Month: December 2015

For the most part, Thailand is a shoppers paradise. There are more shopping malls in Bangkok than you could ever possibly need, with more going up every day. Its easy to find very cheap clothing, electronics and other stuff from malls like Platinum and Pantip. Markets are everywhere and you can haggle the price of almost everything.

However, theres one way in which shopping in Thailand isn’t such a good experience. Imported products, from clothing to food, cost an absolute fortune in Thailand due to the import taxes applied to basically everything.

Case in point: I wanted to buy a pair of formal shoes (I have to travel to a friends wedding in California in January). I looked at reviews online and found that good brands were Loake, which is made in the UK, and Allen Edmonds, which is made in the USA. I googled Allen Edmonds Bangkok to see if they were available here and couldn’t find anything. Luckily Loake is sold here in the department store in Siam Paragon.

I visited to try on a few pairs and choose the ones I liked. The price here is almost THREE TIMES as much as they cost in the UK. Im fine with paying 20% more, but paying three times the retail price for a pair of shoes is crazy.

Another example: Recently I wanted to buy a belt for jeans to wear casually, since my old belts are being torn apart. A nice leather belt in Thailand (made in Italy, imported) cost twice as much as it would in any Western country.

Im not the first person to notice this. There are hundreds of threads on Thai Visa about the cost of imported goods (wine, in particular, is ridiculously overpriced here) and many other bloggers have commented on this before. Its not just shoes; everything thats made outside of Thailand or China is highly overpriced in 99% of Thai shops.

I ended up buying some Allen Edmonds loafers and having them shipped here. It costs slightly more than it would to get them in the UK, but I at least get them at a price thats close to the regular retail price. Hopefully they don’t get held at customs on the way here, which would mean I have to pay another huge tax to receive them in Thailand.

I like living in Thailand a lot and love shopping here, if its for cheap things like locally made clothing or electronics, but the prices for imported goods in Thailand need to get more reasonable if the malls want people to shop here instead of flying to Singapore or Hong Kong, or buying o

Over the last two months Ive had several friends visit me in Thailand. Two made the mistake of staying on Khao San Road. One didnt. His experience was (I estimate) 100 times better, at least from the perspective of actually experiencing what Bangkok is about, than those of my friends who stayed on Khao San Road.

Heres why I dont like Khao San Road: its not a good sample of life in Thailand. People that stay there have the misguided idea that theyre staying somewhere thats uniquely Thai or off the beaten path when they are actually staying on a street thats in a bubble away from normal Thai life.

The entire street is full of hawkers selling cheap products, usually at silly prices. The food isnt even remotely close to actual Thai food! I bought Pad Thai on Khao San Road and it was just cheap instant ramen noodles with sauce, while people that stay there rave about how authentic it is. Its the same story for other Thai dishes there Western Thai food thats watered down and poorly made, all sold to people that arent aware.

The other problem is the quality of most hotels on Khao San Road. There are some nice hotels there (the Dang Derm Hotel is the only one I recommend to friends, if they insist on staying there) but many are poorly maintained and are infested with all sorts of vermin. I stayed on Khao San Road the first time I visited Thailand (we all make mistakes) and remember seeing more cockroaches in the three nights I was there than in the last two plus years in this country.

If you want to experience a bubble life thats completely unlike Bangkok, stay in Khao San Road. If not, stay in a hotel along Sukhumvit Road, preferably from Phrom Phong to On Nut. Its still a bubble (this is the most upmarket residential part of Bangkok) but its at least a better sample of life in this city than Khao San Road is.

Living in Bangkok makes it easy to access places like Phuket and Koh Samui, both of which have beautiful beaches, by plane. However, sometimes I dont want to buy an expensive plane ticket (prices go up a lot on weekends and major holidays) to visit the beach, and just want to catch the bus to my destination.

Ive written before about visiting Hua Hin, one of my favorite beach resorts in Thailand. Hua Hin is close to Bangkok, but it isnt quite as close as Pattaya, and as such doesnt attract as many visitors.

Pattaya is a beach resort city thats about two hours from Bangkok. Its easy to get there from Ekamai Bus Terminal, which is located close to Ekamai BTS Station on the BTS Skytrain. I get the bus there for just over 100 baht and usually arrive within two hours, although sometimes it can take longer.

Pattaya has a lot of beautiful resort hotels, including the new Hilton right beside the beach (winner of several hotel awards and arguably the nicest place in town). Theres also the Dusit Thani and other nice places, many of which are older but have great facilities.

The beach in Pattaya is horrible, with lots of dirt and garbage, as well as street hawkers everywhere. At night, the entire road along the beach is full of prostitutes (this is a recurring theme in Pattaya, which I will talk about later) but there are other better beaches nearby Pattaya, including Jomtien, which is a quieter beach (but still not very quiet) just around the headland from Pattaya city.

The worst point of Pattaya is the constant sleazy nightlife thats present everywhere in the city. Almost all hotels in Pattaya are full of older male tourists with escorts in various sleazy states of dress, including high end hotels. In Bangkok some hotels allow people to bring guests back (there is a list here so you can avoid them) but most nice hotels bar this type of nightlife from intruding into the property. Its very annoying to pay over $100 per night for a beautiful room only to arrive at breakfast and feel like youre in the middle of a dirty nightclub.

There’s also a more updated list of hotels here, which seems to include some of the nicer ones in town. Looks like this side of Pattaya is unavoidable, even if you’re willing to pay for a nicer-than-average hotel.

Aside from this, Pattaya is an alright beach resort and an okay break from life in Bangkok. With that said, I recommend spending an extra hour on the minivan and visiting Hua Hin instead, which has a much nicer beach and less of the sleaze factor of Pattaya. Hua Hin doesnt have quite the selection of hotels and activities as Pattaya, but overall its a much better destination, especially for couples and families.