you know why thai people smile so much? they have ass hoses. people using toilet paper to do anything but dry off their poop free bungholes are idiots.

....and anyone flushing toilet paper over here is causing long term problems for whoever owns the toilet

Are normal thai girls pretty aggressive? I went to a club the other night and started dancing a bit and the girl immediately grabbed my arm and held on, I kinda assumed she was a hooker just because I'm used to less initially aggressive girls and went back to my friends.

Was I wrong? How do you tell if a girl is not a hooker?

That is the only way to rent real motorcycles in Thailand. (legit ones, that are insured, properly registered with proper plates, etc.) You might be absolutely correct but in practice, this is what everyone who rents a big bike has to do. If anyone knows of a legit place that rents motorcycles that doesn't take passports, I would love to hear about them.

I thought about working out some sort of alternative that some people managed to do, like leaving 4000-5000USD as return deposit, but I decided that recovering 4-5K from a rental place might end up harder/risker than recovering my passport.

From gt-rider:

Close on 100% she was. U will have to make a significant effort with a normal girl and she ain't playing tonsil hockey in public with u after 30 mins, they are generally pretty shy and conservative..........

Took me a while before I would use them tbh. Wish I had taken the leap of faith earlier, its a much better way of doing things...........

I don't know how not to soak my balls in the process and then wind up using more paper to dry myself than if I had just wiped...

Just don't dry yourself

Again, this isn't true. You could crash their bike and have no money, and if you told your consulate they had your passport, they would still have to give it back to you. They would take it by force if they had to.

Your passport doesn't even belong to you, it belongs to the US government (or whatever country you are from). And the government doesn't care whether you want to rent a motorbike or not, you can't use your passport as a bargaining chip.

I seriously doubt that you have been to every motorcycle rental place in Thailand.

this and then u have paper stuck everywhere on ur ass and balls hahah

if you want non-working girls then avoid clubs that are filled with them(I'm assuming you were at one).


With a few exceptions of girls who have dated/been around a lot of Farang, Thai girls are very shy in public. If your dancing with girl at club for a while and she starts holding your hand constantly, thats a good sign she's very interested in you.

I lost my passport and ordered a new one, then I found my old one and now I have two. When I rented a scooter I just handed over the old one and planned on leaving it there if they tried to scam me somehow. I ended up hitting something and messing the bike up fairly decently but the guy only wanted $6 for the damage and I got my 2nd passport back.

unless you are superbusto, it seems ridiculous that some shady motorbike shop having your passport is a better deal than paying the fee. still, don't ever, ever, ever leave your passport for a regular motorbike. i don't know anything about big bikes, so maybe they all will refuse to rent to you (as has been pointed out, that's illegal)

there used to be a pretty thriving black market for passports. maybe the orwellian chips in the new ones has shut that down, but i'm not too excited about the prospect of my passport ending up in the hands of anyone who is willing to pay to get ahold of it.

Well, I haven't of course, but I think it applies to every place. In BKK, there is almost no one that rents regular motorcycles like ER-6 or better. In CM, there are a ton of places and that is where I rented. I did a ton of research on this, asked many riders, and visited a bunch of shops in CM. None of them will rent real motorcycles without the person leaving their passport. It is standard operating procedure. I could not find a place without this requirement, and it wasn't for the lack of trying.

The only time I heard this is possible is in some beach areas where they rent motorcycles that have screwed up paperwork from shadier operators. Those people will be OK if they stay in that province, but in other areas those bikes can get them in trouble.

This is my experience with "big bikes" - NOT scooters.

If you are aware of anyone who rented a "big bike" without leaving their passport, I would like to know how they did it. It is my preferred method of transport, and I will probably rent in the future as well.

All that stuff you say about leaving your passport is probably 100% true. How enforced in practice it is, I don't know. It might be enforced the same way as "prostitution is illegal" law. I have not heard of any riders getting in any trouble because of this.

There's no "probably" about it. And it's not enforced by Thai authorities at all, it's enforced by the authorities of your home country. So there's not going to be any Thai-style "looking the other way". Of course you aren't going to get caught until you have to phone your embassy and tell them that your passport is being held by some garage motorcycle shop. Then you can expect fines and in some cases, the cancelling of your passport. Not to mention that if you have paid for a flight and they won't give your passport back in time, you will be paying the cost of your missed flight.

And I know that no reputable farang rental place will ask you to leave their passport, because they are not ignorant of the laws. This also applies to the global rental agencies like Hertz.
Obviously I know hundreds who have done it. One of my best friends in Samui used to run a motorcycle rental place in Lamai and he rented bikes from 50cc scooters to replica harleys. He didn't hold passports because he knew that it was illegal. It was only 1-person operation so he didn't have credit card facilities, so when dealing with people he didn't know, he would simply take a cash deposit.

The fact is that any rental place who asks for your passport as a guarantee is ******ed because - as I said - they actually can't hold it even if you do crash. It is property of your government and they can take it back any time they want, whether you have paid what you owe or not.

The best way you go about renting a car or motorcycle that is legal is to leave a credit card number as a deposit. You are also covered against scams this way since if they try to scam you you can just do a chargeback on the card and let them try and scam Mastercard's lawyers (good luck + som nam na). Doing a chargeback takes a 2 minute phone call to Mastercard and once it is done, the onus is on the person who billed you to prove that you owe them that money. Which they will not be able to prove if they are scamming.

http://phuketwan.com/tourism/phuket-...er-fire-13397/

"One honorary consul cited a case where a tourist pushed a hired motorcycle over a cliff on Phuket before heading for the airport."

Rockstar style renting

This is probably old news for some people but it's good practice in Thailand to not hire anything from someone you don't know.

A much better way to do things is to buy a local farang bar owner a beer and ask them for advice on reputable rental places that the expats themselves use. The 100 baht for the beer will be well worth it in terms of far less hassles because you are dealing with people who make their living from fellow residents rather than tourists, which means they have to be more honest.

I think id rather leave my passport than have to talk to some toothless alchy sexpat bar owner.

Ok the few times I have rented a bike I have left my PP as I thought that was standard. What do you suggest? Take a copy of my PP and give them one of those?

kap

best way to end a degen vacation?

I think that article just backs me up that holding passports is standard practice.

Your Samui friend is a rare exception. I never looked at Samui because I didn't see the point renting on a small island.

I do not remember if I offered up my credit card as security...

ask her

Hi!

Can you recommend any good sites for house rental in Thailand for ~2 months for ~5 guys?


Thanks,

where especially ?

BKK http://www.bkkhousing.com/category/b...ouse-property/
chiang http://www.houseinchiangmai.net/
phuket http://phuketrenthouse.com/
koh phangan http://www.phanganisland.com/

It's really not that rare, if you do business with other Farangs. Only Thais will take your passport off you.

It's not "Standard" at all, and only occurs in places where there are an excess of clueless tourists to scam.

Again, offering up your passport as security is illegal for both you and the person who holds it.