I believe that Thailand is overrated to a high degree, and can't understand some of the other guys' fascination with it. Am glad to have seen it, but generally, there's nothing in it for me to warrant a second thought. Would probably never come back.
*I was there during so-called dry weather season. I imagine my impressions would have been even worse if I was there during a rainy season.
Pros:
Thai girls have generally nice tan, and in Bangkok they like wearing short skirts, so there are lots of smooth legs flashing on the streets. That shit can get you horny in no time.
They also have decent attitudes.
If you are into tropical aesthetics, the country is beautiful.
Public infrastructure (notably roads, public transportation, as well as hospitals) is generally better than in surrounding countries.
Cons:
Thai girls on average are somewhat ugly (also their noses are naturally flat, but that is often not noticeable due to prevalent nose job surgeries). Their body figures also aren't much to write home about it (on average they are also "fatter" than surrounding countries). Sure there are some decent ones, even stunners, but I'm talking averages here. For that reason in terms of their sheer physical attractiveness I would place Thai girls below Vietnamese and Cambodians.
With Thai girls, and in general with anyone within native Thai population, there's no intellectual stimulation. These people are mindless drones who are only good as such to their culture at large. Don't underestimate this. You may think that superficial interests and conversations are fun (especially if you believe that caveman interests/existence is a "guy's thing to do"), but any longer term exposure to this would devastate anyone who isn't already a drone himself, or otherwise jaded and fucked up in some way.
The Land of Smiles my ass. OK, maybe on surface level Thais seem to be relaxed, but scratch behind the surface and you will find some of the most craziest individuals around. When not actively trying to cheat you, the average Thai dude is only concerned to keep (or gain) his face in public. Now, the issue of face is prevalent everywhere in Asia, but here is taken to another level. The moment he loses face, there's no way to predict how crazy the Thai guy will get. Machete, AK47, bazooka(?) nothing would be out of character to these fuckers. And don't let me even mention how the king has to keep his face, even if it means years of jail for you.
Food hygiene is really low, sometimes appallingly low (so is anywhere else in that part of Asia for that matter, except perhaps Japan). In vast numbers of neighborhood family restaurants, not to mention street food stalls, the food safety is non-existent. Not only that, but they actively go out of their way to cut corners at your health's expense (think of gutter oil. Do you even know what gutter oil is?) Between the average non-existent restaurant food safety and average restaurant appallingly low food hygiene, well, good luck with that.
Bangkok is an urban dump. Think toxic air, combined with perpetual humidity, and the aesthetics of smelly river, some slummy neighborhoods, and sweaty people, all wrapped up into a cacophony of dirt, noise and smell.
Bangkok is holly shit polluted (so is Saigon, Beijing, Taipei, for that matter). The quality of breathing air is remarkably low. Beats me why would any westerner willingly submit themselves to longer exposures of that.
Bangkok's Khao San road (backpacker's area) is a shit hole. I didn't stay there, but went out my way to check it out. It's full of pretentious younger Europeans and Israelis applying another checkmark to yet another unnecessary destination that they have to be seen in their Facebook-designed lives.
There are also older and downright old Americans and Aussies, you know those dignity-less broken souls of men with thousand-yard stares, their entire mature existence caught in a vicious cycle of booze and bar girls.
And then there is a range of younger broke ass westerners who are acting out Leonardo DiCaprio character's fantasies form the movie The Beach, while on faulty assumption that being broke in a third world shit hole is somehow living "authentic lives".
The coast (Pattaya), the islands, and the rest? Well, the entire love scene can be visualized with a picture of drugged out backpackers making out with fellow smelly backpackers on one hand, and drunken older westerners cavorting with bar girls and lady boys on the other.
In addition to backpackers and language teachers, the rest of Thailand is filled with westerners who are running from something, in most cases either law, or contractual obligations, or are otherwise assorted misfits who by choice or sensibility could not fit into their own society any longer. So there are former drug pushers, credit loans skippers, wife beaters, deadbeat dads, pedophiles, lifestyle radicals, and just plain, old losers. The latter are a particular segment of men who never amounted to anything back home, those who have been ran over by time, and who when faced with employment age discrimination and failing health simply gave up and moved on to international lower leagues in a desperate hope of keeping some factor of their own existential significance in place.
There are also Russians in Thailand. But they are animals of different breed then westerners.
Summary:
If you've never been to Thailand and are considering it either short or long term do think about it some more because at best you will simply not get anything out of it other than what I have described in above paragraphs.
Do not fall for the typical peer-pressure ad that is made to appear as if the deliverer of the news is in some type of paradise:
Woo, hoo, I'm in Thailand dude! I'm eating great food, living on the cheap, and I'm smashing babes all around!
Because that same ad can be interpreted as:
Woo, hoo, I'm inhaling black soot dude. I'm eating mystery meat cooked on gutter oil (no wonder it's cheap), and am fucking exotic disease traps that have been laid previously by hundreds of others like me.
You have one life and one body.
Use it wisely.
*I was there during so-called dry weather season. I imagine my impressions would have been even worse if I was there during a rainy season.
Pros:
Thai girls have generally nice tan, and in Bangkok they like wearing short skirts, so there are lots of smooth legs flashing on the streets. That shit can get you horny in no time.
They also have decent attitudes.
If you are into tropical aesthetics, the country is beautiful.
Public infrastructure (notably roads, public transportation, as well as hospitals) is generally better than in surrounding countries.
Cons:
Thai girls on average are somewhat ugly (also their noses are naturally flat, but that is often not noticeable due to prevalent nose job surgeries). Their body figures also aren't much to write home about it (on average they are also "fatter" than surrounding countries). Sure there are some decent ones, even stunners, but I'm talking averages here. For that reason in terms of their sheer physical attractiveness I would place Thai girls below Vietnamese and Cambodians.
With Thai girls, and in general with anyone within native Thai population, there's no intellectual stimulation. These people are mindless drones who are only good as such to their culture at large. Don't underestimate this. You may think that superficial interests and conversations are fun (especially if you believe that caveman interests/existence is a "guy's thing to do"), but any longer term exposure to this would devastate anyone who isn't already a drone himself, or otherwise jaded and fucked up in some way.
The Land of Smiles my ass. OK, maybe on surface level Thais seem to be relaxed, but scratch behind the surface and you will find some of the most craziest individuals around. When not actively trying to cheat you, the average Thai dude is only concerned to keep (or gain) his face in public. Now, the issue of face is prevalent everywhere in Asia, but here is taken to another level. The moment he loses face, there's no way to predict how crazy the Thai guy will get. Machete, AK47, bazooka(?) nothing would be out of character to these fuckers. And don't let me even mention how the king has to keep his face, even if it means years of jail for you.
Food hygiene is really low, sometimes appallingly low (so is anywhere else in that part of Asia for that matter, except perhaps Japan). In vast numbers of neighborhood family restaurants, not to mention street food stalls, the food safety is non-existent. Not only that, but they actively go out of their way to cut corners at your health's expense (think of gutter oil. Do you even know what gutter oil is?) Between the average non-existent restaurant food safety and average restaurant appallingly low food hygiene, well, good luck with that.
Bangkok is an urban dump. Think toxic air, combined with perpetual humidity, and the aesthetics of smelly river, some slummy neighborhoods, and sweaty people, all wrapped up into a cacophony of dirt, noise and smell.
Bangkok is holly shit polluted (so is Saigon, Beijing, Taipei, for that matter). The quality of breathing air is remarkably low. Beats me why would any westerner willingly submit themselves to longer exposures of that.
Bangkok's Khao San road (backpacker's area) is a shit hole. I didn't stay there, but went out my way to check it out. It's full of pretentious younger Europeans and Israelis applying another checkmark to yet another unnecessary destination that they have to be seen in their Facebook-designed lives.
There are also older and downright old Americans and Aussies, you know those dignity-less broken souls of men with thousand-yard stares, their entire mature existence caught in a vicious cycle of booze and bar girls.
And then there is a range of younger broke ass westerners who are acting out Leonardo DiCaprio character's fantasies form the movie The Beach, while on faulty assumption that being broke in a third world shit hole is somehow living "authentic lives".
The coast (Pattaya), the islands, and the rest? Well, the entire love scene can be visualized with a picture of drugged out backpackers making out with fellow smelly backpackers on one hand, and drunken older westerners cavorting with bar girls and lady boys on the other.
In addition to backpackers and language teachers, the rest of Thailand is filled with westerners who are running from something, in most cases either law, or contractual obligations, or are otherwise assorted misfits who by choice or sensibility could not fit into their own society any longer. So there are former drug pushers, credit loans skippers, wife beaters, deadbeat dads, pedophiles, lifestyle radicals, and just plain, old losers. The latter are a particular segment of men who never amounted to anything back home, those who have been ran over by time, and who when faced with employment age discrimination and failing health simply gave up and moved on to international lower leagues in a desperate hope of keeping some factor of their own existential significance in place.
There are also Russians in Thailand. But they are animals of different breed then westerners.
Summary:
If you've never been to Thailand and are considering it either short or long term do think about it some more because at best you will simply not get anything out of it other than what I have described in above paragraphs.
Do not fall for the typical peer-pressure ad that is made to appear as if the deliverer of the news is in some type of paradise:
Woo, hoo, I'm in Thailand dude! I'm eating great food, living on the cheap, and I'm smashing babes all around!
Because that same ad can be interpreted as:
Woo, hoo, I'm inhaling black soot dude. I'm eating mystery meat cooked on gutter oil (no wonder it's cheap), and am fucking exotic disease traps that have been laid previously by hundreds of others like me.
You have one life and one body.
Use it wisely.