I've recently returned from a month in Thailand. It was nice to take a break from business responsibilities and social media and not have the constant ‘I should be posting’ in my head. Instead, I just let it all go and concentrated on my time away, which this time around, I actually more or less had a holiday – yay!
And what was different this time is that I had a travelling companion – my incredible soul sista Justine Laidlaw (The Natural Bird).
What a difference it made to having someone to share the experience with, and boy did we have some laughs! I don’t think a day went by that we didn’t crack up over something (usually the young Instagrammers – there’s a blog post brewing over that)
Thailand was actually my first new country to visit in 14 years! I didn’t really go with any expectations as such. And as we were going in the rainy/off season, we didn’t expect to see pristine calm blue water and have sunny weather every day… As it turned out, it was actually a blessing to go in the off-season, as it would be a totally different experience going in peak season. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything worse!
We ate, we templed, we got up close and personal with elephants, we swam, we ate, we shopped a little, we laughed, we shook our heads at all sorts of things, we did the tourist thing, we slept, we island-hopped… did I say we ate?
It was a whirlwind 3 weeks with Justine (Khaolak (an hour north of Phuket), Krabi, Railay Beach, Phuket Old Town), and I had another 1 week on my own (Khaolak/Bangkok), coming home exhausted but definitely ready.
Contrasts were vast:
• from the absolute bizarre nature of a zombie apocalypse entrance to a temple complex, to underground cave temples, ornate gold and mosaic, opulent Royal Palaces, massive buddha’s and ancient cities of stone and brick
• Railay Beach was a dopers heaven (weed café’s EVERYWHERE!)
• Phuket Old town felt like somewhere in Europe
• the Tsunami Museum at Khaolak was a sobering and heart-wrenching experience
• Khaolak Paradise Resort was such a salve for the soul I stayed there twice (our first 5 days were there, and I went back for a final 4 before heading to Bangkok)
• the Floating Market and Train Market in Bangkok were pure tourist insanity
So, what did this trip show me:
CONS
• Seeing the ‘unconsciousness’ of tourism. It’s a commodity pure and simple, and yes, we were part of it, although we ARE aware of that, most don’t seem to be. For example:
- the exploitation of animals to get a photo opportunity
- the EXTENSIVE and consistent use of single-use plastic which then ends up in the ocean, floating on the currents to arrive on beautiful beaches to leave a line of debris as far as the eye can see
- the ‘ship them in, ship them out’ insanity of day trips
• the young generation who only go to a place for a photo opportunity, not even looking at the beauty that surrounds them, but rather only intent on making sure their ‘image’ looks perfect for their social media accounts – it’s all so FAKE!
• Thailand has a massive tourism history, and everything is geared towards that, plain and simple. It’s sad to say, but apart from seeing the beautiful temples, I experienced no culture. We didn’t get to speak to locals to learn about their life as English is not known well enough (this surprised me) to have a conversation and learn from them
PROS
• new sights, sounds, tastes… although it pretty much is ‘same-same but different’ to other places in Asia.
• having a travel buddy enhances travel. You have a laughing companion and buddy to have your back if you need it.
• we are beyond lucky to live the life we do in NZ. Honestly, we don’t know we’re alive here. Yes, we all bitch and moan at the cost of living, councils, roading, the Government, but honestly, compared with other places in the world, we’ve got it bloody good! We really do live in Gods Own country.
So, what do I rate my trip to Thailand compared to my visits to Vietnam and Bali… it’s definitely 3rd. Although I only experienced a teeny-weeny fraction of this massive country and will go back one day to head north to the Chang Mai area where it is completely different. I’m glad I went. I saw. I learnt. But to be honest, overall, I didn’t rate it.
Here's a tiny snippet (in no particular order) from the 10-million photos I took during my 4 weeks away...
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