@Kevin

I accept that I may have been overly critical of Jeff Mitchell. My review was based purely on the newspaper report in which Jeff Mitchell was quoted and as you rightly suggest other more negative comments may have not made it to press, but all I had to go on was this report and the comments made by Jeff certainly seemed unbelievably naive. As you mention Jeff was passing on information passed to him by prisoners, who clearly were able to fund a \'better\' existence within the prison. My concern is with the vast majority of prisoners who cannot afford these \'luxuries\' and indeed have to endure the additional torment of seeing others receive them. Based on the report, it did seem that Jeff overstated these potential benefits and painted too rosey a picture of prison life. This may have been a result of selective quoting by the reporter, but it is impossible for me to know the statements which have not been printed.

If I have been wide of the mark then I offer my sincerest apology to Jeff and I retract the above criticisms which may have been made in haste and based on little, perhaps unreliable information.

My aim in writing this review was to bring to attention the ethical dimensions to prison visits by pleasure seekers and to draw attention to disparities in treatment of prisoners based on the amount of cash they have. My intention was not to launch a personal attack on Jeff Mitchell, although I admit that the comments made by Jeff and published in the report angered me and came across as the strongest theme in the post.

According to http://preahvihear.com/?p=413 the controversial video posted on Abhisit\'s new nationalistic website and included in this post has now been removed from ilovethailand.org, apparently due to a diplomatic request from Cambodia. Although the video\'s origins are still unclear it certainly has the power to upset Cambodia/Cambodians and understandably so. This website received a torrent of a abusive comments related to the video, apparently by individuals convinced this website produced the clip. Let me be clear: this clip existed long before this website was online and I included the clip with my post to draw attention to the type of content on ilovethailand.org. I did not produce the clip!!!! I am however pleased it encouraged debate, but saddened that most comments I received were nothing more than racist rants, expressing some obviously deep-rooted hatred. I have no intention of removing this video and I encourage further debate on the video\'s claims and origins, but please no more racist rants and no more death threats!

Comments made by @oudom and @ck now deleted.

King Power have released a video of the British couple \"falsely accused\" of stealing at the airport (see Times article linked to in above post which claims: \"An official release order from the local Thai prosecutor’s office subsequently conceded there was no evidence against them.\") Well, the evidence looks pretty clear to me: http://www.kingpower.com/2009/popup/pop_case2.htm...

In the video we can clearly see Xi Lin putting an item into her bag and hurrying out of the shop.

@Catherine

I remember on my first trip here being told that Siam Square was closed which I found hard to believe. I did get taken to a \'gem shop\' by a Tuk Tuk who I had asked to take me to Wat Pho. It was an unnerving experience and I certainly wasn\'t inclined to make a purchase. Interesting that your friends had already described Thailand as a \"land of dishonesty\", shows the negative impact of the quagmire of scams operated in Thailand.

I agree that the airport extortion is worrying, especially for tourists without contacts here.

@Club Siam

Small business owners being targeted is also worrying and shows that it is not just unsuspecting tourists that are victims of scammers. Are we seeing an upsurge of scamming recently?

It is difficult to ascertain the level of overcharging in pubs and bars as most probably go undetected. I don\'t think it has been relegated to history just yet and is not limited to the seedier bars.

Indeed, there is no one better in Thailand than Khunying Pornthip to get to the bottom of ambiguous cases.

Yes it is rare to read reports of robberies committed by Thais - especially those in uniforms. I find this quote from fact moribund Nation interesting: \"Sometimes, they stun victims with an electric shock device or by applying psychedelic medicine to the victim\'s body before getting away with their valuables, often by taxi.\"

Psychedelic medicine that works instantly, what could that be?

\"tfs2m\"

Thanks for the link. I agree that Bangkok feels safe and that it is not just a false sense of security, although as you mention, as recession hits, petty crime will inevitably rise. Thailand ranks high on global crime charts for murders, rapes and gun crime amongst others. I feel safe from random attacks in Bangkok as oppose to London, where I can get knifed for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.