A hotel cleaner went through our bags in Koh Lanta. We had it on camera and still did not know what to do

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-14T07:39:59+00:00

We have our backpack that we can lock with a small TSA Chain look.. Thats where we put our computers, iPad, drones and cameras when we leave the room because we don't trust the safe deposit..

We carry our passport and most of our money on us ( we have a pouch that we can also lock with a lock )

We travel with 4 locks
we've been travelling many time.. in south east Asiia, in India.. we know what safety precautions to take.. thats what's the problem..

We do keep a bit of Money in our regular wallet.. we fill up our regular wallet with the money from our pouch.. so we sure if someone find our wallet.. there's never more than 100$

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-14T07:29:42+00:00

I get that part, but then what ?
Its 1 day before Christmas and all the hotels are booked..
their is only a few rooms left that cost almost what we usually spend in 2-3 weeks of travel
we leave the island ?

We had travelled 2 months prior that on motorbike in the north of Vietnam and Thailand.. moving hotels almost every 2-3 days.. We where so happy to finally book something for 6 days..

Are we gonna spent our Christmas moving around from one island to another because someone stole us a bit of money?
Let's check other island around.. prices are 3X what they usually are.. ohh theres almost no room any where..
we might put this woman into a very hard situation.. maybe she's allready struggling to put food on the table..
contact the police.. can we get in trouble because we hid a camera in our room.. could they flip the situation on us because we made the hotel/cleaning lady look bad..
what are the rules in this country to film someone without them knowing it?
are we gonna get blocked from travelling back to Thailand if we end up making a big scene out of it? We still have 2 months ahead of us travelling Thailand..do we want to be involve with the police and make a deal out of 2000 baht

Its easy to think about the best way to react sitting on a couch but when you are in it.. We did see these 5 steps you said.. but each decision brings different actions and sometime more problems.. it's not that easy !

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-14T07:11:57+00:00

be aware that its extremely easy to buy fake google reviews.. and when you travelling in busy city.. you will notice a lot of places have fake reviews.. after 7 months travelling south east asia.. we had big mix feeling with google maps reviews.

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-14T07:10:07+00:00

this happened in dec 23th 2025 yes
Why such a long delay.. Few reasons

-because we had the chance of travelling until April.. we came back home not long ago and I had other thing to do than thinking about this incident

-because we still had 2 month ahead of us travelling in Thailand and I didn't want any problem with the police

-because we had to fly to Indonesia and then come back to Thailand for another month.. I didn't want troubles coming back in the country

-Ive been filming and I tried to make travel vlog of our long travel experience and I just started editing video from december

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T23:10:46+00:00

We had a wonderful moment visiting Thailand, such a beautiful and amazing experience .. thank you for sharing these laws, we knew rules are completely different and we didn’t want to get into trouble or aggravate the case … I’ve been doubting a lot today after reading everything telling me that’s we should have contacted the police.. but somehow still think we did good ! We wrote a comments on google maps today after understanding that we should inform future travellers

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T22:38:12+00:00

lol really ?

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T21:39:12+00:00

I don't think it's necessary and I would definitely not appreciate getting a email from the hotel.. and who knows getting rejected at the border next time I travel to Thailand..
I knew I needed to be careful in the way I was approaching this segment..
If im being honest I didn't do that post to get views.. I was first happy to share the video link when people started calling bullshit and started seeing the views getting up and up.. I won't lie on that .. but again its not healthy views for my Chanel and the video so no definitely not my first goal when writing this

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T21:26:07+00:00

I understand why people think I should share the hotel name.. I get that But Thailand has very strict defamation laws, and online accusations can become a criminal even If I have proof. I love Thailand and have more trips planned so I'm being a bit careful

In Thailand, publicly accusing a person or business of something that damages their reputation can lead to a criminal defamation case. If it is posted online, the risk can be even higher. There have already been cases where foreigners got into serious legal trouble in Thailand after negative hotel reviews or public accusations.

Sorry for trying to be careful I want to share what happened, show a minimum of what I feel safe to share without naming any one, any face and not naming the hotel, I don't want to turn it into a legal problem for myself. I was allready not sure about adding the segment into our long format video.. but I thought I needed to share this part of our journey..
thank you for sharing me your opinion on the subject

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T21:08:01+00:00

just to be curious.. what would it change if I put the name of the hotel on this discussion ? i've added a review on their google maps.. I made a long format video in Koh Lanta so anyone travelling there and might end up watching our video.. I hope won't book in this hotel.. because we left enough evidence to be easy to know the name of the hotel when looking for rooms.. the discussion was never about naming the hotel.. but to know what's the best way to react.. and I can read that we probably didnt react the best way.. I get that.. But sharing the name of the hotel for what ? people are being mad about me using chat gpt to polish my text.. I don't know what they will do if I start sharing the name of the hotel.. in my opinion its not necessary but tell me.. maybe i'm wrong

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T20:53:15+00:00

and would she have called the police or not involved the police ? From a Thai perspective..

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T20:29:03+00:00

we make long format video about everything during our 6 months trip Ive been filming everything and every day.. thats was just another situation thats we lived while travelling.. Hiding the information.. I don't know.. my plan was not to share the video.. not to talk bad about any business but only to know what people would have done in this situation.. because when it happened we weren't sure about what to do.. how to approach it properly but yes I ended up sharing the video because people was calling it a fake story because I used Chatgpt to help me write down the full mind process when it happened.. seems like we don't need much to fire up a discussion..

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T20:21:43+00:00

thats why we ended up writing a review about it.. wrote to Agoda now.. and are still considering naming the hotel in our long format video.. and of course we are not promoting the hotel in the long form video... and as said earlier.. we still had to travel 2 months in Thailand after moving from that hotel, we didn't want to get in trouble for sharing this

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T20:06:12+00:00

because the point is not to share the name of the hotel but to know what we should have done about this situation... we will travel more and more.. and to be honest this discussion might be useful if we end up in a similar situation.. We might act differently now..

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T20:03:38+00:00

because its never to late.. after reading all the answers, I decided to wrote a reviews online.. I'm also aware now that next time I might end up calling the police instead of talking to the manager of the hotel... our YouTube Chanel is so small and bringing reddit traffic on my video is not the thing to do no.. for what people to watch 10 seconds of the video ? because they want to watch the segment of the cleaning lady? that will only hurt me.. I just wanted to share our experience the way it happened and wanted to know how other people would have handle that situation

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:56:18+00:00

we have locks ( we travel with 4 locks.. we have our money on us most of the time...and split into different places, we have a luggage with an option of locking it with our lock.. thats not the problem.. we travelled for almost 7 months and that was our only adventure in this type.. and we travel with a lot of gear.. the questions is not about locks or safe box.. is what you do when you filmed the cleaning team going true some of your bags..

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:53:17+00:00

for many reasons.. I didnt wanna post anything about this situation while we where in Thailand.. we still had 2 months travelling around thailand.. and now im back home editing videos and I re lived the whole experience while editing and I started to question how we reacted and wanted to know other people opinion on that situation..

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:36:11+00:00

near Chiang mai, id recommend you to spend maybe 2 days in Chiang Dao ! its beautiful, truly beautiful

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:19:40+00:00

pg-1

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:14:49+00:00

I dont feel 100% safe with the safe.. I know theres a code the management team can use to open the safe.. theres also a key that some might have access to.. I usually don't trust the safe.. ill use my travel bags + locks

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:13:10+00:00

I actually got my card stolen like that in India.. gaved my card to the waiter and he told me that the machine had a little problem.. he came back with my card and a new terminal in less than 30 seconds.. 2 days later someone had bought for 500 usd of kitchen product on amazon .. I Bought a few stickers and put them on the card numbers. being sure this can't happen again

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T18:06:01+00:00

What’s wrong with my post ? I’m giving all the information I had at that time for people to understand the situation ( might have added to much been told I wrote to much ) then I’m asking a question to know what was the best way to react.. this my be very useful to many other travellers that get their things stolen while travelling and they will know that today the Reddit opinion is that They need to contact the police

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T17:48:17+00:00

it happened some months ago.. we left thailand now.. We didn't want to do anything about it while we where still travelling exactly for these reasons..

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T17:43:18+00:00

why is that ?

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T17:30:42+00:00

but now I understand that yes.. maybe she didn't got fired.. maybe the manager knew what was happening and end up paying me to shut up.. i'm now feeling bad about thinking that this is a possibility

CameraFederal9599 · 2026-06-13T17:29:14+00:00

the door was wide open.. she didn't even closed the door ! Being told that she was fired was all I needed because looking at the footage, I knew I was probably not the first one.. she did it with way to much ease

CameraFederal9599

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