> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://easythailandvisa.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Twenty Things Nobody Tells You Before You Land in Thailand - URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/twenty-things-nobody-tells-you-before-thailand/ - Published: 2026-10-01T00:26:31.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T12:24:11.000Z - Description: The motorbike rental counter is the most profitable scam in the country and almost everyone gets caught by it, because the warning is always in a language you do not speak at that moment. - Author: Somchai Jaidee - Tags: Practicalities, Slow Travel This is the list I give friends, minus the parts that sound obvious once they are written down. Every one of these has cost somebody money or a day. Last verified 29 September 2026. ## The ones that cost money **1\. Photograph your rental bike before you ride it, on your phone, with the counter in frame.** Every scratch becomes your bill if you do not. This is not paranoia, it is the single most reliable way to avoid a 2,000 baht argument at a roadside police box. **2\. Rent from a shop that is not on the beach.** The shop on the beach is the one with the [deposit scam](https://easythailandvisa.com/motorbike-deposit-scam-chiang-mai/). Ride 500 metres inland and the price is a third lower and nobody is watching you sign anything. **3\. Do not take a** [**motorbike**](https://easythailandvisa.com/renting-a-scooter-in-thailand-what-they-dont-tell-you/) **on the road if you do not have an international permit.** Police do check, fines are real, and your [travel insurance](https://easythailandvisa.com/travel-insurance-for-thailand-what-it-should-cover/) will not cover it. **4\. Your card will be declined and then charged twice.** ATMs decline once, then debit. Carry 3,000 baht in cash for the first week and do not panic at a machine that ate it. **5\. Songthaews do not have meters and the price is negotiable except with drivers who are genuinely going that way anyway.** Red ones in Chiang Mai are fixed. Blue and green are negotiable. White ones will quote you tourist prices and are often shared with the driver. **6\. Tipping is not expected anywhere except at a very few places.** You will not be overcharged for not tipping, and the prices you see are the prices you pay. **7\. 7-Eleven is the only shop that will be open, and the good thing about it is the ATM.** Not the food, the ATM. It charges about 220 baht, which is the lowest fee in the country. **8\.** [**Street food**](https://easythailandvisa.com/street-food-safety-in-thailand/) **price rises with the tourist density, and you can see it in one block.** Same noodle dish, 30 baht on a side street, 90 on the strip. Walk 200 metres. ## The ones that cost a day **9\. The 72-hour arrival card is not optional, and it is free.** I have written about this three times on this site because people keep arriving without it. See the [TDAC guide](https://easythailandvisa.com/thailand-digital-arrival-card-tdac/). **10\. Jet lag east is brutal in your first three days and then fine.** Bangkok is seven hours ahead of Europe. Plan nothing for the first day. **11\. The national holiday on 28 September does not mean nothing is open.** It means Bangkok is closed and the islands are not. Check both. **12\. Motorbike taxis do not have meters either, and the quoted price is the price.** Settle it in the seat. **13\. Grab is fine in Bangkok, terrible in most other places, and the app will happily let you book a driver who cannot read your address.** Screenshot the Thai version of where you are going. **14\. Bring a second phone, or at least a screenshot of where you are staying in Thai.** The address exists in Thai and does not exist in English and a driver will not magically produce a translation. **15\. The good part of the night market opens around seven and the good part of a temple closes at five.** You cannot do both, stop trying. ## The ones nobody warns you about because they are not problems **16\. Nobody will be angry that you cannot speak Thai.** What bothers people is being ignored, and a *kin jay* and a smile do more work than a phrasebook. **17\. Water is not an issue.** Ice in drinks, ice in restaurants, ice in 7-Eleven. Nobody has ever had a problem here. **18\. Smell is not a health problem.** The exhaust, the drain, the jasmine and the squid at the same time is a city. Your clothes will smell of it for a day. **19\. Nobody is going to stop you taking a photo of a temple.** The rule is about people praying, not about architecture. **20\. The country is a 1,000 baht taxi ride longer than your expectation of it.** The distance between things people tell you are close is the single most common frustration of the first two weeks, and it passes by the third. ## The three that feel like complaints and are not **Nothing is open.** Between 1pm and 5pm, or on a Sunday, or in a small town, everything is closed. This is not a warning about Thailand, it is a description of a place where people keep office hours. **Nobody is in a hurry.** Service is slow and it is not rudeness. Adjusting your pace to the room rather than your room to the pace is the entire adjustment. **It is not tidy.** Wires, concrete, a shrine next to a car park, a kettle in a kitchen. It is a country that is 90 percent done and building in public, not a country that is falling apart. **Start here before anything else.** From 15 September 2026 most nationalities get 30 days visa-free and 145 countries need an eVisa. Check yours in the [country-by-country guide](https://easythailandvisa.com/every-country-thailand-visa-guide/) before you book anything, because the wrong answer costs you the trip. Last verified 29 September 2026\. I add to this when something new happens, which is roughly monthly. **More on this** - [Bangkok Has a Second River and Almost Nobody Gets on It](https://easythailandvisa.com/bangkok-klongs-canal-boat-hidden-city/) - [The Chao Phraya Boat Is the Best Transport in Bangkok and](https://easythailandvisa.com/chao-phraya-commuter-boat-bangkok/) - [Bangkok Has Free Things That Are Better Than the Paid Ones](https://easythailandvisa.com/bangkok-lumpini-park-and-the-free-city/) - [Three Months of Thai Lessons Is Nothing and Everybody Is](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-language-schools-what-you-actually-learn/) - [Everyone Floats Something Down the River, and Nobody](https://easythailandvisa.com/thailand-loy-krathong-chiang-mai/)