Thailand: First Impressions

After some tiring days, I finally arrived in Bangkok on the 21^st of July at 8pm.

Getting lost at the airport and then at the airport rail link wasn’t bad, security and police were very helpful and I easily made it to the hostel after all.

But Thailand, and Bangkok specifically, did surprise me!

Here are the few surprises that I got to encounter in my first few hours in Bangkok!

Thailand drives on the wrong (left) side of the road!

I don’t know why but I never expected Thailand to drive on the left side of the road, walking through the narrow side street to my hostel it surprised me when cars were getting in my direction while walking on my right hand side.

Thailand is less conservative than I thought it would be!

Coming from Egypt and hitting Bangkok, I thought it would be more conservative than it is. But I was wrong, men are in their shorts, women wear shorts and short skirts as well! Again I don’t know why but I thought it wouldn’t be like this…

Thai people smile! All the time!

Now this one I heard of before. I read all over the internet how Thai people are always smiling and are really nice people. Yet it surprised me, it is way more, and way nicer, than I have expected it!

It is not as crowded as I thought it would be!

Now this one I can’t really say I’m sure of, since I haven’t been on the streets for so long. It IS kind of crowded, but I was thinking it would be more like Cairo, with endless traffic and it could easily take up to one hour to get from one place to the next, but this isn’t very true here.

Street food! More street food!

I also heard and read a lot about street food in Thailand, and I thought it would be similar to Egypt, with every other street having one or two vendors. But I never thought that all along your walk, wherever you go, you’ll find street food being sold! With vendors aggregating beside each other!

The street that had my hostel…and an evening/night food market!

The reggae scene is HUGE!

This is also another thing that I have never expected, but the reggae scene, at least in Bangkok, is huge! With many people with dreads and rastas, and more shops selling Bob Marley’s face on anything you can imagine. 

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Have you been to Bangkok? What were your first impressions when you arrived here and what surprised you?