Ah, Thailand. This place holds a special place in our heart. There’s food and coconuts everywhere. You can find some of the world’s best beaches, one of the world’s most vibrant capitals, and great nature in the North. We could spend months here and still wouldn’t be done. We really enjoyed exploring the north a bit and would definitely spend some more time there next time.

Itinerary

We stayed almost four weeks in the south of Thailand, of which 10 days in Koh Lanta, and two weeks in the Gulf Islands. We spent four nights in Bangkok, five in Chiang Mai, and two in Chiang Rai. If it hadn’t been for our visitors, we would have stayed a little bit less in the south, but in general our itinerary was great and provided us with a lot of time to relax.

Top 3

This Top 3 was a toughie. We did so many things and enjoyed most of them tremendously. These three stand out in the sense that we would be happy to go back to the respective place just for that.

Snorkelling in Koh Tao

You walk in the water and there’s baby sharks. What else do we really have to say?

Bangkok Street Food

Of course we only scratched the surface, but even the few stalls that we kept going back to were full of flavour and deliciousness. Now that we’ve ticked off all of the major sights, we could only do street food next time?

Chiang Rai Sunday Night Market

This was probably our favourite night market, it had a great atmosphere. It was a real place for locals to shop, eat, and dance, and it was huge.

Things to skip (maybe)

As always, these are small things and very personal opinions.

Snorkelling in Koh Taen

We really enjoyed our boat tour to a Koh Taen and Koh Matsum, but the first stop, snorkelling, was a bit underwhelming. The boat captain threw bread in the water, which is not good for the fish (and we almost got eaten by a bunch of tiny fish). Visibility is not great and the corals aren’t amazing. We would skip this stop and spend more time on Koh Matsum.

Bo Phut Fisherman’s Village

The night market there is nice, but the village itself is completely taken over by tourist infrastructure. Fancy or pretend fancy restaurants and loud music line the street. There is really nothing authentic left.

Chiang Rai Night Bazar

As much as we loved the Sunday night market, we were disappointed by the daily night bazar. The food section offers a lot of hot pots, aimed mainly at Chinese tourists. It wasn’t particularly busy when we were there, so it was ok, but high season must be madness. One stall offers classic northern Thai food, which was quite good.

Food

We’ve probably made it quite clear by now that we love Thai food. Our all time favourite remains Pad Thai. We did discover a few new dishes, particularly Kao Soy and Larb, northern Thai dishes. The cooking classes were a lot of fun – cooking our own Thai food will be one of the things to look forward to when we get home.

Will we be back?

Um, yes.

Budget

We spent 40 days in Thailand and spent a total of 3100€. We paid an average of 24€ on accommodation, and 16€ for food. We spent around 550€ on transport, including everything from boats to trains to taxis. The rest went mostly into diving/snorkelling, and activities like the cooking classes. Note that Julia’s parents visited us for two weeks and during that time paid for most meals and transport, so the numbers may be a little distorted.

What else?

Coconuts

We’ve had coconuts in the Philippines, a couple in Malaysia. After Thailand, we had some in Laos. Thailand definitely does coconuts best (although Cambodia is doing pretty well so far). Coconuts are life savers when you are out and about in the heat, and they are at their most delicious when they are cold. This was normal in Thailand, while in other countries, they are often warm.

Night trains

Thai trains are so comfortable, and the night trains are a real experience. Not all trains are built equally, so see if you can find some information about yours. The 18.10h train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai is amazing.

Getting a Thai visa

We got our visa in the embassy of Kuala Lumpur. We needed one because we wanted to stay more than 30 days (visa free maximum stay when entering via air), and in addition we were going to arrive via boat, so that would have given us only 15 days maximum stay. The embassy has a list of documents that you need to provide, claiming that if it was incomplete, the visa would be refused. We didn’t have all the things required: we didn’t have the tickets going to Thailand, because we would have lost about 150€ in case they refused our visa; we didn’t have a ticket for leaving the country because we were going to take the bus to Laos; we also didn’t have hotel reservations for our entire stay. We put the following documents: the itinerary from Malaysia to Thailand we were planning to take; a hotel booking in Laos; a couple of hotel reservations for Thailand; we also added our bank statements, even though this isn’t required for the 60 day tourist visa. Our application was approved without any issues. We don’t know if this depends on the embassy or on your country of origin or if they generally don’t enforce this list of documents. We were a bit anxious and then very relieved to hold the visa in our hands (you don’t get reimbursed if it is refused). To apply for the visa, make an appointment online, but know that the timing is very indicative. Our number never actually came up and at the end the staff just started to call all the people that were still waiting. Your visa is ready for pick up the next (working) day in the afternoon. You don’t need an appointment, though oddly the security guard seems to think you do and he will show you how (we still have no idea how he did it, but you really don’t need it). Once you make it inside, just join the queue of all the people picking up their visa. It’s quite fast.