More Australians die in Thailand than in any other foreign country. Story here.
From 2006-11, we had 430 Aussie detahs. Of those, 132 (30.7%) were of unknown causes (but I suspect romantic entanglements, heh :D).
Thailand was followed by Vietnam and Greece.
Brits too, according to this similar thread I started three years ago, which mentioned Aussies too. Man, we sure get a lot of people coming here to die.
What were the circumstances-death by hooker?
Not completely unheard of. 
I thought it was “see Naples and die.”
Perhaps when pronounced in Strine, that becomes “nipples,” and in their confusion off to Pattaya they hie.
There have been actual cases of girls – even ladyboys – coating their nipples with some sort of drug that knocks the guys for a loop. I knew one guy who said the last thing he remembered was licking a girl’s nipples and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the curb near Nana Plaza drooling like an idiot. Now that may not be all that uncommon a site in that area even in the best of times, but for him it really was something he was slipped.
This is very rare though, and the vast majority of girls will not drug and rob you.
My best friend frequents Thailand. A lot. Picture that bad boy, bro school teacher from “The Hangover,” with enough funds to jet set as he pleases. I believe the veracity of his tales because of how long I’ve known him, but man…the dark alleyways, the prize fights, the knife weilding pimps…to say nothing of the time him and the bros took a drunken boat ride sneaking into Cambodia, MSNing me from Phnon Penh back when people still used MSN. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t died yet.
Me, by contrast, I don’t like to rough it, go clubbing, stay in hostels, or go any place that’s even remotely dangerous. If i were to ever visit SE Asia (or anywhere, really), I’d stay in a four or five star hotel, and learn enough about gamelan or whatever their indigenous music is to write a blog post to impress my old musicologist colleagues. I would buy knick knacks and stay in brightly lit areas, and carefully scrutinize how much I drank, spent, and what exactly it was I was eating.
Something tells me though, that there are way more tourists in Thailand like my buddy than there are like me. So I can’t say I’m shocked Aussies and Brits are getting killed there.
All generalizations are misleading()* but I think “street crime”, bar brawls, etc. may be bigger dangers in U.S.A. than in Thailand. Sam’s link shows “Illness” as a deciding factor in the statistic. I’m not sure if or why Thailand has more “illness” but am reminded of recent Aussie illness deaths in Chiang Mai. I think they were due to a hotel’s improper use of insecticide, one of the saddest aspects of the affair being the government’s suppression of facts.
(* - yes, that includes this one. :rolleyes: )
Entirely possible, but at the same time, the archetypal “idiot buddy who would get killed in a foreign country” is probably more willing to wander into a bad neighborhood at night in Bangkok than he is in, NYC. I just feel like for a certain subset of the human population, “Vacation mode” dulls their inhibitions. YMMV.
Eta: I wonder if alcohol poisoning or a drug OD would count as an “accident,” or an illness in that chart.
[Maxwell Smart] Ah, the old Mickey-Finn pasties trick![/Maxwell Smart]
Well, these are guys who’ve made a nine-hour plane ride for a three-second orgasm. Drugging & robbing them would be hauling coals to Newcastle.
“Knife-wielding pimps”? 
Not heard of any of those. Seriously. And I’m not sure why he would sneak into Cambodia when you can just get a visa at the border. I assume you mean he made his way to Phnom Penh after he entered the country, such as hopped a bus in Sihanoukville, because you can’t get to Phnom Penh by boat from the coast. You can from Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat, but that’s up in the Northeast. How long ago was this exactly?
You have to pretty much try to find a bad neighborhood in Bangkok. It’s a very safe city. This is not Rio. I often wander alone through all sorts of areas in the wee hours of the morning without the slightest trepidation. There aren’t any real “bad sections,” but my doings regularly take me even into the big Klong Toey slum late at night. No one’s going to bother me.
It was about eight years ago? You’re a local; if you want to tell me my besty’s tall tales are shit, I’ll take your word for it!
Cambodia’s been pretty open since at least the late 1990s. But I don’t necessarily think your friend is full of shit, just that maybe he’s embellishing the tale a bit. I’ve never heard of a Western-style pimp over here, the girls are largely free agents. They come and go in the bars and massage parlors all the time contrary to the salacious stories in the Western press, the ones who aren’t hanging out in the freelancer bars or walking the sidewalk on lower Sukhumvit. But he could have had some dispute with a bar owner or massage-place papasan, and you could sort of morph that into “pimp.” There are a handful of scam bars in Patpong that promise the unwary that there’s no cover charge for the show, then sock you with a big bill while large bouncers guard the door to keep you from fleeing. Those are few, maybe three or four, and tend to open and close depending on the authorities’ alertness. He could have wandered into one of those.
That could be it…Course, in retrospect, he was also wrong about Chang beer not being available for export because it has formaldehyde in it. But I think that was the locals fucking with him, lol.
Oh geez. Not that again. For years and years, the rumor was Singha beer. Boon Rawd Brewery, the maker, keeps coming out periodically to deny it. There is absolutely no truth to it. No Thai beer contains formaldehyde, period, and I’m not even going to pretend it may be true. Now it’s Chang, eh? Well, Chang is vile shit, but even I wouldn’t falsely accuse it of having formaldehyde.
You’ve cleared up a lot of my Thai misconceptions, Siam Sam. Serious.
I always enjoy wandering into a thread and accidentally learning something! 
My job is done. 
Couldn’t natural causes be simply the 78 year old dude who went there to retire and died?
Accidents can happen anywhere, so if you have thousands of visitors, getting hit by a bus crossing the street is not unheard of - just like tripping over a curb when you are drunk and hitting your head.
Regarding unknown causes - well again, depends upon the age (maybe it was heart failure) or stupidity (he was drunk and who knows how he fell off that balcony) or maybe they forgot to take their insulin, or were already diagnosed with some terminal illness when they took their last hoorah trip. It is not like some of these countries have well-funded CSI units that will spend thousands doing autopsies. As far as they are concerned, dude dead, call embassy, next.
Australians love to travel - and when they do, it is for long periods of time (hey, that is one hell of a flight to get there, might as well stay a month or so…) Thus it is only logical that more Aussies die in tourist locations, if you have more of them there.
I’d suggest that because of the cheap airfares and accommodation they get quite a few Australian tourists. Tie that in with silly old bastards who go and shag themselves to death, a few drug overdoses, and the odd murder - well, shit happens.
I’m a bit surprised though that more Australians die in Thailand than NZ or even the UK. Possibly in the UK it is dual passport and the recording is slightly different.
See Naples and die. More likely “See Nipples and Die”.
My son was in Thailand for 6 months (actually Phukett) and was amazed at the amount his Auzzie friends would drink almost every night. He was also amused at some of their low standards for bringing bar girls back to their rooms (hint: they were not always all girl).
He did love to hang out with them, just didn’t try to keep up with them.
Sam: just a question. Suppose you are an American guy in Thailand-you desire female companionship for a few days (beach, dinner, etc.)-no sex.
Would a Thai girl be open to this?
Is this done?