There is probably a statistic available somewhere (in this situation though, I have just made it up...); maybe 1 out of every 12 people that has been to Thailand has had some sort of bad experience. I am one of that 8%.
I have mixed feelings about Thailand. It's probably best, and more comprehensible if I categorise each bit of "culture". It's worth taking into account that we (Jo, Steph, Steve and Nick) visited Thailand during the peak of the peak season...Christmas and New Year.
I have a lot of time for Thai people. As I mention in another post they are so friendly and helpful, and it lives up to the name of "the Land of Smiles". If you make eye contact with many Thai people, they would smile at you. I enjoyed this. But then this leads me to one of the major bad points. The tourists. The sheer amount of foriegners. I hate the word "tourist" too. It has such bad connotations to me. Everywhere we went there were just incredible volumes of foreign people. And the bad thing is about high volumes of tourists is that you are bound to get a lot of rude, obnoxious, ill-mannered, uncaring fuckwits amongst them who have no respect for local culture or traditions or customs, or even knowledge of the language. One example that comes to mind now is in a supermarket in Khao Lak. It was about 11am. I was buying water and some bread. I joined the queue and in front of me about 6 people, some British girls, a few Germans, and a group of Russians. I was so shocked to see that ALL 6 people buying things didn't even acknowledge the cashier girl! Didn't even say hello. Didn't smile. Didn't say thank you, even in Thai! It got to the 3rd person and the cashier look bewildered and no longer looked at anyone. It came to my turn, and I greeted her with a massive "HELLO!" which made her look up, but not smile, and all the people in the line behind me looked up. Some smiled. Those that didn't I gave really dirty looks to. And then at the end of the transaction I said "thank you" in Thai, and she smiled at me.
Also on the pier at Koh Phangan, after the Full Moon Party, where the atmosphere and situation was akin to cattle being herded for slaughter. Fights nearly broke out. The main culprits being Americans, French and Canadian.
Then there was a time on the journey back from Koh Samui, in Surat Thani, where this French couple boarded the bus. But it was the wrong bus, and so got shouted at by the Thai organiser of the buses. But these people obviously didn't understand him/ignored him, and just carried on loading their things onto the bus. The Thai guy got more irrate with the couple and shouted more at them, which they ignored again. Even the passengers (all foriegners) were calling out to them to get off the bus, as we were all enuring a pretty stressful journey [read this blog entry], but the silly French guys just ignored us too!! Eventually the Thai guy got on the bus and unloaded the bags that the French guys had just put on. But the French girl shouted at the Thai guy and grabbed at the bags. He pulled them away more. There was more shouting until her boyfriend got involved. He started shouting and swearing in French and English and then pushing the Thai guy and shouting that he shouldn't shout at his girlfiend. It was a nightmare journey. This brings me onto another bad point about Thailand (or the places that I had visited). The places I visited as a whole seemed to be totally overwhelmed by the amount of tourists that it gets. Everything seems to be geared towards foreigners; all types of foreign food, most people speak English, taxis and market stalls are everywhere. Everyone outside of major retail outlets (Mcdonalds, KFC, sports shops, games arcades, upmarket coffee shop, restaurants, etc) seems to want a tip. In one place on Koh Samui, we stayed in quite an expensive hotel. We arrived late one night, about 9pm and went staright to eat. The kitchen closed at 11. We waited more than 1.5 hours for our food to come, and we ordered about 9:30. It was horrible. They charged us for service too, which was a mandatory inclusion in the bill. This quite an extreme example, but almost every restaurant that we went to where you choose stuff from a menu, took a phenomenly long time, an average of about 40 minutes. There were 5 people in our group, but still... And when the food finally did make an appearance, it would always come out as 1 starter, someones main course, another 2 starters, the rice of a main course, maybe a drink or two, and so on... And this was not just my feeling. My sisters and their friends also felt like this (they had been to more of Thailand than me). And most other tourists that I spoke to complained heavily about the service and said that it's just ubiquitous in Thailand, no matter what time of year.
Before I move on I have to mention that the vast majority of tourists are well mannered, well behaved, polite and take into account the locals and their environment.
Anyway, the next series of blog entries is about my trip to Thailand. I had a great time and enjoyed it mostly due to Jo, Steph, Nick and Steve being there to experience it too. If I did go back there, I would choose a very different time of year - one that is much less touristy. If I visited again I would also be more prepared to be disappointed and dishearted with some things, and I'd be more wary of the downsides. The last few days it also rained. Hideously. So much so that some parts were starting to flood. This also added an extra layer of black cloud (pun intended...) in that much of the beautiful scenery and beaches were shrouded by dark nebulas of nefarious water vapour. Sometimes those dark nebulas had literally exploded and during the water vapour's 20000 feet descent, the magic of condensation took place.
I took this video on a beach in Lamai and as you can see, the video is nothing at all like the picture. I was only standing on the very edge of the sand and the sea was violently flagellating the shore so much so that I could feel see spray hitting my face.
So,...enough introduction, I'm going to upload a few blog entries that I made. It's probably better if you make your own conclusions on Thailand. It's sort of like a summary of what I did. Not day by day though as me writing about sitting in the sun on a beach for a few days isn't that interesting... :)
I have mixed feelings about Thailand. It's probably best, and more comprehensible if I categorise each bit of "culture". It's worth taking into account that we (Jo, Steph, Steve and Nick) visited Thailand during the peak of the peak season...Christmas and New Year.I have a lot of time for Thai people. As I mention in another post they are so friendly and helpful, and it lives up to the name of "the Land of Smiles". If you make eye contact with many Thai people, they would smile at you. I enjoyed this. But then this leads me to one of the major bad points. The tourists. The sheer amount of foriegners. I hate the word "tourist" too. It has such bad connotations to me. Everywhere we went there were just incredible volumes of foreign people. And the bad thing is about high volumes of tourists is that you are bound to get a lot of rude, obnoxious, ill-mannered, uncaring fuckwits amongst them who have no respect for local culture or traditions or customs, or even knowledge of the language. One example that comes to mind now is in a supermarket in Khao Lak. It was about 11am. I was buying water and some bread. I joined the queue and in front of me about 6 people, some British girls, a few Germans, and a group of Russians. I was so shocked to see that ALL 6 people buying things didn't even acknowledge the cashier girl! Didn't even say hello. Didn't smile. Didn't say thank you, even in Thai! It got to the 3rd person and the cashier look bewildered and no longer looked at anyone. It came to my turn, and I greeted her with a massive "HELLO!" which made her look up, but not smile, and all the people in the line behind me looked up. Some smiled. Those that didn't I gave really dirty looks to. And then at the end of the transaction I said "thank you" in Thai, and she smiled at me.
Also on the pier at Koh Phangan, after the Full Moon Party, where the atmosphere and situation was akin to cattle being herded for slaughter. Fights nearly broke out. The main culprits being Americans, French and Canadian.
Before I move on I have to mention that the vast majority of tourists are well mannered, well behaved, polite and take into account the locals and their environment.
Anyway, the next series of blog entries is about my trip to Thailand. I had a great time and enjoyed it mostly due to Jo, Steph, Nick and Steve being there to experience it too. If I did go back there, I would choose a very different time of year - one that is much less touristy. If I visited again I would also be more prepared to be disappointed and dishearted with some things, and I'd be more wary of the downsides. The last few days it also rained. Hideously. So much so that some parts were starting to flood. This also added an extra layer of black cloud (pun intended...) in that much of the beautiful scenery and beaches were shrouded by dark nebulas of nefarious water vapour. Sometimes those dark nebulas had literally exploded and during the water vapour's 20000 feet descent, the magic of condensation took place.I took this video on a beach in Lamai and as you can see, the video is nothing at all like the picture. I was only standing on the very edge of the sand and the sea was violently flagellating the shore so much so that I could feel see spray hitting my face.
So,...enough introduction, I'm going to upload a few blog entries that I made. It's probably better if you make your own conclusions on Thailand. It's sort of like a summary of what I did. Not day by day though as me writing about sitting in the sun on a beach for a few days isn't that interesting... :)
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