Street Food:
80% of the food we ate in Thailand was from a street vendor.
Most street vendors own small carts or motorbikes so they wheel onto and off of their corner. Meals from street vendors are usually less than a dollar, but you needn't get a whole meal from a vendor. Here is a list of some of the things we saw regularly being sold by the street vendors:- Chicken, Whole Fish, beef, or pork on a stick
- mystery meat on a stick
- fishballs on a stick
- corn waffles
- Fried chicken (as in, KFC style)
- omlettes
- Fruit of every possible type, larger fruit sold in a piece on a stick
- Grilled corn or corn cut off the cob mixed with an option of butter or sugar
- mango with sticky rice
- fruit smoothies
- Crepes
I will probably eat Thai food much less often here in the states knowing that they are charging $10 for what we paid $1 for in Thailand :-)
City Transportation:
Buses: Most every city has a bus system, and they're fairly reliable. The larger city's systems however have an option of 1st class (A/C) or 3rd class (no A/C) busses. The price is not much different, but the weather is.
Boats – Because the Chao Phraya River flows from North of Chiang Mai to South of Bangkok, the cities are divided over the river. To get from one side to the other or across the city, there are boats that function similar to subways. They have stops along the river, and people hop on or off quickly as each stop, tie-up, and exit total approximately 30 seconds. Rides on these boats range from 3.5 – 15 baht depending on the distance.
Subway/Metro/Skytrain - Rides on the subway or Metro lines cost a bit more than the boats, my guess is because of the obvious reason of a more complex infrastructure to build and maintain. These systems (in Bangkok in particular) charge different amounts based on the distance you plan on riding, costing 20- 50 baht.
Trains - Used primarily between cities, not within cities, they come in first class (A/C) or Third Class (no A/C) versions. Don't be surprised if your third class train has hard wooden benches rather than chairs.
While a single city may have either boats, Metro, Skytrain, busses or all five, they never seem to work together. No city that we visited had any sort of all encompassing pass that you could get for a flat rate to ride all public transport for the day.
Tuk-Tuks – While not part of the public transport system, Tuk-Tuks are a highly popular form of getting around between shorter distances. Tuk-Tuks are essentially a motorbike front with a small bench seat in the back with a shade cover over the top. Tuk-Tuks are fairly cheap, and can squeeze through traffic. It’s hard to avoid the beckoning call of the drivers who will hound you incessantly no matter where you are – “tuk-tuk?" "Where you go sir?" (everyone, regardless of sex, is 'sir') Beware of the Tuk-Tuks in touristy areas though. Here’s what the drivers will inevitably do. First they will ask you if you need a ride. Without waiting for an answer, they will also mention that the place you’re about to walk into (for example, the Grand Palace) doesn’t open for another 3 hours because of a national holiday, impor
tant meeting, construction, insert reason here – but that they can take you a bunch of other places until it’s open. They’ll tell you that they’ll be your personal driver - anywhere you want to go for just 20 Baht. This may interest you. However, the truth is that the museums nearly never close, and they make up the excuse to have you hire them, and during their “unlimited run” around the city, they will stop at multiple stores and factories where you would have to get out and “shop”. They earn the bulk of their money from the commissions they get from this, and if you are in a rush to get places, or don’t want the experience of this process, make sure you ask them to take you DIRECT to your destination. At this time, they’ll probably turn you down for the ride.
Songtaos – These are pickup trucks with the bed decked out with two bench seats along the two sides, and a roof over the top. You can hire a Songtao same as you would a taxi, but along the way, people may hop on if they’re going in your same general direction and pay a minimal price (not to be subtracted from your original cost). The first person on picks the destination and the price to take them there; all secondary passengers have no say since they’re getting a cheap ride. These were more common in the smaller towns than in Bangkok.
Taxis - Same as in any other major city - you can get flat rate or metered to any destination.
Markets/haggling – Every city, no matter the size has at least 2 mar
kets (competition, of course). Most cities have many more. While the larger cities markets are bigger, for the most part, they all sell the same stuff: Souvenirs, Food, random hardware and electronics, and clothes. Markets can be in many forms, the most common being weekend, night, and floating markets. While tourists love going to these markets and getting deals,
I didn’t see a single market that was functioning on tourism alone. The regular buyers were all locals, and all participating in the same bargaining that the tourists were. I posted a link earlier in another post on the haggling, and it is right on the money. No matter what the starting price of an item is, you should be 
able to get it for 2/3 to ½ that price once the haggling is done. We were getting really good at this by the time we left, but it’s embarrassing to finish haggling over something, and then realize you were haggling over 5 cents, and it was probably that person’s dinner money. Oh well, it was fun and we got some great buys for cheap. Probably the best and cheapest things we bought there were silk items, wood carvings, and clothing. Beware though. The minute you begin haggling, if you settle on a price, it's considered a done deal. You can not back out at that point without truly insulting the shopowner.
Thai massages so often – to get rid of all that pent up anger and stress! It is customary when entering a home, and mandatory when entering a temple to remove your shoes at the door, I guess this is why so many Thais were wearing sandals and not lace up shoes – they were much easier to remove. As for clothing, all Thais were modestly dressed. I had read before our trip that we shouldn’t wear tank tops. I couldn’t believe it since it was about 100 degrees every day, but packed accordingly. As expected, in Bangkok and Chiang Mai (and of course all the temples), I didn’t see a single Thai in a tank top, and very few in anything that showed their knees. However, in Phuket and amongst tourists, I saw many more tank tops. There is a concept in Thailand of losing face, where essentially you embarrass yourself or someone else, and apparently not dressing modestly has you lose face to the Thais.Toilets and public restrooms: Nearly every public restroom required a fee to enter. It was
usually between 1-5 baht. Sometimes they'd hand you some toilet paper upon receipt of your payment, otherwise you'd better have brought your own. There would rarely be soap at the sinks. The toilets were squat toilets about 70-80% of the time, and regardless of the look of the toilet (squat or "western", many toilets were the type that had no flusher, but you poured water from an ajacent sink and bowl into the toilet to wash away whatever you left. This article gives a better description. There was never TP, as apparently they don't use it, and for us westerners that brought our own, there were always signs EVERYWHERE saying to throw paper into the trash lest we clog the toilets. lastly, the line in public bathrooms are PER STALL not like a regular queue. So if you are unlucky, the whole line may go in and out before your predecessor leaves their stall. Don't take a long time in your stall, or you'll get some nasty looks from the people in your line when you leave too.
Temples, or Wats as they're called, are everywhere around Thailand. The country in primarily Buddhist, and the Buddhist temples are beautiful. I honestly do not know too much about Buddhism, but kind of reminiscent of Europe's churches, the Wats are in every city, and no matter how small the town, the Wats are large and beautiful. We would be on a train riding through a town of 5 homes, but there would be a beautiful temple in the middle of nowhere. It seemed that all temples had dragons and/or elephants "guarding" the front steps, which I assume are there for some sort of protection, but I am not 100% sure. Either way, all the temples we visited were beautiful, and filled with Monks. Monks came in all ages, and I believe the youngest they can join is about 13. It's always somewhat funny to see monks doing everyday things - riding buses, buying a drink, smoking a cigarette, or doing manual labor. For some reason it seems out of place.
I took this picture at the top of Doi Suthep where a Jack Fruit had fallen from the tree, and he was sweeping up the exploded fruit.I have a few other topics of things I would've liked to write about, but at this point, I think I've covered the topics at the top of my list. The items on the rest of the list, which I haven't written about are:
- The high number of stray dogs in every city
- The air pollution so bad that city workers, pedestrians, and most drivers wear face masks over their noses and mouths, or even wrap a cloth over their whole face with only their eyes showing in order to block the pollution and sun.
- There are 7-11 convenience stores on every block. Many blocks have multiple 7-11s. We used these to buy water and as an air conditioned haven.
- Many Thais wear some sort of white powder on their faces and necks. It looks like sunscreen that hasn't been rubbed in very well. I think the powder is supposed to show that they are clean. I can't find any more info on it right now.
I hope you enjoyed reading my summary on Thailand and perhaps even read some of the daily posts. I write these for myself, so I can remember what and when I did things, but love that technology allows me to share the experiences with you :-)
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