Thailand: its culture and practices

This is my concluding post in the Thailand series on Preparing for, Eating at and Touring Thailand.
Here I list some of my observations regarding Thailand culture and its practices. Hopefully, they will be of use to people who plan to travel there.

About Thailand Hotels:

1. The hospitality industry doesn’t pander to you as the ones back in India do. Even at a 4-starred hotel you’d rarely find bell boys to help carry your luggage … neither during check-in nor check-out times.
2. The best of the hotels doesn’t provide you with shampoo bottles or soap bars. You’d find these provided in different soap dispensers in liquid form.
3. For the coffee and tea preparation in your room, you are daily provided with just the required number of coffee, tea and sugar sachets, not one more.
4. The toothbrush kit, when available, is of superior quality, similar to what you buy for your regular use.
5. Many a time you find, close to the reception area, free snacks and sweets available throughout the day for you to dip into for your hunger pangs.
6. Along with all the usual stuff, we found, in two of the hotels we stayed in, clean beach towels and umbrellas for the sudden torrents.
7. All three hotels we stayed in provided us with pin-drop silence and a peaceful night’s sleep.
8. Thankfully, the hotels are strict about smoking and non-smoking rooms and therefore my room didn’t have the smell of smoke hanging in the air.
9. Bottled water, one for each person each day, was provided free of cost in the hotels.
10. All the hotels have the check-in time at 2 pm and check-out at 12 noon. They allow you to store your luggage with them even after you check-out.
11. The hotels aren't really costly there and compare with those in India.
12. Of the three hotels we stayed in, Ibis, Krabi was the best experience and The Mailka, Phuket the least.Holiday Inn Express, Bangkok was a pretty good experience too. 

Other practices

1. As in India, Thailand too charges its foreign tourists higher than the local ones for entry to various tourist spots. For visitors from the West, the cost is a fraction of their currency but for the Indian tourists, it is multiplied by two and a half ( at current currency conversion rate). 

   

   Entrance ticket to one of the tourist sites.

2. Tissues are used abundantly. Not only do you find it in the bathroom in the form of toilet paper, but you also find boxes of tissues in the bathroom, at the dressing mirror, at your bedside…in short, everywhere. Being an avid tissue user, I really didn’t mind. The quality of tissue is also amazingly soft and not abrasive like the ones we find here.
3. Some hotels provide you with shuttle services to the beach every hour.
4. What saddens you though is the abundant use of thin plastic carry bags. Every time we shopped, we politely turned them down.
5. English is spoken or understood by very few. We  approached some school kids on the street for directions, assuming that, like in India, English is spoken by almost every school kid. But , no, they didn't understand the language either. 
6. The different modes of transport are the abundant cabs found on the street, the tuk-tuks (like our autos) and the sky train in Bangkok. Like in India, you can negotiate with the cab and tuk-tuk drivers.
7. Most of the cab drivers are swift and smart with their phone use. You name the place and you are quickly driven there. But you can never see where they drive you because guess what…the Google maps are also in Thai.
8. Bangkok airport has a complicated wi-fi connection system and takes 20-30 minutes to connect.
9. Most of the temples are of Buddha and you need to take off your shoes to enter a temple. You also need to make sure you cover your knees and shoulders before you do.
10. Most of the restaurants run till late in the night, almost round the clock with no breaks between lunch and dinner times.
11. Water isn’t available for free anywhere. You’d need to buy it.
12. Forex exchange kiosks are found almost everywhere.
13. The roads are free of troughs and craters and are very beautifully maintained.

I hope you find this list useful in guiding your preparations when you visit Thailand.