Two months in Thailand

We spent two months in Thailand and visited Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Pattaya, Buriram, Nakon Ratchasima, Udon Thani, and Chiang Mai. During our time here we experienced different sides of Thailand from cities to villages to farms.


Kingdom of Thailand was formerly known as Siam and has a population of about 68 million. It has large influence on the South-East Asian region and Thailand is a strong ally with the west, especially with the U.S.

Thailand is a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy which is currently under military dictatorship.  The current monarch of Thailand is Maha Vajiralongkorn also referred to as King Rama X. From our experience, people in Thailand worship their king almost like a god. His picture was everywhere in the country including people's homes and all public buildings. In some places, his pictures were as tall as 15 meters. The current kings father, Bhumibol Adulyadej ruled the country for over 70 years. He was well respected and is still remembered dearly by the people. Thailand's kings are protected by lese-majeste laws which allows critics of the king to be jailed for three to fifteen years. In recent years, Thailand has had the highest number of lese-majeste prisoners in the nation's history. Thailand has beed rated not free on the Freedom House Index since 2014.

The culture of Thailand is heavily influenced by cultures from China and India.  It shows in the lives of Thai people that buddhism and hinduism, the religions that originated in India are part of the current culture.  Almost 95% of the population in Thailand is buddhist. There is also a large Thai-Chinese population which brought a huge influence from Chinese folk religions, and Chinese new year is celebrated across the country. A strong undercurrent of Hinduism is very evident across the culture.

Historically, Thailand has been through many invasions and political changes. The remains of these historical events and artefacts are seen even in today's Thailand. Ayutthaya is one of those cities that was once the capital of Ayutthaya Kingdom, which ruled Thailand and other parts of South-East Asia. We visited this town and the remains still tell the stories of how lavish this city was during its glory days.

The people of Thailand were very nice. We did not meet a single Thai person during our two months who showed public anger or rudeness towards others. People were very calm and very friendly with others and especially with foreigners. We felt that Buddhist religion and its philosophy has a major impact on the attitudes of people. Monkhood is a big part of the society, where almost all men take monkhood at some point of their lives (Read more about Monkhood in Thaliand here). This also seem to influence the peaceful ways of Thai people.

As we traveled around the country, we felt the food was more or less similar in all parts of the country. We were able to find all the same food items everywhere we went. It was definitely saddening to see big supermarkets taking over the small businesses, especially in Bangkok and Pattaya, where we could hardly see any local stores selling local produce. However, in Chiang Mai, we saw the concept of street markets was very much present. Every street had a few stores setup outside people's homes, selling vegetables and basic groceries you would need to cook your own meals.

We traveled within Thailand by various modes of transportation -- by bus, train, mini vans, tuk tuk's, plane, and Songthaews. This gave us a wonderful opportunity to see how local people travel and gave us a chance to ride alongside them.

During our time in Thailand we got to meet a lot of people. We met many locals, met a lot of foreigners who lived or settled there, and a few who were married to Thai people. In Bangkok, we stayed with an Australian-Thai couple, who lived in Australia for over 30 years and then moved back to Thailand around 10 years back. It was wonderful to see the paradise they built in Bangkok with trees, water, swimming pool, bar, kitchen, and a lot of nature surrounding the homes. In Buri Ram we stayed with a Thai-French family with their kids and others. We wrote about our experience with them here. Near Udon Thani, we stayed at a farm called Gaia Ashram developed by a Thai-Dutch couple. They developed a wonderful space with lots of nature, gardens, and eco consciousness within a short span of 5 years using a barren land that was once a rice field. It was very humbling to spend some time in the beautiful nature and space they created for people to come in and enrich their lives and in the process add some more richness to their place. If you are ever near Udon Thani, we highly recommend you to visit Gaia Ashram and stay there for a few weeks. In Chiang Mai, we stayed with an American gay couple, who was living there teaching english at a local school and doing art work. We spent a lovely week in their house.

Nora spending time with locals on a mini-van ride

Kathi and Nora at Gaia Ashram

Sam and Nora having breakfast at a local market in Nakon Ratchasimha

Nora enjoying the views at Ayuttaya

View from our suite in Pattaya

Nora climbing up the stairs and interacting with local kids on the way to Wat Doi Suthep near Chiang Mai

We felt lucky to have had the opportunity to meet all these people and hear their views about Thailand and see how they created their lives in this country, based on a mixture of the culture of their home countries and Thai culture.

Overall, we had a very nice time in Thailand and it was a wonderful opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in Thai culture and in the process understand the world and ourselves a bit more.