Information
This guide is spread over several parts:
It is also available as a PDF, and is accompanied by a Thai language cheat sheet.
Living in Guangzhou provides me with the opportunity of exploring parts of the world far removed from what I call ‘home’. Much of South-East Asia is temptingly within my fingertips and fortunately a lot of low-cost airlines have sprouted up. One just happens to fly from Macau (a few hours South of Guangzhou) to Bangkok. Perfect. A few clicks later, the usual ‘don’t press anything otherwise we’ll bill you twice’ credit card waiting screen, and I have a flight.
The question now is simple: what do I do when I’m there?
The obvious answer is to buy a Lonely Planet and dutifully follow its recommendation. The only trouble is, I can’t find an English one in Guangzhou.
No sweat, there’s always the internet.
It’s at this stage you realise how hopelessly inadequate the internet is. Sure there are hundreds of travel sites and guides and countless agents trying to sell you things, but there’s very little concrete information upon which you can plan a holiday.
It’s very easy to spend several days in a haze of frustration as you try and cobble something together. I did just that. Internal flights were looked at, along with varying scales of hotels, tours, popular destinations, reviews, forums, and tips. Out of all this an indistinct picture was formed. Hotels and flights were eventually booked, and the plan was put into action. Airport food was consumed, mistakes were made, and fun was had.
So ends the holiday.
So why tell me?
After returning back to China I decided to put my experiences into words and provide an informal (and very limited) guide to Thailand. This is that guide, and it is an assimilation of lots of information, condensed into a form that may be useful to potential visitors of Thailand.
Basically I’ve decided to branch out into sub-standard travel guides.
You can download this guide as a PDF, along with a Thai language cheatsheet, containing useful words and phrases.
Map courtesy of Nations Online
Cool! Wish I had gone there.
I liked the human touch – the bits about real people, real problems, real solutions, what you liked and disliked. Facts and descriptions left me cold.
Nicely laid out, nicely written.
I’m learning (VERY slowly) Mandarin over the internet (Skype) at the moment. One day I might get to visit China.
Yeh, I also live here in GZ, and am hoping to do a similar thing next month… although I plan to get the train through Vietnam and Cambodia first, and then stop in Thailand for a while, before flying back to Macao on a similar flight that you took. Be interested to know how much your flights cost. Anyway, cheers for the site.
Sounds like a great trip Joseph, wish I could do that same. I can’t remember the exact price of the flight to Macau, but Air Asia is going to be the cheapest airline and if you get it reserved early enough you’ll find a very cheap flight.
Hi, I’m here for WordPress stuff but came across to this page somehow 🙂
I noticed some mistake in "Thai language cheatsheet"
in Eating section,
I don’t eat
beef = nua voa (mostly "nua")
pork = muu
chicken = gai
egg = khai
fish = plaa
prawn = kung (koong)
crab = puu
seafood = ahaan-talay (ahaan=food, talay=sea)
I love to read how foreigner think about Thai people and our country 😀
Thanks for the fixes! I’ve updated the PDF
It’d be like this…
——-
I don’t eat… = mai thaan …
beef = nua voa
pork = muu
chicken = gai
egg = khai
fish = plaa
prawn = kung
crab = puu
seafood = ahaan-talay
——-
*note*
meat = nua
but Thai people usually call beef (nua voa) for just "nua"
this really confused me when I was a kid. lol
Nice. Yours was the first found with a google for ‘Thai language cheat sheet’.
Note: your download for Taming Thailand is really the Thai Language Cheat Sheet. The name is correct. The innards, not.
Thx for the info John.
Anyway, have you tried one of the most well-known dishes from Thailand, a bowl of piping hot, spicy, sour, and highly addictive Tom Yum soup?
Hey I want to tell you that some of the thai word are wrong. And i know that because I am Thai, so please fine the correct one and change it.
Please feel welcome to suggest corrections!