Sunday, February 6, 2011

Thailand 101 - Phuket

Morning travelers,

As I mentioned earlier I will be trying to give some basic travel information about each of the countries in Asia, these tips are based on my experiences and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Thailand is a travelers dream country, they say, if you have the money, you can get it in Thailand. It's a chance for the average person to experience the extra ordinary. Thailand's currency is the Baht, at the time of writing the conversion rate is 1 USD to 30.38 Thai Baht. Let me put that into perspective, if you go to a local mall (not a touristy one), buy a Thai food combo, it will only cost you around 20 baht, 66 cents for a meal, I still can't get over that.

Thailand is known for it's markets, fake consumer goods and even well-priced real goods. I don't enjoy walking around the markets as I don't see the point of buying low quality fake products. Instead of buying 10 fake Billibong tshirts, I would rather buy 1 real one as it would probably last longer than all 10 of the fakes. I do however love looking at the fake merchandise, just to see how bad it is and what ends up being counterfeited.

Another thing that you need to realise is that the price of almost everything is negotiable, it took me a while to realise that the locals expect you to barter and if you don't you may as well throw your money away. For example, I ended up buying some new golf clubs while I was in Phuket and shipped them back home. I went to an outlet factory shopping mall about an hours tuk-tuk ride out of Patong beach. I was looking at the new Callawy X-24 irons. The shelf price was 22,500 Baht, I walked up to the counter said I want to buy these clubs, I will give you 12,000, the salesman responded in the middle at 17,000 and I agreed. It must be said that I am not the best negotiator, but I still got a great deal. In New Zealand I would have paid three times that price for the clubs and yes, I checked to see if they were fake.

In part two, I will talk a bit about the tourist attractions. Well, they aren't so much attractions as they are ways for the locals to extrude more money from you for watching monkeys ride a bicycle for 20 minutes or cobra's doing nothing.

22 comments:

  1. this is really cool. I really want to backpack europe. this is pretty inspiring.

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  2. wow , looking forward to read your the story of your journey

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  3. I went to Bangkok as a child. I remember tuk-tuk rides, counting monks, the golden and reclining buddha, and especially the sticky rice! This makes me want to go back.

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  4. Wow, lucky you! I cant afford traveling really often... :(

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  5. Ack now I want to go to Thailand! Well keep us updated, I want to know what it has to offer in terms of attractions.

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  6. @Araita That's the great thing about South East Asia, after your flights, it's extremely cheap to stay there.

    @Joe Haha, I will probably put part two up tonight or in the morning.

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  7. I want to travel the world.
    Had a dream about it last night.

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  8. This looks really good, I'll definitley be following this keenly, I've always wanted to visit Asia

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  9. can't wait for the tourist attractions!

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  10. you have inspired me. i want to do that in a few years when i have some cash :)

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  11. I wish I could travel a lot. Maybe Asia now to.

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  12. Exactly like my travels in India. Rode tuk-tuks everywhere, ate meals for less than a dollar, counterfeit goods everywhere.. Ah. What a unique experience. Obviously I'm making superficial generalizations, but it really was a tremendous experience for me. I think everyone should spend time traveling.

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  13. Sounds awesome, looking forward to part 2!

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  14. weow this has always been a dream of mine, one i feel, will never be met

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  15. I would love to travel there sometime.

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  16. I certainly don't have the money to travel to thailand, I wish i did :P. Following.

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  17. I've always wanted to go backpacking somewhere exotic - I do quite a bit of camping in this country (UK) but it's not exactly ideal...ah well, maybe one day...nice blog BTW!

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