Thailand for the first time: what surprises people, and what we would change

Here is what actually surprises people, in the order they tend to notice it.

The heat is a scheduling problem, not a clothing problem

Nobody arrives unaware that Thailand is hot. What surprises them is how completely the middle of the day is unusable for anything outdoors between March and May, when Bangkok highs run around 95°F (35°C) with humidity that makes it feel considerably worse.

This is not a reason to avoid those months. It is a reason to build the day around them. Everything outdoors in our documents is scheduled before ten in the morning or after four in the afternoon, and the hours between are a pool, a lunch, a market hall or a museum. Visitors who plan their own days almost always front-load them with three temples and then abandon the third.

The other half of the surprise is air conditioning. Malls, hotel lobbies, taxis and long-distance buses are cold. Take a light layer for indoors, which is a strange thing to pack for a tropical country and you will use it daily.

Bangkok is a city, not an airport

The single most common first-timer mistake we see is one night in Bangkok on arrival, and then straight out to a beach.

Bangkok wants three nights. The old city at eight in the morning before the heat and the tour groups. The river used as transport rather than viewed as a sight, which means the public express boats. Chinatown after dark, which is one of the great eating streets anywhere. And at least one neighbourhood that is not Sukhumvit: Talat Noi, Thonburi across the water, or the lanes behind Wat Arun.

People who give Bangkok one night come home saying they did not like Bangkok. People who give it three tend to say it was their favourite part.

Transfer days are longer than the map suggests

Thailand looks compact. It is not. A change of region is a domestic flight, and a domestic flight consumes five to seven hours of daylight once you add the hotel transfer, the check-in window, the wait for bags and the road or ferry at the far end.

Two internal flights in a fortnight is right. Four is a routing mistake with a day attached to each one. We cover the arithmetic in how many days do you need in Thailand.

The ferries deserve their own warning. Island departures are scheduled and they are not frequent. Krabi to Koh Lanta is about two hours, Phuket to Koh Yao Noi about forty-five minutes, and in the monsoon months some routes stop entirely. Every island transfer in our documents carries a real departure time and a plan B, because a missed boat in Thailand is not a twenty-minute wait, it is tomorrow.

The two coasts are on opposite calendars

This is the fact that costs people the most money and it is barely mentioned in most first-visit reading. The Andaman coast in the west, which is Phuket, Krabi, Koh Lanta and Koh Yao, is reliable from November to March. The Gulf coast in the east, which is Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, is at its best from roughly February to September and takes its heaviest rain in November.

They are about 200 miles (320 km) apart and they are not on the same calendar. Booking Krabi in July because Krabi is the place everybody has heard of is the most expensive avoidable error in Thai travel planning. The full version is in Thailand’s two coasts have opposite seasons.

Temple rules are enforced, and they are simple

Shoulders and knees covered, at every temple, for everyone. At the Grand Palace it is checked at the gate and the rental sarong queue is long and hot. Shoes off where the sign says so, which is most inner halls. Do not point your feet at a Buddha image, which in practice means do not sit with legs stretched out.

Two more that catch visitors. Women should not hand anything directly to a monk or sit beside one on public transport. And insulting the monarchy is a criminal offence in Thailand, the law is actively used, and this is not an area for jokes or opinions offered in public. Stand when the royal anthem plays, which happens in cinemas and at some public events.

Scooters, said plainly

Road injury is the single largest cause of serious harm to visitors on the Thai islands. Most riders have no licence valid for a motorbike, which also affects everything downstream of an accident. Hospital care in Phuket and Samui is excellent and expensive.

We do not arrange scooter rental, in any category, on any island. If you rent one anyway that is your decision and we will not lecture you twice, but you will find the same sentence in your travel documents.

Street food is safe, and the rules are not what people expect

The instinct is to avoid the stall and eat at the hotel. It is the wrong instinct. Street food in Thailand is safe where turnover is high, which means anywhere with a queue of Thai customers, and several Bangkok street stalls hold Michelin recognition. Some of the best cooking in the country happens on a pavement.

The genuine caution is not the stall, it is the ice at a quiet place with no custom, the pre-cut fruit sitting in the sun, and the shellfish at a beach restaurant on a slow evening.

Dietary requirements need advance work rather than optimism. Fish sauce and shrimp paste are in almost everything, including most curry pastes and most dishes described on a menu as vegetarian. The Thai concept of jay, which is closer to vegan, is widely understood and is the useful word. Serious peanut and shellfish allergies must be communicated in Thai, in writing, and our partner team briefs restaurants in advance rather than leaving you with a phrasebook. More on the eating in what to eat in Thailand, and where.

The scams are few, obvious and always the same

Thailand has very little street crime aimed at visitors and a small number of extremely persistent commercial scams.

• A tuk-tuk driver telling you the Grand Palace is closed today is lying. It is not closed. He wants to take you to a gem shop.
• The gem shop is not an investment opportunity.
• Jet ski damage claims in Patong are a known racket. Do not rent one.
• A taxi that will not use the meter is a taxi you do not need to take.

None of this is dangerous. It is friction, and knowing the four of them removes most of it.

What we would do differently on a first visit

1. Three nights in Bangkok, not one.
2. Two regions plus a beach, not three regions plus a beach.
3. Book the beach week first and build everything else around it, because the cultural half of a Thailand trip works in most months and the beach half does not.
4. Take three or four guided days out of fourteen, not one and not ten. Bangkok’s old city, a temple day in Chiang Mai and any walking in the hills are genuinely better guided. Beach days are not, and a guide will not improve them.
5. Leave two days completely empty. The best things that happen to people in Thailand are not on a list.
6. Do the north in November, December or January. Between late February and mid-April the northern valleys fill with agricultural smoke and Chiang Mai’s air quality is regularly among the worst of any city in the world.

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Keep reading

• Thailand: the complete guide to planning your trip
• How much does two weeks in Thailand really cost?
• What we would skip in Thailand
• Classic Thailand in 14 days
• Food and culture, 13 days
• All our Thailand trips

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