Ok, that was a good response. I've been reading a lot of stuff about this lately. There is a lot of conflicting information about HIV on the internet and in ex-pat communities.

On some Pattaya and Thailand forums there are a few guys who say they know someone who died from AIDS, other people who say they have never heard of it even in fifteen years.

There are stories of married men living in Asia and going to Pattaya and Bali for holidays and having unprotected sex with bar girls. They may have been drunk at the time and worry about having to wait six to eight weeks to test for any STD they may have picked up. Then when they go back to USA or UK they have to make up some excuse why they can't sleep with their wives.

Just from my own experience observing the behavior of other ex-pats it's harder to pick up an STI then what people think.

Or maybe these guys who screw around a lot develop strong resistance to all sort of STD's. It's hard to say. In Pattaya apparently the risk of HIV infection from doing bar girls bareback according to "experts" is about 10,000 to 1 for a one off encounter. about the same as being killed in an airline crash. Multiple encounters increase the risk to about 2500 to 1.

Some guys will say the risk of being killed crossing 2 nd Road in Pattaya is about 100 to 1, some say 50 to 1. For some people it's all about calculating odds and risk.