their arms bowls, which that's the old. That's the stuff that everyone already knows. Yeah.

Greg 00:18:08 I mean, that's what you see on every tourist agency. And Carlson Road in the back of a that's right seat in every taxi, you know, like this cheesy little. That's right.

Greg 00:18:15 But, you know, the cat recently has been starting to put a focus on the secondary destinations, which I think makes sense because there's so much other cool little towns to go to and destinations.

Ed 00:18:24 I agree, but but, but but are they pimping secondary activities I guess would be the right thing. Are they pimping that?

Greg 00:18:31 Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I haven't been looking so I'm unsure, but I think it would be a home run if they did. There's there's so much stuff here. So yeah, I don't know.

Ed 00:18:39 I mean I just feel when I was back there and had a lot of conversations about Thailand, it's just a combination of my total years here, plus doing the podcast now for I think I'm like my seventh year or six year or something like that. Right. I got a lot of gay man. That's all I got to say is I, I, I could sell I, I feel like the tourism authority, they should hire me because I feel like I can sell Thailand to almost everyone.

Ed 00:19:05 I'm not going to you know, I think there's some exceptions, like there are things that Thailand is lacking, there's no doubt. But man, like, I feel like I could meet a variety of people and just find something really cool in Thailand that they would like, and I, and I wouldn't be full of it. So, I mean, legitimately, I'm not I'm not talking about spinning it and, and and manipulating it. I mean, I mean, legitimately, legitimately, I could sell Thailand to I feel like 90% of people.

Greg 00:19:33 Well, I just got a message the other day from, from my buddy who I came over here with, my friend Mark, who famously went back home, you know, much, much quicker than I did. And, he said, hey, my uncle might be coming over to Thailand. Is it okay if I give him your email address? And I was like, of course. So his uncle is I mean, I've met him years and years ago when I was in high school.

Greg 00:19:53 He's a really cool guy, but he lives in Salmon Arm, which is in like the interior of the of British Columbia Shuswap region. So it's about as far removed from Thailand, you know, geographically, culturally, climatically as possible. Well, I'm really interested into what he's looking for when he comes over here. So it'll be really I'm really looking forward to him, his email if he ever does decide to come. Exactly. Why are you coming here now? Because he's got to be, you know, like in his late 60s at least. So, I.

Ed 00:20:22 Mean, really, I mean, this, you know, you and I are just scratching the surface, but I think this is a this is a really good challenge because I feel like I'm up for it. You know, things like digital nomads, like. Yeah, boom. Check. We can do that. Like, this is pretty digital, nomad friendly and allegedly become even more friendly with, like, the visas. There's just, you know, maybe, maybe we should have done our show on, who should not come to Thailand like I should like, I mean, because or maybe we wouldn't even have enough stuff to do for, like, that show The only people I can think honestly off the top of my head.

Ed 00:20:57 The only people I can think of are people who want, you know, high, what I call high culture. I don't know if that's the right term, but I think that's. So if that's what you want, you got to go to London or Paris or New York or you know, that those kind of places. but but what else? What else don't we have?

Greg 00:21:15 Yeah, that's a good that's a good point. Now, I just I think I've told this story before too, and I, I remember I was back in Canada after my first year here and I was buying some little tourism, some, some souvenirs for my friends back in Thailand at a store. And I mentioned to the girl at the cashier counter, I was like, she's like, why are you buying all these things? And I said, oh, I live in Thailand. And I remember her exact words were, wow, do they have, like, civilization there? And I was like…

Ed 00:21:44 That's great.

Greg 00:21:45 You know? And I have to assume I have to hope that things have progressed far beyond that. Now, in terms of how people understand and know.

Ed 00:21:54 About Thailand, I.

Ed 00:21:55 Hope so. I mean, I think that, like I said before, I do think there are people who who think that talent is much less developed than it is. Like I did encounter that on this trip, actually, there are people who who don't realize that Bangkok is is truly first world. You know, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, and, you know, it's what it's probably the I should I should know, it's probably the 10th or 12th biggest city in the US, something like that. So it's not 30th, right. but but Bangkok is just way more advanced. I mean, just way like way more. I mean, it turns out that Cleveland actually has a very good arts scene, a surprisingly good one. so actually, that's so so that's one advantage Cleveland has over over Thailand.

Ed 00:22:42 We do have high culture, but in terms of just how advanced it is, I mean, the the public transportation here just destroys what what exists back home. And I think, I think surprisingly there may there might be still some ignorance out there about how advanced Thailand really is, at least in Bangkok.

Greg 00:23:02 Yeah. And this brings us back to this idea of a survey that we want to send out. And I actually put one together, but I'm not I'm not quite sure about it yet, but I would really like to send a survey out to people and sort of ask them, what do you think Thailand is most known for? You know, like rank these things in order of, most known for and least known for or most available and least available, right? You know what I mean? I think it'd be really fascinating to see the difference between someone who's been here, someone who's never been here, etc., etc.. Sure.

Ed 00:23:31 Well, I hope the Tat is doing their job.

Ed 00:23:33 I mean, this is really what what what this should be their wheelhouse is, is broadening people's ideas of what Thailand is. So I don't I mean, I hope I'm not coming across this as biased just because I live here or I do the podcast. I mean, obviously you and I don't you and I don't get, you know, paid more. The more people that visit Thailand unfortunately we don't.

Greg 00:23:55 It'd be cool if we did.

Ed 00:23:56 It's just. I just feel like I'm looking at the factual reality of Thailand, and, a lot of those cliches that you mentioned are actually true. Like they are true, but there is just way more options. And I think maybe some people, at least some of the people I encountered, they weren't aware that, oh, I could do that in Thailand also.

Greg 00:24:18 That's an interesting way to phrase it too, because it's like, something just popped into my head. The old phrase, like, you know, years ago people would say like, oh, I don't want to get a mac, because, you can't run PC programs on it.

Greg 00:24:29 And that used to be the case, but it's not anymore. So when people say, like, oh, Thailand is known for ladyboy, you can't say, oh no, they're gone. Like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, they're still here. The cliches are true. The cliches are true. There's more you know.

Ed 00:24:43 I think so. I think so for sure.

Greg 00:24:45 Yeah. There's so much more.

Ed 00:24:46 I did my part on this trip to, to, to to sell Thailand to the world.

Greg 00:24:50 So you should get a little, you know, unofficial ambassador pin you can put on your jacket.

Ed 00:24:54 I should, I absolutely should, yeah.

Greg 00:24:56 Good for you, man. Well, interesting. I really want to head back to. I want to head back and get into more conversations with people about what they think about Thailand, because I never really did. The last time I was back, I just mostly hung out with my friends and they're like, yeah, he lives in Thailand.

Greg 00:25:08 And I actually, to be honest with you, to wrap this all up, I was a little bit taken aback that no one seemed to give a shit about my life in Thailand. I got almost no questions about it. No one asked beyond the usual like.

Ed 00:25:20 When was this? When was this?

Greg 00:25:22 A couple of years ago I went back by myself for. For a few weeks.

Ed 00:25:25 Oh that's right, you know. Well that's disappointing.

Greg 00:25:27 Yeah. I really wanted to throw down some, some knowledge. Like you'll never guess we got ladyboy in Thailand. No.

Ed 00:25:33 Hahahahaha.

Greg 00:25:34 Perpetuating the stereotypes. But anyway, yeah, we all have to do our part to, to to to sell the country and tell people around the world how actually great and varied it is.

Ed 00:25:44 Tell people how stable the politics are.

Greg 00:25:46 Well, sure, we can say that. But, when people figure that out on their own.

Ed 00:25:51 I guess we'll add that to the list of things that Thailand doesn't have.

Greg 00:25:55 That's right.

Greg 00:25:58 All right, let's do something we call. Would you rather wear one of us picks? Two contrasting situations tied to Thailand to debate and choose if which one we'd prefer. And this week, I'm throwing it over to you. Freshly arrived from the US of a.

Ed 00:26:10 Well, I got an interesting one. having dealt with, immigration issues in Thailand and then as well in the States to a little extent. and, you know, I'm no fan of bureaucracy, right. and also, I know over the years you have tangled with both the Thai government and the Canadian government before.

Ed 00:26:31 Done a little done a little mud wrestling with with both of them.

Greg 00:26:34 Rasslin’. Rasslin’

Ed 00:26:36 So here's my question to you. If you had an immigration problem and I'll keep it pretty vague. I mean, obviously nothing, super major, not like a deportation type problem, but you just got, like, a bureaucratic snafu. Problem with paperwork. Some shit's got to be worked out. Would you rather walk into Thai immigration and have to deal with that? Or would you rather deal with the Canadian government? I mean, okay, this is a choice between two shitty options, but which one is less? Which one is less shady?

Greg 00:27:13 That's a good one.

Greg 00:27:15 it's interesting because, like, you know, in Thailand, they kind of they kind of got you by the balls because, like, you can't lose your temper. There's one people, one group of people you don't want to yell at in Thailand, it's the immigration police do that because they'll decide whether to let you in or not. And they kind of got your future in their hands. But also, you want to also argue like this is legal. This is my right. I'm allowed to do this. I'm allowed to be like this. And you want to argue against the sometimes silly little rules or laws or snafus. But then again, in Canada, like I got pulled out of the immigration line in Canada, getting back into the country one time because I was in the I was in the, the resident line and they're like, you're not a resident. You don't live here. I was like, But I'm a citizen. They're like, that's different. They got all they got all bitchy about it, right?


Greg 00:28:03 You know, I, I think I would probably rather get into it with Canadian immigration because they can't reject my visa or take away my passport. You know, I've always got that.

Ed 00:28:16 But they can't they can't totally screw you over.

Greg 00:28:18 Right? Right. I've always got that ultimate fallback. And I know that as a citizen, roughly speaking, I have the same rights as everyone else. But in Thailand, which is my home, you know, I would rather be here. But also, I understand that expats are sometimes at the whim of whatever tides are blowing that day.

Ed 00:28:39 So yeah, it's actually kind of a it's actually kind of a tricky question because you know, when okay. So in the US and Canada, the rule of law is going to be tougher than here. And in general, I think that's good. But at the same time, if you have a problem, you might actually want some flexibility, you know? So when you have a problem, you might you might prefer to be in a situation where they might bend the rules a little bit.

Ed 00:29:06 You know what I mean?

Greg 00:29:07 Yeah, that's a good point.

Ed 00:29:08 But but in my experience, Thai people tend to bend a lot of rules, but not when it comes to bureaucratic paperwork. You know, that's that's, you know, like, Thai people are kind of flexible and reasonable with, with all kinds of things, including even like general laws that are something supposed to be illegal, but the police don't enforce it. But when it comes to having your paperwork in order, that's the I. In my experience, the Thai government is not flexible about that. Like they're they're pretty rigid, like, so they're they're they're kind of is rule of law when it comes to like, you know, do you have this form, this form, this form and that form. You know what I mean? Right, right. So I think I think I might lean the way that you lean. So in that case, like in that case, I might as well be in a situation where I might.

Ed 00:29:56 I have more rights and and I might not be stuck at the whim of someone else. Like if, if, if the immigration officials here were kind of chill and laid back and maybe we're willing to bend the rules a little.

Ed 00:30:08 Bit, you know, I might rather deal with them than deal with like, the American government. Right?

Greg 00:30:14 But back in Canada, I'd feel much more comfortable pushing my case and like and arguing with them like, no, no, that's right, that's wrong. You know.

Ed 00:30:21 Yes. I think that's a very good point.

Greg 00:30:23 Like, krapom, whatever you say, sir.

Ed 00:30:25 Yeah, that's right. You can't it's. Yeah, that's exactly right. so I'm, I think I think I would agree with you. I mean, it's basically a choice of, of two evils, but I really it's an interesting question why Thai people are so reasonable and flexible in how they're bending all these kinds of rules until it comes to government paperwork.

Greg 00:30:44 Right? Like our buddy John says, Thailand has no rules until there are rules, and then they're absolutely unbreakable.

Ed 00:30:49 That's it. Unfortunately, that is the case. So at least we at least we agree.

Greg 00:30:53 That's a good one. Yeah.

Ed 00:30:55 Alrighty, a final thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Where Bangkok podcast and social media Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg 00:31:22 That's right, you can also listen to each episode on the YouTubes. You can send us a voicemail through our website will feature on the show. You can contact me on threads at BC. Greg, thank you for listening. Everyone. Take it easy out there and take care of yourselves and your family and your friends.

Greg 00:31:34 We'll see you back here next week. No doubt.