Well… I’ve put off writing about Thailand for over a year now…. Almost two years actually.
If you don’t know, like if you don’t follow our adventures over on Instagram, we spent October and November of 2017 in Southeast Asia.
We stayed in Thailand for the longest amount of time while we were over there, and it has been our least favorite destination.
I put off writing this post for so long now, because…
- We like to keep it all light, fun, and travel inspiration over here, but after so many people loved our Downsides to the Digital Nomad life post, we decided it was time
2. Most people LOVE Thailand… so we thought for a long time… is there something wrong with us?!
Here’s the fast truth: There’s nothing wrong with us, and there’s probably nothing wrong with you if you find yourself not enjoying a place even if everyone gave it a glowing recommendation.
We’re here to share our life of Indefinite Travel; the good, the bad, and the ugly… you’re going to get all of that in this Thailand post!
No matter how much other people rave about a place, it may not be your cup of tea. We were talking to a woman at a pub in Dublin about how much we loved Rome, she on the other hand said it was one of her least favorite places to go.
All of this to say, don’t let other people’s stories dictate your decisions.
We weren’t fans of Thailand, but you may go and fall head over heels in love with it.
Just like when everyone told us we packed way too much and we would regret it…
And we never did.
Make decisions for YOU.
Choose to write your own story.
And to be fair, we had some pretty epic moments in Thailand as well, post coming soon on our favorite stops, to balance this out!
It was more like an overall feeling from the trip that did us in…
It didn’t help that we didn’t like Thai food…
I know, I know… what is wrong with us?! It’s like not liking ice cream to most people we tell.
So for our time there we lived on plain rice, pringles, and like $10 jars of peanut butter.
We ate the street food, and did Pad Thai… Andrew might die when he reads this post… we’ll get to that later…
But the food really never did it for us.
We did find a Mexican restaurant in Chiang Mai that was great… Yeah, Central and South America has been our favorite food scene.
Then there was the accident…
After getting a moped that broke down a few km down the road, the company we rented from gave us a new one, how nice…
Only a few days later, the brakes went out, as we took a curve around a cliff.
Thankfully, we hit a car that stopped us from going over the edge. Unfortunately – we had to pay cash for a car to be fixed and the company said sorry that wasn’t their fault.
Granted, this could happen in any country I suppose, but when something like that happens to you it certainly puts a damper on your experience.
Why is there a monkey in the hotel room?
This one wasn’t us but our friends we traveled with. They woke us up early one morning to let us know they found animal feces in their room. The next day something happened to go through all of their food and leave it scattered across the room.
All part of the experience, but we did leave the hotel that day.
It’s certainly an adjustment overall to be in a third world country, critters do make their way in. But I preferred the kitties and even the scorpions in Guatemala over the monkey.
And then there was this…
It was the final day, the last stretch of a series of unfortunate events when Andrew was hit with the worst of the worst food poisoning.
I thought I was going to have to get him to a hospital, until the front desk worker said… Is he breathing? Then don’t go to the hospital, he’ll be better here.
Poor Andrew was up for an entire night with the toilet as his pillow, I would nod off and then jolt up to make sure he was still breathing.
Food poisoning is generally not fun in the first place, it is tragic when you have it the day before a 40 hour travel day.
We had our flights home the next morning, that included assorted layovers, one being a 12 hour stop in South Korea.
PHEW.
And that, my friends, is why Andrew will never eat Thai food again, and still makes a face if someone utters the words Pad Thai.
What I’ve learned over the past year of traveling since is this:
If you have a series of bad events in a country, you kind of attach it to that country, we hear about this over and over from people. We probably won’t be back in Thailand, but it has a special place in our hearts as a short term home for us, and it brought us many lessons.
And secondly, you most definitely have different energies in locations depending on YOU. We didn’t have that connection kind of energy to Thailand, we always felt out of place there. It just wasn’t our place.
None of this stopped us from enjoying every moment in between the chaos.
Thailand wasn’t our favorite, and that’s okay!
Tell us in the comments, what’s your stop like this?
The one that everyone raved about and just didn’t do it for you?
