In Summary - Thailand

Fri, Jan 18, 2019

2 min read

Our time in Thailand has come to an end (for now). Here's a summary of our time there.

In Summary - Thailand

Length of stay - 6th - 17th January (12 days)

Places stayed - Ko Lipe, Ko Lanta, Chumphon, Chiang Mai, Chiang Khong

Currency - Baht, at time of writing £1 equals roughly 40B

Plug type - European Twin Plug

Driving side - Left

Some Thai words:

The Thai language has its own script so it was very difficult to recognise words.

That said, two important phrases to know are pronounced:

Sah wah dee (ka/krab) - hello

Khob khun (ka/krab) - thank you

In Thai, women end sentences with “ka” and men with “krab”

We did find a menu in one restaurant that gave us a good list of food words as well:

Three good

  1. Drinking water - most hostels and restaurants have water coolers so you don’t always have to buy individual plastic bottles
  2. Polite people - Thai people are extremely polite, always bowing when you arrive or leave
  3. The North - we definitely preferred the North to the South, the temperature was cooler, it was more relaxed and easier to get around

Three bad

  1. Bites - from the cat in Ko Lipe and the mozzies basically everywhere else!
  2. Sunburn - we definitely should have creamed up more when we were snorkeling and lying on the beaches in the south
  3. Thai drivers - we had some questionable drivers during our time in Thailand, particularly minibus drivers

Three odd

  1. Bum gun - not all toilets let you put toilet paper down them so they all have a bum gun for you to wash yourself before drying yourself with toilet paper
  2. The Royal Family - everywhere there are large pictures of the King, and at 8am and 6pm every day in schools, public transport stations and government buildings, the national anthem is played. However while the old King was well liked, the current King doesn’t even live in Thailand and would prefer to abdicate but his son is only nine years old. Also, you can’t Google the Thai government in Thailand as the internet is blocked
  3. Selling gas out of bottles - on the islands in the south, there were lots of stalls on the side of the road selling petrol out of glass milk bottles for about a pound. Not something you’d get in the UK (either the price or the practice!)