First impressions from Thailand
After having stayed on Ko Samui for a few days now, it's time to highlight some of my first impressions. For those of you who have been to Thailand before these observations might be no news, but for me it is my first visit to Asia, so there is a lot that catches my attention.
Thais are unbelievably friendly. Smile at them and you can be sure that they will smile back. And their politeness is hard to explain. They thank you permanently and excuse themselves all the time for interrupting (e.g. at the restaurant). Unfortunately their knowledge of English is usually pretty limited, which makes it hard to have a meaningful conversation.
From what I have heard before I came here I thought you need to be very careful with your belongings, don't leave them out of sight etc. But I had to change my mind (at least partially) after having spent some time at Bangkok Airport (while waiting for the connection flight): Several times I saw Thai people leaving bags or even handbags on a bench outside of a store, coming back five minutes later picking them up again. Even for someone living in the country of honesty (Sweden) that is a new dimension of good faith.
There are lonely dogs everywhere. I'm not sure if those are street dogs or if their have an owner and are just going free, but if you have a problem with dogs, Thailand doesn't seem to be the country for you. On the other hand, people here hardly walk, they either take the motorbike or car, and there are taxis everywhere honking at the poor tourists who choose to go for a walk. So if you get yourself a rented car or motorbike, that might solve the dog issue.
The Thai food is great and pretty cheap. Yesterday my girl friend and I had dinner at one of the coziest restaurants I ever have been to, directly at the beach - we ate a soup for starter, some fried pork dish each, drank a bottle of water, 3 beers and one cocktail each. The bill was 1040 Bath, about 25 Euro.
At the Bangkok Airport we went straight to the store of Thai operator AIS to get a 1-2-Call prepaid SIM card for our iPhones. You get a lot of minutes (which I don't care about) and unlimited data for 25 Euro per month (recharging does apparently cost even less). The data transmission works via EDGE... The speed is not very impressive but it is enough to make VoIP call via Skype in acceptable quality (so it is nice to see AIS not blocking VoIP). We also have a Wireless Network in our appartment which is slightly faster, but not that much. But after a few days I can state that you get used to it, and you start to become more efficient in your internet usage (e.g. not closing Browser tabs that you might need again later and so on).
In order to have a secure connection when using the Wireless Network which is kind of public (and also to be able to use Spotify Free) I always connect to Ipredator VPN (it costs 15 Euro for 3 month).
I will follow up this post with some additional impressions at a later stage. But so far I can say that I really love it here!
