My wife and I have wanted to visit Thailand for some time now. My wife was born in east asia and I have enjoyed many stories about the wonderful exotic food and culture.
After 19 years of sharing these stories we decided to do something about it... while there was still time. We are both in our early 50's now. And I can say, with some envy, that time has been far kinder to my wife than to me. Asian women just seem to age slowly.
We arrived in Bangkok in mid March 2007. And what an eye-opening experience it was for both of us. I won't go into the detail as it appears that many others have shared similar experiences on this website. Just a summary,
1.The hustle with taxi drivers waiting at the customs exit of the new
2.International Airport.(offering 900B for Airport-Sukhumvit)
(following LOCAL prices as at March 2007)
Taxi:Sukhumvit-Airport=500B (+ expressway tolls of 65B)
Shuttlebus: Sukhumvit-Airport=150B ea
Taxi:East Bus Depot - Airport=300B
3.Haggling over taxi/bus fares.
4.Touts - our first experience was a nicely presented middle aged man who introduced himself to us as we walked the streets of Chinatown. He offered advice and started writing on a the back of a business card. As he wrote a tuk-tuk arrived and the driver positioned himself beside us in readiness. We thanked him for his effort but refused it and continued our walk through Chinatown. Alarmingly we later discovered that he had followed us remaining concealed.
5.Those tuk-tuk drivers who interrupt the journey with visits to strange shops where you are encouraged to browse, in order that he gets some form of remuneration from shop owner
6.Cheaply made local goods sold at inflated prices so that after you haggle for a time and think you've come away with a good deal you do the maths and realise you could have bought it from Tesco/Kmart for few dollars more.
These aspects of the journey I could get used to and begin to enjoy. This was Bangkok afterall. But the one thing I found the hardest to tolerate was a consequence of the very thing Bangkok was famous for.
The look in the faces from locals and the drunken comments (directed at my wife) of aging caucasian men as we walked past bars opening for business spoke of the entrenched stereotype of "old man with young Thai girl for pleasure".
I understand it because this stereotype exists, in a more latent fashion, back in Australia and, I would suggest, most non-asian countries. But it was much stronger and more open than I had expected.
No big problem. We got around it by staying in at night.
Having said that I must say that the overall experience was great and I would recommend a trip to Thailand to all at some point in your time-line of life.
