While Thailand continues to become a more and more unfriendly place for tourists, the Bangkok Post is reporting three acid attacks on foreign tourists in Bangkok.
The latest was on Thursday when a foreign tourist, American Elizabeth Briel, reported on Twitter that she and her husband had been sprayed with acid at Asok BTS sky train station in Bangkok. Briel said her husband had damage to his eye, and she had burns on her scalp.
The acid was dripped on them from the overpass of the BTS sky train while they walked past the stairs.
When Elizabeth Briel and her husband were given treatment at Bumrunggrad Hospital in Bangkok the same day, they were informed by personnel there that this was the third recent acid attack on foreigners in Bangkok that hospital staff knew of.
An incident like this, although detrimental to Thailand’s tourist industry, is not altogether surprising. Tourists in Thailand are sometimes treated as a necessary evil, ie: some Thais want their money but don’t really want them, and as tourists are treated with disdain by the Thai government, that disdain also passes down to some in the general populace.
That being said, however, not all Thais are like that. Most are genuinely welcoming and friendly.
The current Thai government however looks like it is building on its disdain of foreign tourists by instituting the anti-tourist regulations its predecessor did, the government run by the current PMs brother.
As a consequence, tourist visas for long-term stays in Thailand are now becoming impossible to get in some embassies in the south east Asian region, and tourists with money who want to stay somewhere long-term without working are now beginning to make plans to leave Thailand and move on to other south east Asian countries instead. Countries where they and their money are a little more welcome.
As for Elizabeth Briel, she and her husband will be moving on to China, a country it sounds as though she loves and one in which she is probably not likely to be splashed with acid.
You can find more information about Elizabeth Briel, an artist who lives and travels around Asia, at her website here.
