Travel report: Thailand

Country ranking by area: #51
Country ranking by population: #20

Date of visit: January 2012

Sawasdee Krap!

Thailand – the country where it all began. Thailand was my first long trip back in 2012. I just turned 26, quit my first job after my studies, had no new job yet but time and money. While many friends of mine had already seen a lot of the world back then, I only left Europe for two short trips to Lebanon and Israel. Travelling, I mean real travelling, wasn’t anything I had done yet.

Neither did I travel alone before. The Trip to Thailand was also my first trip as a solo traveller therefore. Fortunately, I worked with a few people who have been to Thailand before. They helped me a lot with tips and hotel recommendations. Nevertheless, that trip was one where I didn’t plan a lot beforehand. I only booked the flights from Europe to Thailand plus the first two nights in Bangkok. The plan was to decide from day to day where I would go and what I would do. Right now, I smile about the fact that this was a huge adventure to me back then. But it was. While something like that would be routine to me nowadays, it was a completely new experience for me.

In times of writing, I have been to Thailand three times and my view on the country changed after every time. I will reveal my actual thoughts about Thailand in the end of this article. This article might not be for you if you are into posts with a lot of photos. Most of the photos are from my first trip in 2012. The quality of the pictures is not the best.

Thailand, January 2012

I remember my arrival in Thailand’s capital city Bangkok. It was my first red-eye flight and also my first flight that was longer than four hours. So, there I was, completely exhausted from flying eleven hours in economy class but also very excited to be in such an exotic country. I fought myself through Suvarnabhumi Airport, went through immigration, and then I finally entered the country. When you leave the airport, the heat immediately strikes your skin. There is also a certain scent in the air, a typical scent for Thailand, I cannot describe it though.

I have travelled to six different places in Thailand on this first trip: Bangkok, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Krabi, Koh Phi Phi and Chiang Mai. The banana pancake trail. All of these places were different somehow. Although I revisited Thailand twice after that trip, I didn’t manage to travel to new places. I believe my first trip was so much fun that I did not even want to.

Bangkok is not a city for the faint-hearted. It’s a safe city, but it’s also pure chaos. It’s hot, it’s vibrant, traffic is terrible and it smells. However, Bangkok is fun. The city is very cheap and you can do almost whatever you like for very little money. I had my hotel near Khao San Road, the backpacker mecca of the city. To be honest, it’s one of the worst areas to stay in Bangkok, but I didn’t know that yet back then.

The first three days in Bangkok were a mixture of sightseeing and backpacker parties. I visited a lot of temples, of course the most important ones Wat Pho and Wat Arun as well. You will see plenty of temples in Southeast Asia, and you get bored at some point. “Wow, this is amazing!” are your thoughts in the first temple. “Oh, this one is nice too.” is what you think when you see the second temple. After the third temple you just shrug your shoulders.

Koh Samui turned out to be my favourite destination of this trip. It was the first tropical island I have seen, and the golden beaches as well as the turquoise water took my breath away. Koh Samui is an island for every type of traveller. It’s a place for couples, for families, for backpackers and other travellers. I enjoyed every day there by relaxing on the beach, doing jungle safaris and going to the Green Mango Club every night.

My next stops Koh Phanghan and Krabi were boring because I stayed in the wrong corners (Haad Salad and Ao Nang). I didn’t expect Koh Phangan to be that big, but it took 45 minutes to go from Haad Salad to the places where all the action was. Krabi was another story. Two other travellers recommended staying in Ao Nang, what turned out to be one of the worst advices I ever got when travelling. It’s an ugly area and more a hub for people who travel to and out of Krabi.

It got better in Koh Phi Phi, although just a little bit. You can basically do three things in Phi Phi: sitting on the beach, diving and partying. I don’t dive so that my options were limited to killing time on the beach and going out every night. I would never ever go back to Koh Phi Phi, as this is one of the most overcrowded islands in Thailand if not in the world thanks to the movie The Beach. Nevertheless, I had fun in Koh Phi Phi. After four or five nights in calm areas of Koh Phangan and Krabi, I could go out again every night. Anyway, Koh Phi is not an island you have to see. Plus the island is expensive for Thai standards.

My first trip to Thailand ended in the North. Chiang Mai was my last stop, a place that looks completely different from the South or Bangkok. It has a much more relaxed vibe than Bangkok for example, and it’s also greener. The people are more chilled than the people living in hectic Bangkok. I liked Chiang Mai, although something quite dangerous happened to me there. I will come back to that later.

If I had to rank this trip among all the others I did since then, it would be in my top 5 for sure. What I liked most was that I could travel through this country without planning too much. Everything was so ridiculously cheap that I could live there like a king. Everything was perfect: the weather, the food, the kind people… I still understand why Thailand first-timers immediately fall in love with this country.

After coming home from Thailand I felt like reborn. My first real journey had just ended and I had so much fun that I wanted more of it. First I needed a new job, but after working four months for my new employer I went travelling again. Japan was my next big destination, but it didn’t take long until I was back in Thailand…

About solo travelling

This first trip to Thailand was fantastic. Thailand was the country where my solo traveller “career” started. If someone had told me that I would travel alone to Thailand two years before this trip I would have called him/her crazy. I had really no idea whether I would like it or not, but I have travelled many countries just by myself since then. Looks like it wasn’t the worst experience for me.

Travelling solo has some pros and cons. The biggest advantage is that you can do whatever you want without making compromises. You can visit the places you want, you can go back to your hotel when you want, you can eat where you want, you can socialise with whom you want. Obviously, you can do these things as well if you travel with someone else, but you might have different interests at some point. Meeting new people is in my opinion also easier when you travel alone. Other people sometimes don’t approach you when you’re with someone, or you don’t show the same openness towards others.

The cons are that travelling alone is more expensive in most cases. You cannot share taxis, hotel rooms etc (unless you sleep in dorms). You might save some money too because you won’t do certain things (e.g. going out) when travelling solo. However, I believe that it’s generally cheaper if you travel with company.

Only two situations were (or are) annoying to me as a solo traveller: having dinner and going out. Eating alone in a restaurant isn’t fun. Neither is going out alone. Nevertheless, the night was always a good occasion to meet people. I usually met people on tours during the day or in bars and nightclubs at night. Just the beginning of the night out wasn’t very cool.

Another mistake I did was staying in expensive hotels. You most likely won’t meet people in your age in 4 or 5 star hotels (except for couples). But I wasn’t very fond of hostels and I neither are today. Therefore, tours became more important to me. It’s always a gamble though. You’re on a tour with four French guys at your age sometimes, whereas you’re in a group with an average age of 50 the other time. Meeting people on tours and going out with them later in the evening was always the best strategy.

Generally, I am not a person who gets bored without company. I have plenty of books with me, maybe some netflix stuff or games on my mobile, and also many things to think about when I travel alone. I can understand when people say that they are not the type of person for travelling alone, but I truly believe that everyone should try it at least once. Sometimes, I see friends who would love to travel somewhere but they don’t find someone who wants to join. I pity them. That wouldn’t happen to me anymore.

Second trip to Thailand: Bangkok, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan

I returned to Thailand in December 2012, just eleven months after my first trip. I was on a almost four week trip through Southeast Asia, and after my visits in Singapore, Malaysia and Laos, I was back in Bangkok again shortly after Christmas.

Things were different this time. Not only that the gigantic Christmas tree at Suvarnabhumi Airport upset me (I wanted to escape from Christmas!), I also realised that time how touristy Thailand was. Laos was a laid-back contrast to hectic Bangkok, where every third man on the streets was a white man. That irritated me. Was this still the Thailand that I loved so much after my first trip? Or did I just change?

I chose to revisit Thailand because I knew what I would get there. The other countries on that trip were unknown to me so that I wanted to add places to my itinerary that I knew. Plus I wanted to go to the Full Moon Party, which I missed on my first trip due to an illness. Therefore, my second trip to Thailand took me to Bangkok, Koh Samui und Koh Phangan again.

This trip wasn’t as memorable as the first one. I truly don’t remember much from Koh Samui except for the story of an overbooked hotel. I will tell you that later. As I stayed in one of the most remote corners in Koh Phangan on my first trip, I booked a hotel closer to the action this time. I was in Baan Thai and had a small, dirty bungalow on the beach. I had to book the bungalow for a minimum of seven nights, because getting a hotel during the Full Moon Party isn’t easy. However, I absolutely had to visit the FMP so that I even accepted a bungalow with brown water pouring out of the shower.

Stray dogs were another problem in Baan Thai. They lazily lie on the streets during the day but they become active at night. It’s not funny when you walk through the dark at night and meet a pack of dogs. Dogs are like humans. They do stupid things when they are in a group. I didn’t get calmer when I saw the torn face of a boy who had a bad encounter with stray dogs. That’s why I didn’t feel comfortable walking from my bungalow to the town at night, which was a 5 minute walk through the dark.

I experienced the Full Moon Party twice in four days. The first one was the regular Full Moon Party (obviously during full moon), the second one was on New Year’s Eve just three days later. Newspaper said that there were more than 50,000 people on the New Year’s Eve party. It was complete madness. Although I was only 27 years old back then, I felt too old for something like that. I would say that at least half of the people were less than 21 years old and most of them could barely walk anymore.

Buckets were constantly thrown through the air, people were puking or urinating into the ocean, it was disgusting. I guess I came to this party a few years late. The beach of Haad Rin looks like a battlefield the next morning. There is trash everywhere, some people sleep on the beach, while the locals count their money and prepare for the next party.

I left Thailand a few days later towards Cambodia. In retrospect, it might has been a mistake that I returned to Thailand just eleven months after the first trip. Although nothing in the country changed, it wasn’t the same Thailand anymore for me. It was a tourist hell.

Bangkok, November 2013

The last time I visited Thailand was for a layover only. Again, there were only eleven months between that visit and the previous one. It was before and after my trip to Indonesia, as I didn’t want to travel to Bali without a stop.

I didn’t do anything that I haven’t done before on my third time in Bangkok. It was actually a really short stop, I spent only 36 hours in the Thai capital before I continued my journey towards Bali. I still didn’t know whether I liked Bangkok or not. Although I have spent more nights in Bangkok than everywhere else (but my home town Basel), I still had mixed feelings about this city.

Bangkok is a city that offers a lot. There are amazing sights, you can eat delicious food, it’s one of the most vibrant cities in the world and one of the rare cities where you can go out every night of the week year-round. However, Bangkok always exhausted me. It’s not a beautiful city in my opinion, traffic is bad, it’s a dirty and polluted city and it’s also a city where I constantly loose my orientation.

Nevertheless, when you travel in Southeast Asia you will get to Bangkok sooner or later. It’s one of the most important hubs in this region that connects so many countries and cities. Therefore, I am positive that it wasn’t the last time that I have been to this city.

Something happened in Thailand when I was there on my third visit. Mass protests started against the corrupt government. The protests lasted for several months until the military overthrew the Thai government. Thailand is right now a military dictatorship and it’s still unclear how and if this country will change in the future.

It seemed that the new military government didn’t affect tourism much, but the military recently banned the street vendors from famous Khao San Road in order to make the city cleaner. Bangkok will never be a second Singapore though. It’s the exact opposite.

Other memorable stories from Thailand

As I have spent 33 days in total in Thailand, there are of course some stories worth mentioning.

I almost died in Chiang Mai

On my first trip to Thailand, I joined a full day tour in Chiang May. I don’t remember the exact itinerary, but we were a group of 12-15 travellers and visited a few sights in the rural area near Chiang Mai. One of the last parts of the tour should be river rafting.

I did river rafting in Switzerland a few months before my trip to Thailand. It didn’t take me long to realise that the safety instructions weren’t as strict as back home. In Switzerland, we had to learn about 30 commands in order to stay safe in the boat. Although river rafting is not considered dangerous, people die from time to time, even professionals or people who have done it several times. Our Thai safety instructor only told us about three or four commands we had to be aware of.

The river was categorised as a 3 on the international scale of river difficulty. 1 is the lowest class and means that very basic skills are needed, whereas 5 is actually the highest doable class. There is even a class 6, which is not doable anymore on a reliable safe basis. The river I was rafting in Switzerland was a 3 as well.

The first 40-45 minutes were quite easy, but our boat got stuck behind a rock at some point. As our boat crashed into this rock, I fell out of the boat and drifted downstream. The water wasn’t high, maybe 80cm, and our guide shouted “stand up, stand up!” I remember that the Swiss instructor told us that standing up is the most dangerous thing you can do, as your foot might be stuck behind a rock and the currents pull you downstream and under the surface, while you cannot escape your leg from the rock.

I did it anyway. In moments like that, you just follow your instincts and don’t think too much. It was a bad idea, as I immediately fell into the water. The currents were just too strong. I moved away from the boat and after few seconds I didn’t see it anymore. It was just me alone floating down the river. I recalled that the instructors in Switzerland told us to lie on our back and put our legs in front of us so that we protect ourselves against sharp rocks.

It didn’t help a lot, because I crashed into numerous rocks legs first with full force. I didn’t feel pain, but I thought that my legs were broken due to the massive impacts. The currents dragged me under the surface at some point, and I was stuck there for a few seconds. I thought that this was it, but my life jacket proved to be a life saver. Yes, I was wearing a life jacket and a helmet at least.

My sense of time was completely lost, but I guess that I rescued myself after two or three minutes. I always tried to get to the river bank, what I eventually achieved after failing several times. My boat appeared after a few minutes and I got in again. “You need water?” the Thai asked. “I think you had enough water hahaha,” he added.

To be honest, I didn’t think a lot about what just had happened when I was back in the boat. I was already chatting again with the other travellers after one or two minutes. Even when I was in the water, I didn’t panicked but just tried to survive.

That changed when I was back in Chiang Mai. I didn’t go out the two nights before and my plan was to have an excessive night in Chiang Mai that night. When I was back in my hotel, my thoughts hit me, and I believe that I was thinking about the sense of life for the first time in my life. I wasn’t in the mood for going out anymore.

20 hours from Bangkok to Koh Phangan by train, bus and ferry

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is the busiest week in Thailand, especially in the Koh Samui region. I didn’t manage to get a plane ticket on my second trip to Thailand. That’s why I went from Bangkok to Koh Phangan by train, bus and ferry. “At least, I will have a more adventurous trip,” I told myself. This trip was a nightmare!

I entered the train in Bangkok around 10 PM. The train would get me to Surat Thani in twelve hours. Temperatures were above 35 degrees before I entered the train, but only 10 degrees in the train. I wasn’t prepared for that. Although they provided blankets to all passengers, it was freezing cold inside this age-old train.

The train ride was interesting though. There is a bistro in every train, which is like the meeting point of the train. Only Thai people were in there, but it was the place where you could eat, drink alcohol and smoke. It looked like a party wagon, a cool place to have a beer or two and smoke a few cigarettes. However, I was sleeping most of the time of this journey. When I woke up, I was suffering from a serious cold that didn’t go away in the next two weeks of my Southeast Asia trip.

We took a bus from Surat Thani to a ferry terminal, which took another two hours. After two hours on the boat, I was finally in Koh Phangan. It was one of the longest journeys I’ve ever had from one destination to another. A very exhausting trip, but at least more interesting than taking the plane.

The last seat

The way back from Koh Samui to Bangkok wasn’t less spectacular. Numerous buses waited in front of the ferry terminal in order to get the tourists to the airport in Surat Thani. Pure chaos broke out when we arrived at the airport. First, I have never seen an airport with such careless security controls. You had to go through the whole procedure first, which means scanning your luggage, walking through the metal detector etc. However, as I wanted to smoke a cigarette afterwards, I left the airport through a side entrance and just walked in again with my luggage. Many other people did the same.

Second, most of the flights to Bangkok were cancelled. Mine had a delay of 8 hours. However, there were still a lot of flights to Bangkok and I went to the counter of Nok Air to ask if I could take an earlier flight. The lady on the counter wrote down my name and told me to come again 30 minutes before the flight.

I saw a huge line in front of the counter when I came back shortly before the flight. The woman told us that she would call the names of the people who asked for an earlier flight, because there were six seats left on the plane that was going to leave soon. She would start with the people who came to the counter first. I was like “damn, why did a smoke a cigarette and didn’t immediately go to the counter!?” She started with the first five names and only one more seat was available.

The sixth name she called wasn’t mine. I would have to wait seven more hours. However, the guy whose name she called was there with his friend. They didn’t want to travel separately so that he forfeited the seat. A French guy next to me was pushing it. “I will take it, I will take it!!” All other passengers angrily looked at him. The lady on the counter called another name. It was a couple again. “My wife will not allow that I travel to Bangkok without her,” an elderly man said with a grin in his face.

“I can go!!” the French guy shouted. “You wait until she called your name, ok?!” I said to him. The lady on the counter called another name, however, this person must have left before. There was no one standing at the counter with that name. Finally, it was my turn! It was my luck that I travelled alone. “Have fun in Bangkok,” the elderly man winked at me.

As departure was in 15 minutes only, I ran through security and entered the plane. Luck was on my side that time.

Overloaded ferries

You’re constantly on overloaded ferries when travelling in Thailand. Accidents happen often so that this is one of the most dangerous ways to travel in Thailand. However, you have no other option when you travel between islands. It’s just irresponsible how the Thais fill their boats with people and luggage. They rather increase the risks than loose an extra Dollar though.

You usually get a silly sticker on your chest, which is the ferry ticket, before you enter the boat. You sit either on the deck or in the cabin afterwards and enjoy the trip to your destination. The scenery is often amazing, as you pass by green islands and rocks. It’s even like a light version of Halong Bay in Vietnam sometimes. The odds are not always in your favour though. The sea can be rough and – as I said – the boat too heavy.

I had the feeling that most of the ferries I took were overloaded. When I travelled back from Koh Phi Phi to Phuket (I never visited Phuket, I just had I flight from there), our gigantic ferry almost crashed into a smaller boat. It happened a few hundred metres away from the coast. It seemed that the captain didn’t see the small boat that was full of tourists, or he simply didn’t care. I remember that all of us were standing on the deck watching what would happen. The ferry missed the small boat by less than one metre in the last second.

Fatalities caused by ferries happen all the time in Southeast Asia. Like I said, it’s irresponsible how these people fill their boats, but I don’t think that they have to worry too much. Even if something happens, I don’t think that a trial awaits them.

The Key Account Manager

This story happened during my first trip to Thailand. I was having a drink (alone) in a bar in Krabi, when a young, lightly dressed woman approached me. The beginning of this dialogue was typical for Thailand:

She: “Hello baby, how are you?”
Me: “Hi. I’m fine. How are you?”
She: “I’m good.”
Me: (a bit of blabla)
She: (blabla)
Me (playing stupid): “So, what’s your profession?”
She: “I work here in the bar.”
Me: “Okay… and what’s your job in this bar?”
She: “I am taking care of customers.”
Me: “Oh, so you’re the key account manager here?”
She: “Yes.”

I don’t think that she knew what a key account manager is. Sex tourism is omnipresent in Thailand, and the tourist inevitably sees some ugly things there. While it’s certainly flattering to be approached 20 times a night (as we are not used to that in Europe), it gets annoying very soon. I usually went to bars with wifi when I went out, sat to the bar and did some stuff on my mobile phone while having a few drinks. That was the only method that kept hookers away.

The overbooked hotel

Hotel quality in Thailand varies from world-class luxury to shitholes. It’s a country where you can find a room for less than 5 Dollars per night, so your expectations shouldn’t be the highest when you find such a bargain. I experienced both: the top-end hotels and the terrible ones. However, it only happened once (not only in Thailand but worldwide) that a hotel I had booked was overbooked.

The bad thing was that it happened right after New Year’s Eve, which is by far the busiest season in some parts of Thailand. I just came from Koh Phangan to Koh Samui and went to my two star hotel at Chaweng Beach. I handed my hotel reservation over to the lady on the front desk just to hear that no room was available anymore. When I started arguing the lady suddenly didn’t speak English anymore. She gave me to phone to talk to her boss who confirmed that they didn’t have a room available. My room was given to someone else.

What a terrible situation. It was already 7 PM and I had to find another hotel. I remember that finding that hotel wasn’t easy either, as it took me a while until a found an affordable hotel with a good location. Fortunately, every fourth or fifth shop in Thailand is a travel agency. Or an internet café. Or in this case a travel agency with an internet café. Jackpot. I asked the lady who worked there to help me find me a hotel while I would search online for a free room.

After a while I called booking.com, as I made the booking via this company. I was their customer and I felt that it would be their responsibility. And it was. The guy on the phone told me that he would immediately contact the hotel and that the hotel would have 30 minutes to provide a new hotel room with at least the same standard. I didn’t hear anything in the next two hours. However, the lady from the travel agency found a place for me. It was a three star hotel and cost a bit more than the hotel I originally booked.

I got the call from booking.com after two hours and we agreed that I could send them all the receipts. They would send a bill to the overbooked hotel. I had other issues with hotels I booked via booking.com and have to say that booking.com really cares about you when you have a problem. It’s not always nice how the impose their rules and regulations on the hotels, but it’s one of the few businesses where the customer is still king.

What I think about Thailand as a travel destination

I have travelled to 74 countries so far, and I started focussing on the less usual countries such as Ethiopia or Iran in the last two or three years. When someone tells me about an upcoming trip to Thailand, I usually think “seriously? Wow, how boring.” But then I think back about the great first trip I had in Thailand and tell myself to be more humble. Thailand will always be a special country to me. Who knows how my life had been if I didn’t travel to Thailand back in 2012. Plus when young people ask me if I can recommend a travel destination, I usually come up with Thailand.

Thailand is in my opinion an ideal country for first-time travellers and also for people who just want to enjoy uncomplicated holidays. Thailand has everything: nice locals, delicious food, beautiful nature, nightlife, live sports (Muay Thai) and it’s cheap, although not as cheap as other SEA countries such as Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam. Moreover, it’s very easy to travel around the country. Tourist infrastructure is good, there are plenty of cheap domestic flights, but you can also travel by bus, train or ferry.

The more I travel the more I try to avoid countries like Thailand though. With cheap airfares between European cities and Bangkok Thailand has become a second Spain for many Europeans, a country who almost everybody has been to. It’s a tourist hell. Therefore, I don’t think that I will revisit Thailand soon. I might do a short layover in Bangkok in the near future, but Thailand is not a country that provides fun to me at the moment. It’s too touristy for my actual taste, it’s too much comfort zone and I guess I have been there too often.

 

Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!