Somchai Jaidee - Easy Thailand Visa (Page 11)

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Practicalities

Nobody Will Sell You a Motorbike Because of Your Passport

Buying is cheap, selling is a problem, and the reason a shop will not sell you a bike is a registration rule that is much less simple than it sounds.

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Practicalities

You Can Walk Into a Thai Pharmacy and Buy Antibiotics

No prescription, no doctor, no appointment, and a third of the price. Thailand's pharmacies are genuinely useful and genuinely a place to be prescribed wrong.

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Slow Travel

There Is a Barber Every Thirty Metres and They Are All Identical

A Thai haircut costs 30 to 60 baht, takes eight minutes, and the person doing it trained for years to do something tourists ask for constantly and almost always get wrong.

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Slow Travel

Ask First, and the Only Rule That Actually Matters

Thailand is one of the easiest places in Asia to photograph people and one of the few where not asking is a genuine social error rather than a technical one.

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Practicalities

The Helmet Law Is Enforced and the Police Check the Category

The fine for not wearing one is small enough to ignore and the check is a section-by-section examination of your licence, which means they know exactly whether your permit covers a motorcycle.

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Practicalities

You Will Need an Adapter and You Will Need It at Midnight

Thailand runs on 220V, uses three different plug shapes, and the outlet you need in Thailand is frequently the one your hotel room does not have.

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Street Food

Leo Is Thirty-Five Baht and the Good Beer Is Not in a Bottle

The cheapest beer in Thailand is not the one in the fridge, it is the one on draught in a plastic bag at a roadside stall, and it is genuinely better than most of what you will be served later.

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Practicalities

There Is No Such Thing as an Empty Bottle in Thailand

Bottled water is 7 to 15 baht, ice comes in two different kinds with different rules, and the single question that identifies the safe one is written on the sign in Thai nobody can read.

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Practicalities

I Washed My Clothes in a Laundromat in Chiang Mai for 60 Baht

There are three ways to wash clothes in Thailand and one of them costs a quarter of what the hotel charges. The other two take fifteen minutes of your life each.

Flat illustration of a squat toilet pan with a plastic water scoop and a wall flush lever, deep teal and gold

Practicalities

Every Thai Toilet Has a Shovel and a Bucket and They Are Not a Joke

The bucket beside the pan is not decoration and the lever on the wall is not a light switch. A short tour of the most misunderstood room in Thailand.

Flat illustration of a street wok, a tangle of noodles, a lime wedge and a squeeze bottle, deep teal and gold

Street Food

Pad Thai Is Eleven Ingredients and Most of Them Are Not Noodles

The dish everybody thinks they know is built on tamarind, fish sauce and palm sugar, and cooked in about ninety seconds in a very hot wok.

Street Food

The Stall With Four Hundred Customers Is Safer Than the One Next to It

The food-scare in Thailand is about water and the water is fine. The three things that actually put you in hospital are much more specific.