Tourism in Thailand

I hate it when people tell me Thailand is “too touristy (something I hear quite frequently). Not only because they fail to explain what they actually mean by that, or that the people who proclaim this are generally the same individuals who don’t speak more than a word or two of Thai, people who would be utterly lost without the tourist infrastructure they bemoan, but also because they are just plain wrong. Sure if you go to Kho San road in Bangkok, or the Pae Gate in Chiang Mai, or pretty much any of the small islands in the south, you will be surrounded by tourists. But if you take the time to walk ten minutes in any direction in one of these big cities you will quickly find yourself in another world, with locals gawking at you because they clearly are not used to seeing tourists.

After a few nights frequenting the backpacker and tourist joints in Chiang Mai some friends and I asked our hostel owner where she thought we should go out for the night. After ten minutes of walking we were a bit lost in an area completely devoid of English signs and English speakers. Fortunately with our five words of Thai we were directed towards the one guy in that neighborhood who spoke a bit of English, and he was able to set us back on course. When we arrived at the bar we were horribly out of place in our bro tanks and elephant pants, surrounded by well-dressed 20-35 year old Thai students and blue collar workers out for a night on the town.

Out of a hundred people packed into this bar we were the only tourists I was aware of. We saw two or three other white faces but they belonged not to tourists, but expats, most of whom spoke decent Thai and had been living in Chiang Mai for years. Thailand was full of amazing live music, but this bar was something special. Not only were they all wonderful musicians but they played with soul, making even the covers sound new with interesting and original arrangements. 
           But if you really want to get off the gringo trail and experience rural Thailand I recommend renting your own set of wheels. 200 baht or around 8 dollars a day will get you a semi-automatic 125 cc motorbike, and the countryside opens up to you in a new way. You could easily go weeks, months, or even years without seeing another tourist. I experiences this first hand during the 700 km epically beautiful Mae Hong Son loop leading me through national parks, water falls, hot springs, caves, and some of the best mountain roads and view points in the country, staying in rural villages that had never even heard the word guesthouse.

That being said Thailand does have their tourism game pretty figured out. Unless you are in a super rural area (and often even when you are) you can usually find someone who speaks a little English. You can show up somewhere at 11 pm and find some sort of cheap accommodations in most towns and cities after ten minutes of walking around and asking people, and it’s totally safe to do so. You can walk out of your hostel in Bangkok at 5 am and jump in a taxi 30 seconds later and be on your way to the airport. Every other shop and most guesthouses have tourist information and can sign you up for rafting, trekking or cooking classes, buy you bus or train tickets, and cook you an authentic Thai or western dinner.

So anyway I guess my point is Thailand is a big country with a lot of variety, and I don’t think that the fact that you can get a western meal in most big cities in addition to a plethora of authentic Thai food is necessarily a bad thing. If you want to stay in a five star hotel, you can, if you want to stay in a bungalow bamboo shack, you can, if you want to spend some time with a Thai family you can even sign up for a homestay. Thailand is a beautiful, diverse country, and like any other country it is what you make it. I think the people who proclaim Thailand to be too touristy never really took the time to explore it properly. So is Thailand to touristy, or are you too touristy?