Somchai Jaidee

Islands & Beaches

The Cheapest Place on Earth to Learn to Dive Has One Problem

Koh Tao will certify you to eighteen metres in three days for about twelve thousand baht, which is a third of the price anywhere else. The thing to check is the recompression chamber.

Practicalities

Bangkok Has Two Unconnected Subway Systems and They Hate Each Other

There is no ticket that works on everything. The card that gets you onto the skytrain will be refused by the airport train, and the fare restarts every time you change systems.

Practicalities

The Closed Shop Is Full of Baskets, and the Man Has No Name Tag

A tuk-tuk driver takes you somewhere that is shut. Inside, a small friendly man shows you stones and talks about the temple he is building.

Street Food

Yaowarat at Seven in the Morning Is a Different Country

Bangkok's Chinatown is best before nine, the stalls are a hundred metres long, and the thing to eat is a bowl of noodles standing up at a plastic table for thirty baht.

Slow Travel

The Mountain Is the Highest in Thailand and Almost Nobody Goes

Doi Inthanon is the highest point in the country, it costs three hundred baht to walk past the waterfall, and the actual reason to go is a trail where you might see something twice in a day.

Slow Travel

Tones Are the Whole Language and Nobody Warns You

You can learn the words on the first day. You cannot be understood for a year, because Thai is a tonal language and getting a tone wrong is not an accent, it is a different word.

Practicalities

The Post Office Will Hold Your Passport If You Ask Nicely

Thai Post is cheap, reliable and will cheerfully accept a passport for storage while you are travelling, which is the single most useful thing about it and nobody advertises.

Money & Costs

How to Move Money Without Losing a Fifth of It

The exchange rate you get is not the number on the screen, the bank will ask what the money is for, and there is a limit on what you can walk out of the country with that almost nobody mentions.

Street Food

You Will Come Home Unable to Make Pad Thai and It Will Be Your Fault

The class teaches you twelve dishes in one day, you reproduce none of them, and three weeks later you are making one of them badly and happily every week.

Practicalities

The Country Stops for Four Days and Nobody Tells You

There are public holidays that close government offices but leave shops open, and public holidays that close everything, and guessing wrong costs you a day you cannot get back.

Islands & Beaches

The Mask Is on Your Face and You Can Still See Nothing

Snorkelling is the cheapest thing you will do in Thailand and the one where equipment quality changes the experience more than anything else about the trip.

Practicalities

Air Conditioning, Hot Water and Wifi Are the Whole Hotel

The photograph is irrelevant. Four things decide whether a room in Thailand is bearable and three of them are not in the listing.