Thailand

Thailand is a wonderful place. The food is fantastic; I've tried a different dish every day and never been disappointed (except by the noodles with "gravy" sauce: disgusting). You wouldn't think of breakfast as being a strong point in Thai cuisine, but the Thai pancakes are amazing. They are crispy versions of crepes with your choice of fruit, peanut butter, chocolate, and so on mixed inside or on top. A favorite of mine is the nutella/bannana pancake (so good!). The people are friendly and the other travellers even more so. The only downside is the near-constant barrage of "Massage?" "Boat, boat, taxi, boat?" "Tuk-tuk?" and so on and so on. The little travel agencies have it set up so that you pay only a little bit extra for your ticket (really we are talking about $1 or $2 extra here) and they take care that you are on the right boat/bus at the right time and they will arrange for a guesthouse pickup. It is quite easy and convinient, though I dislike being sheparded around, it is far less stressful than figuring it all out for yourself. Finding places to stay alone here must be hard (though I obviously haven't had to do it) because everwhere is set up with two or three person rooms and almost no dorms. It is quite cheap here, but not as cheap as you might expect because you alway eat out (there being almost no grocery stores to speak of, even if you would want you sacrifice one of the best parts of the culture) and drinks at bars can get quite expensive (anywhere from $2.50 to $4.50). Although a great thing they have in Thailand is the drink bucket, basically a plastic pail with a 375mL bottle of alcohol, a mixer, and ice, costing anywhere from $5 to $10 depending on the drink, and bought from little streetside or beachside stands. Transportation is fairly cheap and lodging is pretty cheap as well, but it definitely isn't dirt cheap. One thing in particular that I've noticed is that the Thais very much like to funnel tourists into particular places, routes, etc so you end up being on a sort of tourist path very much apart from Thai Thailand. It's not totally a bad thing, just a peculiar one. For the relative merits of seeking out the local transportation versus using the tourist transportation, see the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat entry in the details section, as I wrote quite a bit on it there. The Southern islands in Thailand are much more expensive than the more Northern parts. Below is a picture of the Thai currency with the revered King on it. Since it looks quite a bit like Monopoly money, it is easy to spend a lot. Also, a few of the famous tuk-tuks.

Beer of Thailand: Thailand has a great selection of lagers, the flagship beer being Singha, which you can buy even in the States. Singha is a great, smooth beer and usually costs $1.50 to $3.00 for a 22oz bottle depending on where you buy it. But for those even more budget minded, there are another three options to choose from, Chang, a pale ale, Leo, a cheap version of Singha, and Archa, perhaps a blonde. These ones usually come about $.50 to $1 cheaper but none are as good as Singha (and Archa is downright terrible...). But I applaude the selection despite almost always buying Singha; all in all, I was quite pleasantly surprised by Thailand's beer. Grade: B+.