Health and safety in Thailand

Water and food

Do not drink the tap water. Bottled water is cheap and available everywhere, and refill stations are increasingly common in towns. Use bottled or boiled water for brushing teeth if you are cautious, and for young children.

Ice in drinks is safe in practice — commercial ice is factory-made from filtered water and delivered sealed. The old advice to avoid ice is out of date.

Food: eat where it is busy and eat what is cooked to order. That covers almost everything. Be more careful with things left standing in the heat, with raw vegetables, and with cut fruit from stalls without running water.

Travellers' diarrhoea is common and usually passes in a few days. Oral rehydration sachets are more useful than medication; seek medical help if there is blood, a high fever, or it lasts beyond a few days.

Heat and sun

Thailand is hot and, for much of the year, humid. Heat exhaustion is a real risk in the first few days, before you have adapted — and the temptation to do everything immediately is strongest exactly then.

Drink more than you think you need, and not only when thirsty. Add electrolytes if you are sweating heavily. Avoid the middle of the day for anything strenuous.

The sun near the equator burns fast, and it burns through cloud. High-factor sunscreen, reapplied after swimming, plus a hat and a shirt, is not optional. Sunburn in the first two days can ruin a week.

Mosquitoes, and what they carry

Dengue fever is the mosquito-borne disease that actually matters in Thailand. It is carried by a daytime-biting mosquito, it has no vaccine for most travellers and no specific treatment, and cases rise in the rainy season.

Malaria is largely confined to the border regions — along Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos — and is not a concern in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket or the main islands. Prophylaxis decisions should come from a travel clinic, not a blog.

Japanese encephalitis and rabies exist but are rare and mostly relevant to long stays or rural travel. Rabies is the one to think about around animals: monkeys and dogs bite, and a bite means immediate medical attention, not a wait-and-see.

Practical defence: repellent with DEET or picaridin, long sleeves at dusk, and accommodation with air conditioning or screened windows. The daytime dengue mosquito is the one people forget about.

Scooters — the actual danger

If you take one thing from this guide, take this. Road traffic is the leading cause of serious injury and death among visitors to Thailand, and scooters are at the centre of it.

The pattern is consistent: someone who has never ridden rents a scooter on their first or second day, on an island, on a hilly road, often without a helmet, frequently with a drink involved. The injuries are to the head and the legs, and they happen to people who consider themselves careful.

If you ride: wear a properly fitted helmet every time, do not learn on a hill or in traffic, never ride after drinking, and get the correct licence plus an international driving permit. Your travel insurance will very likely refuse a claim without them.

The same applies to jet skis, which are involved in a well-known damage-claim scam on the islands.

Insurance, medicine and emergencies

Travel insurance is not optional here. The two things to check before you buy are that it covers medical evacuation and that it covers scooter or motorbike accidents — many policies exclude the latter, or exclude it without a valid licence.

Private hospitals in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Samui are of international standard and will treat you quickly. They are also expensive, and they will want payment or confirmation from your insurer.

Bring prescription medicine in its original packaging with a copy of the prescription. Some common medications are controlled in Thailand, so check before you travel.

Emergency numbers: 191 for police, 1669 for ambulance and rescue, 1155 for tourist police. The tourist police speak English and exist specifically to deal with visitor problems.

Crime, and keeping it in perspective

Violent crime against visitors is rare in Thailand. What is common is theft of opportunity — bags snatched from scooters, phones taken on crowded transport, valuables left on beaches — and a handful of tourist scams.

The scams are mostly about money rather than safety: the closed temple tour, the gem shop detour, the jet ski damage claim, inflated tuk-tuk fares. Knowing them in advance is the whole defence.

Never hand over your passport as a deposit for a scooter or anything else. That is the situation that turns a small dispute into a serious problem.

Sensible precautions cover it: a cross-body bag rather than a shoulder one, nothing valuable left on the beach, and a copy of your passport kept separately from the original.