What good to know before going to Thailand

The two weeks in Thailand were my first long trip. It required a lot of organization and getting out of the comfort zone. So I want to summarize a few impressions, hints and useful information that would save you time and money. The following lines are related to useful tips on food, water, accommodation, prices, transportation, SIM cards and the Internet and all the things that are part of organizing such a trip.

If you want to learn more about our adventures outside the organizational part, you can read here:

• On the streets of Bangkok, part 1: https://mysuntrails.com/bangkok-part1/
• On the streets of Bangkok, part 2: https://mysuntrails.com/bangkok-part2/
• Chiang Mai Festival of Light and Magic: https://mysuntrails.com/chiang-mai-and-festival-of-light/
• In the jungles of Thailand and Khao Sok National Park: https://mysuntrails.com/in-the-thai-jungle/
• On the islands of Thailand: https://mysuntrails.com/the-islands-of-thailand-2/

Let’s go back to planning.

What is important to know:

• You do not need to bring cosmetics, the shops there have everything in tourist packages and probably it is cheaper than in your country.
• On every corner there are “7-eleven” grocery stores that are open 24 hours a day and offer everything you need. From there, I recommend the Oreo ice cream and the Red Bull, its homeland turned out to be Thailand.
• You can also buy a repellent from there. If you want to bring it from home, make sure it is for tropical mosquitoes, because ordinary ones do not work.
• No one will stop you on the zebra, be brave and reasonable.
• The water from the tap is not drinkable.
• The people are kind and helpful, but do not speak much English.
• Their toilet paper is awful and single-layered, next time I would bring a roll from home.
• My advice is not to leave with a lot of luggage and to leave space for shopping from there, because there are a lot of beautiful and cheap things.
• The clothes dry terribly slowly there because of the climate.

Documents

Visa

To get further away from the airport in Thailand, you need to obtain a visa in the international passport from the consulate, which costs 35 euros in Bulgaria and is quite easy to obtain. Here is information on exactly how.

Driving license

Bulgarian driver’s licenses are not recognized there and you need a special permit, which is similar to a visa, here are the details for Bulgarians.

Everywhere on the streets you are offered a motorbike rental, at prices around 150-250 baht per day, for comparison 100 baht is around 3 Euro. The traffic is reversed, as they are a former English colony. In principle, you do not have the right to ride these bikes without category A and we decided not to risk, although tourists ride them freely.

The traffic is quite heavy, all over Thailand, but mostly in Bangkok, where it is a complete madhouse, cars, mopeds and tuk-tuks are everywhere. For me it was extremely tiring the constant need to be 100% alert, because at any time, from every small street or intersection, upon you inevitably already flies a motorcycle and in addition to the reversed traffic and the lack  of zebra culture, survival requires your attention.

As I mentioned the zebras – it turned out that their government tried to impose them, but quite unsuccessfully, in general, ignore them, they will not help you. We learned to wait for a suitable moment to make a “leap of faith” and rush to the opposite shore, hoping that they will stop you anyway.

Transport

To Thailand – good ticket prices from Bulgaria are under 450 euros per person round trip. We flew with Turkish Airlines for 430 euros each and I am very pleased.

Getting around the city

There are several options for getting around the cities. I sort them by price, descending:

• Taxis and tuk-tuks are a bit expensive. We did not use them because they take 2-3 times more than Grab and about 5-6 times more than the public transportation.
• You can also use Grab, which is an application similar to Uber.
• City buses and metro are quite decent.
• More details about transport in the individual cities can be found here – Bangkok, Chiang Mai.

It is useful to say that despite the  heat that is usually outside, at airports, public buildings and in public transport, air conditioners work at polar temperatures and it is desirable to always have a jacket in hand in order not to freeze when there is around 40 degrees outside.

Intercity transportation:

By air – there are cheap flights between big cities. We flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and to Surat Thani. They are performed by 4-5 low-cost companies. Each has its own peculiarities, especially regarding the charging of checked baggage, which we needed. We focused on AirAsia, as the best option for price and quality, it is something like Wizzair.

Minibuses – there are private bus services with minibuses, you can view them at https://12go.asia/en. We tried them. They have counters at the airports and it is generally quite convenient with them. It’s good to buy tickets in advance because they run out.

City buses – we also used public transport between Khao Sok and Khao Lak. Imagine the old Bulgarian buses, but with air conditioners. Otherwise it is comfortable to travel and is twice cheaper than minibuses. If you are not in a hurry somewhere, it is highly recommended. They allow you to take your luggage upstairs on the bus if you have any worries, but in general Thailand seems like a pretty safe destination. The trick here is that the buses do not have an exact schedule, they leave every hour, for example, and do not stop in certain places, the scheme is to stalk them on the road and wave the driver to stop.

Climate

They have two seasons, dry and rainy, and the dry season is between November and April. If you want to walk along the east coast, it’s nice to go a little later, because November is still quite rainy. We hit nice weather, a little cool by their standards, between 23-36 degrees temperatures and almost no rain. It rains for 2 days for 2 hours, but the amount of rain that fell during that time can be equal to an average spring in Bulgaria.

Water

Tap water in Thailand is not drinkable. In the store a liter and a half costs about 14 baht. But there is also a pretty good scheme – on the streets of the cities it is called Water refill station, which you can find in Google Maps, where a liter, a liter and a half of mineral water costs 1 baht, and you carry your own bottle.

Clothing

I had read that it is good to wear quick-drying fabrics and I personally saw why. As the air there is quite humid, a cotton T-shirt can be dried for 3 days and more. Therefore, it is desirable to wear more sports polyester clothes, if you do not want to rely on public laundries, which for about 50-60 baht per kilogram of clothes will do the job.

Clothes – men have no issues there. For women, there is a strict regime for visiting the temples – no knees and shoulders visible. My trick is to always carry a scarf and a T-shirt in my backpack and put them on when needed.

Shopping (and bargaining)

Food is not bargained. It is highly recommended for goods and excursions unless you don’t mind throwing money to the wind. In general, they get a little sad when you start bargaining, but eventually they agree. When we bought gifts and on trips we found that they tend to fall by between 30-50%. For example, something that costs 150 baht can go down to a maximum of 80. Remember this, because half things cost 150 baht – T-shirts, jewelry and hats. But these are small sums, given that 150 baht is about 4.5 Euro.

Excursions

The real negotiation is about the excursions. Offers between 2200-3700 baht can be found there for visiting the islands of Similan and Surin, as well as for the Khao Sok National Park. I have found that they are not very inclined to lower the price unless you provide them with conclusive evidence that you will not give up for a certain price. There are just a lot of tourists and for many Western Europeans even the initial high prices seem insignificant.

The cities are flooded with offering excursions. In the end, it all comes down to 3-4 companies that organize them and an infinite number of intermediaries with whom the bargain is usually conducted.

I don’t consider myself a master of bargaining, but we managed to buy the trips to Surin and Similan at about half price. They wanted about 3,700 baht per person for one, and we negotiated two for 3,500 per person, but there was a lot of bargaining. In general, the winning strategy was to say that you already have an offer of 3600 from another place, but if they offer us 3500, we will pay it immediately to them. We even improved their business model, because they always give a price for 1 trip, and after us the next day they had added a promotional board – 2 trips for 3900 baht.

Food

You can’t stay hungry in Thailand, they offer all kinds of food everywhere along the way. We tried all and had no stomach problems. Traditionally, street food costs 50 baht. They mostly offer rice and rice spaghetti with chicken, pork or shrimp. I liked the Thai food, but in two weeks I got a little too much of it. I have the feeling that they have 5-6 ingredients and they put them in everything. One tip – avoid red pots. By Bulgarian standards, I eat hot, but having the desire to go to places where mostly locals eat, I twice spent half an hour in tears after a harmless bite of red chicken or rice.

They also have a rich variety of fish, crabs and squid, and they are significantly more expensive. Portions are about 200 baht and include garnish.

Our favorite dishes:

• Pad Thai – our unfailing dish. It is not spicy, but they give you extra spices and you can make it to your liking. Represents spaghetti with meat, sprouts and cashews.
• Koh Soi – similar, but in soup.
• Pineapples – everywhere on the streets they sold incredibly delicious pineapples, as they clean and cut them and you get a whole pineapple at the modest price of 30-40 baht, up to 1 Euro. Many cook with them. If I am asked how Thailand has changed me, I can definitely say that I have developed a love for pineapples.
• Passion fruit smoothie – my other favorite thing from this trip. I don’t even know what this fruit is called in Bulgarian, but it is so tasty!

The food is certainly interesting, different and delicious. I wouldn’t call it very diverse, I definitely missed dairy products like cheese and yellow cheese. My first job when I got home was to cut a homemade tomato with a piece of homemade cheese and tell myself that there is nothing better than home.

Prices

Prices in Thailand vary. It depends on whether you spend as a local or as a tourist. For 150 baht you can buy 3 main dishes from the street, 1 main in a restaurant, rent a motorbike for a day, buy earrings, buy a T-shirt or a hat or get 3 cocktails.

It’s good to have cash, because not everywhere they accept cards or there is a minimum limit.

What is cheap in Thailand:

• Goods from the supermarket
• The food from the street
• Clothes and accessories

What is expensive in Thailand:

• Equipment – unexpected, but phones and sport equipment in general is not very cheap
• Taxis
• Alcohol – a small beer in a restaurant is about 100 baht. After I realized that I had spent the money for about 1500 liters of water for one beer, I reassessed my desire to drink more beers.
• Hard alcohol is even more expensive.

Sim cards

We bought Klook SIM cards in advance and picked them up on arrival from the airport. You just put it in your phone and without any settings it is used for internet and calls. It was something like $ 4 for 8 days, an unlimited network, which turned out to be 3GB at maximum speed, but still quite enough. A pleasant surprise was that I continued to have internet after these 8 days. This is their website https://www.klook.com/en-GB/activity/25834-ysim-4g-sim-thailand/.

Massages

On every corner you can experience the famous Thai massages that are offered at prices from 250 baht per hour of massage. I personally did not go because I was always finding more exciting things to do, but most people are quite happy, especially if they have some pain.

Accommodation

We booked it through booking.com. Keep in mind that in real life the places don’t look as good as in the photos in general. However, at prices of about 10 Euro per person per night there are quite decent rooms in the center.

The only place I would definitely recommend is in Khao Sok, the best hotel I’ve ever slept in. Imagine a bungalow with a glass wall and a palm forest around it, and in the evening cocks and some exotic birds sing. This is the place.

I highly recommend booking rooms with air conditioning because it is hot, even at night it is at least 23 degrees and if you are in a place that has been hot all day, it is not fun.

Our route was for 2 weeks and was quite an ambitious program, including 4 domestic flights and a constant trip back and forth. Honestly, next time I would make smaller domestic transfers, because it takes at least half a day to move the camp. Also, two weeks are a long time and I was overwhelmed with experiences, next time I would go to a similar one for a maximum of 10 days or twice for a week. I am very happy that we avoided the most touristy places as much as possible and I would also recommend it to you if you want to enjoy authenticity and exotics.

I hope that my article was interesting and will help you organize your next trip to magical Thailand!

P.S. If you have any questions or need more information, do not hesitate to contact me via the contact form or leave a comment.