Disclaimer: These tips and tricks are very, very specific. They won’t be relevant for just about anyone.
However, I am all about these niche tips and tricks that I’ve come up with over the years.
The mainstream garbage, you can find elsewhere. I am all about specificity.
There isn’t anything I hate more than mainstream travel videos or guides – they all seem the same and written by someone with no actual experience.
Let’s get started!
1. Ladyboy Or NOT? (Ultimate Test)
In 9/10 cases if I suspect the girl isn’t a real woman, I don’t even stop. I just keep walking. In very rare cases, I investigate further.
I am not sure if she’s a ladyboy or not and most importantly her looks makes it worth not to reject the offer right away.
These are the ones that don’t have any particular ladyboy characteristics (e.g. Adam’s apple, big hands or feet, deep voice) … but something is off.
In most cases, it’s just that they look too good to be female.
Then of course, I ask to see her ID. (This should already be good enough – a fake Thai ID is almost unheard of.)
Sometimes they even show naked pics. But even that wasn’t enough for me to be convinced so I came up with an additional strategy.
Basically, I say that my hotel charges a 1,000 Baht joiner fee for ladyboys. If she is okay with that, then it’s pretty much guaranteed that she really is a lady.
If she comes up with an excuse, such as ‘Oh, I know another hotel’ then run for your life!
2. Your Tourist SIM Is Re-Used?
In most cases, it doesn’t make sense to buy a plan with more than the bare minimum in terms of Internet data.
The basic ones are typically 3GB for 300 Baht and once you’ve used up all your data, you can still use the Internet but simply with reduced speed.
Reduced speed is still good enough for most purposes – say you use navigation, you message with girls, etc. AND only in cases in which you don’t have access to Wifi which is available almost anywhere.
One interesting thing that I have noticed is that tourist SIM cards tend to be re-used. At least the one’s I have had.
I noticed this when a few months ago, I got a new SIM card, installed LINE messenger app and suddenly had about 25 different people add me.
And no, I don’t mean official accounts of brands or celebrities which are sometimes added automatically.
Not even girls – just random Thai people from various walks of life. This could only be the case if this very phone number was previously used for registering a LINE account.
3. Paper Credit Card
NOTE: This is only useful if you use your credit/debit card exclusively for online payments/bookings.
Maybe you’ve had thoughts such as …
- What if my credit card gets stolen during travel?
- What if someone sees the card details and uses them for fraud?
Yes, there’s fraud insurance, etc. but with a bit of effort you can eliminate all these risks. Nobody can see your actual information, if it get’s stolen or is being lost … no problem.
You simply write out the cards details, such as card number, expiration date, etc. on a piece of paper and then keep it as PDF on your phone, laptop, etc. or simply print it out.
If you write it in clear text, it wouldn’t be helpful … so you come up with something that represents the number.
Example: Say the first 4 digits of your credit card are 1334
- Number of siblings I have (assuming you have 1)
- Number of birthday month of my dad (assuming it’s March)
You get the idea. This is only for you if you are paranoid and would like to take extra precautions rather than worry about it all the time.
If you speak some sort of local dialect or slang or another language, then this works even better.