Thailand feels especially easy for Chinese travelers to navigate. Quite a few people can speak at least some Chinese, and there is also a visible Chinese influence in the country’s public life and history. With a discounted airfare lining up nicely with the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, it seemed like the right time to put together a longer break and go.
Before the trip
One thing we took seriously before leaving was mosquito protection.
Someone around us had gone to Thailand, come back with dengue fever from mosquito bites, and ended up being isolated for a week by the local disease control authorities. The medical bill was even higher than the cost of the trip itself. That was enough to make us nervous at first, and we genuinely hesitated over whether to go.
After looking into it, the situation seemed less alarming as long as we were careful. Thailand is humid from June to September, and dengue outbreaks happen during that period every year. So the approach was simple: wear long pants when possible, buy mosquito repellent at 7-Eleven, and spray some on every day. Take the threat seriously, but don’t panic. In practice, that was enough.
What the trip was like
The parts of the itinerary I enjoyed most were all fairly straightforward:
- joining a one-day tour to the Phi Phi Islands from Phuket, looking out over that deep blue sea, and snorkeling in the water
- lying by the shore with a drink, doing nothing much except enjoying the breeze
- swimming in the hotel pool
- taking a night cruise on the Chao Phraya River
If there was one mistake in the schedule, it was this: we left too much time for Bangkok. We only spent two or three days in Phuket, and in hindsight that should have been the other way around. The ocean and the beaches deserved more time.
As for where we stayed, the first four nights were in a homestay near Bangkok University. We occasionally ate at the university cafeteria, which turned out to be both cheap and surprisingly good. Then we spent the next three days in Phuket at Dinsor Resort, a relatively new hotel that had only been open for a few years and felt worth the price. On the final day, we stayed back in Bangkok at the Pullman King Power Hotel and had a buffet breakfast there.
Thailand overall felt a bit cheaper than home, though spending really depends on how you travel. There were four of us on this independent trip, and for 8 days and 7 nights the total came to about 5,000 RMB per person.
Things that stood out
When we landed, we used a pre-booked airport pickup to get to the hotel. For transfers like that, it’s worth comparing prices across different platforms, including Fliggy, Ctrip, and Grab, and then just choosing the cheapest option. No matter which one you pick, it usually works out better than hailing a taxi on the spot. It also cuts down the chances of getting lost in translation or being driven the long way around.
From the car window, one thing became immediately obvious: there were Toyotas everywhere.
Bangkok traffic was no joke. At one point, a trip of only 4 kilometers took 40 minutes in the middle of the afternoon, a little after 3 p.m.
Walking through some of the larger malls in Bangkok could be disorienting in a funny way. Every now and then, it felt so familiar that I could almost forget I was abroad.
Food wasn’t really the highlight for me in the usual Thai-cuisine sense, but the fresh juices sold on the street absolutely were. Orange juice, pomegranate juice, passion fruit juice—I kept buying them and never got tired of them. Even after returning home, those were still on my mind.
Convenience stores are everywhere. 7-Eleven and FamilyMart are thriving in Thailand, to the point that seeing three different 7-Elevens within 200 meters doesn’t feel impossible. Day to day, that makes everything easy.
Outside the Great Firewall, YouTube loaded incredibly fast. Since that kind of speed is rare back home, it was hard not to binge while I had the chance.
Another small but memorable detail was in the bathrooms. Whether it was in hotels, shopping malls, or schools, nearly every toilet came with a spray hose. It works well as a cleaner and is far more practical than relying on a toilet brush. After getting back, I bought one for home too.
The king is treated with enormous reverence. Portraits of him are everywhere. Once, by chance, we encountered a royal motorcade on the road. Pedestrians were told to stand still by the roadside, and vehicles at the intersection were stopped completely.
And then there were the photos—some of the trip is probably best left to them.
