[Music] I've been traveling and living in Thailand for over 16 years and I see the same mistakes over and over again and in today's video I have a long list of mistakes not to make when you come to this beautiful country I've also got a load of mistakes that you guys my followers have told me that you guys see other Travelers other tourists making when they come to the beautiful country of Thailand these mistakes will save you face save you money and save you stress and just make your whole trip to Thailand more comfortable for you and more importantly the people who call this country home let me show you right this is how an ATM machine works in Thailand it's completely different to how you would do it back home firstly obviously you put your card in that's normal then you put your PIN code in choose the language choose how much money you want let's just say we want to have 500 B money comes out first there's my money then there's a long pause there's a long pause and then my ATM card comes out it's cash first card second and I cannot tell you how many people have told me oh my God Patty uh can you do me a favor can I borrow some cash because I went to the cash point and I withdrew 10,000 back and I forgot to get my card and the card machine ate my card when you're tired when you're hung over when you're jet lagged when your mind is thinking about what you want for lunch and you're not concentrating when you go to the ATM you put your card in you press 10,000 bar enough money for the next 2 weeks and you take the money and that's fine you put the money in your wallet or you put it in your pocket and you walk off 10 seconds later the card comes out you've just walked off because you're not thinking straight you're not used to having to wait for the car to come out it's so easy to start walking back to your hotel and not realize till you get home that you don't have your bank card the card machine ate it and now you have to wait for days maybe weeks for your new one to get sent to you in the post and you're locked out of your account and you're just stressed out and then you start have to asking people to borrow money this happens so often the next biggest mistake that I see so many people make and this is so sad and heartbreaking for me to witness because I love Thailand and as you can see it's a beautiful blue sunny day here but it's the mistake of coming to Thailand at the wrong time of year and not getting the weather that you expecting obviously Thailand is tropical it's beautiful it's exotic it's famous for beaches Sunshine delicious food but the weather will play such a huge part in your trip especially if you're coming with kids if you're coming to relaxed by the pool or on the beach there are people who come to Thailand with their family in the August summer holidays and they book A Week in a hotel in puket not knowing that it's the middle of the monsoon season rains every day flooding landslides disaster terrible weather and they're miserable and they go home and they vow never to come back and it's just because they came at the wrong time of year same as if you're going to Northern Thailand I recently got an email from a subscriber he said Patty I'm thinking about doing a northern Thailand motorcycle trip in April and I said dude don't bother number one it's 45° in April you'll melt and secondly it's the Smoky season the views of the mountains will be non-existent because of the pollution from neighboring countries as well as other areas of Thailand burning crops loads of smoke and toxic air if you do need a video about the rainy season I'll link one I made in the description it will tell you everything about where it is when it happens and if you are coming to Thailand during rainy season cuz you have no other option how to best enjoy it I'll link that below the third biggest mistake and the one that just really stands out like a sore thumb here in Thailand is when you know foreigners who don't live in Thailand walking around completely inappropriately in terms of the way they're dressed and I'm not really talking about women here yes you should cover up if you're going to the temples ladies but they normally provide with songs and there are normally lots of signs outside because you know the monks have a specific lifestyle and going in there showing your cleavage and your legs will be very distracting and disrespectful to that culture that's kind of basic right everybody knows that but guys do not walk around bangco or anywhere really with this shirt off I know it's hot I know you've got a six-pack I know you look great for your age and you want to show off and you don't want your shirt to be soaking wet because you're walking in the heat but it's very very in appropriate makes thae people very uncomfortable you stick out like a sore thumb take it off when you're by the pool by the beach obviously there are places you can do it totally normal anywhere where you're enjoying the ocean swimming by the pool but you don't walk into the buffet breakfast at the fivestar hotel where your shirt off you're in Thailand it makes people feel uncomfortable this is a very modest very conservative country believe it or not I know it's a bit confusing with the lady boy culture with the nlife culture but those cultures are condensed and controlled into very small areas sometimes just one Street in an entire city will be Lawless in terms of other rules and so you might think well how can you know that be okay but I can't walk down the the street with my shirt off 99. 9% of this country is conservative Buddhist Muslim and they think it's completely inappropriate to show way too much skin especially dudes walking around with your shirt off don't do it it makes everyone I promise you it makes everyone including me uncomfortable I mean not me I don't feel uncomfortable but I think God the Thai people must hate us when I see foreigners walking around with their shirt off please don't do that okay now it's the time where I'm going to read through some of the responses from you guys about mistakes that you've made but just quickly before I do I want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of this video behind me you can see my beautiful website this is pad doyle. info and I made it using Squarespace and if you need a website for your business or for your blog or whatever it might be Squarespace has an incredible discount for you it's completely free to go onto Squarespace and build your website now you don't have to be a graphic designer a web designer to build one in fact they've got these new features now where they use AI to help you build your website within a few minutes by answering a few questions they're designed in intelligence program can build your website and generate a beautiful personalized online presence in just a few clicks it's really easy to then amend the text change the fonts add your own color schemes obviously put your own pictures all your videos onto the 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you've made yourselves whilst you've been in Thailand so an atore Co Samui says speaking loudly and this comes up a lot in the responses about noise levels and it's so true it is inappropriate here in Thailand to make a lot of noise even in places where you would think it would be okay for example I've got some friends who go to my gym and they recently went to what was it called uh the class where you all get together Grid it's a bit like CrossFit and they're American and they've been living in Thailand for a year and it was the first time they went to this class and they were cheering and they were high-fiving and they were you know trying to encourage themselves as well as other people in the group and after the session the personal trainer who was leading it came over and said listen we've had some complaints you're making too much noise don't shout and motivate people and don't make a loud noise stop being loud stop being annoying just do your workout breathe deeply be quiet and listen to the instruction and work out with everyone else and I think that's a good example of you should not be making a loud noise especially in public well that's pretty much the main stem of it right here in Bangkok for example if you go on the BTS the sky train or the MRT underground it's polite to keep quiet if you do need to speak speak softly and don't make it a loud conversation that everyone on the train can hear and obviously be quiet around temples and just in general Tai people prefer the quiet life and keep that in mind Scott Kilmore 357 again this one came up a lot packing too much this is so true and look you might be coming to Thailand for two weeks and I see Backpackers who are young make this mistake you will quickly learn especially if you come to Thailand you don't need to pack an outfit for every day of your two week trip if you're coming for two weeks you only really need four pairs of underwear four t-shirts and two pairs of shorts and then a couple of pairs of socks and then you just do laundry the laundry places here in Thailand are everywhere and they're so cheap you can either go to those kind of places where you just do it yourself or you can just give it to your hotel or your guest house and they'll just do it for you relatively cheaply lugging around all that heavy luggage all those clothes that you won't wear you'll just wear your favorite two or three t-shirts on rotation and keep washing them you'll keep doing the laundry and you'll have loads of stuff at the bottom of your suitcase that you'll never dig out because you just keep doing laundry every four 5 days and so don't overpack save a lot of money on luggage as well these next few have come up the most okay these are the ones that came up three four five times from different people and the first one is not downloading a app like grab um guys they don't have Uber here if you download an app like grab which is I think really simple to set up you link it to your bank account when you get here you can order a motorbike taxi you can order a taxi and you can get across the city reasonably quickly another quick thing I would add on top of that is relying on taxes too much there is the BTS there is the MRT trying to get from one side of Bangkok to the other is so much easier so much cheaper and so much faster on public transport but because you're a tourist you might never have been to Bangkok it might seem overwhelming to the train systems and the ticket systems it's really simple and straightforward I promise you recently my girlfriend's friend from Singapore came over and he was in re coming to our house and on the BTS Sky Train it would have taken him 12 minutes or 15 minutes but because he decided to jump in a taxi it took him 2 hours in the traffic so please don't make this mistake it's a big mistake it will save you so much time here in Bangkok another one that came up a lot is disrespecting Tha nature and the wildlife now the main issues that I see when I'm traveling around this country where people are disrespecting nature and the Animals here is in two main areas one is elephant riding elephant riding still happens in places like bati even in changai still sometimes in pouquet I've seen it I made this mistake when I first came to Thailand I went elephant riding in changai as part of a 3-day hiking tour back in 2008 years later I watched a documentary on YouTube and learned that this is a terrible practice and it's awful for the animals especially the the little baby elephants is so sad so no longer is it common place to ride elephants but it still happens so please don't ride the elephants or at least go learn about why you shouldn't and then the other one is coral reefs and littering in the ocean I see so many tourists on scuba diving trips or snorkeling trips where people who aren't experienced or very good at swimming they've got their life jackets on and then I look and their feet and flippers are kicking the corals they're kicking the fish they're splashing around on the surface they don't know what they're doing and they're not being respectful to the corals and they're damaging and killing the animals there and I also see people throwing litter off the side of the boats when they're on their trips so if you're going in the ocean be mindful of your surroundings please don't touch and damage the corals it's sadly so widespread it drives me mad so don't be that person do yourself a favor and get a local SIM card you can get them at the airport you can get them in 7-Eleven um you're better off getting an eim though you can download that and install it into your phone before you even get to Thailand and you can get really good deals and if you need to top up you can do it on the app I'll leave a link in the description to a good eim uh deal I have a discount for one of the brands I've got a few discounts actually I'll put them all in the description for you cuz none of them are sponsoring this particular video but that's okay Bob Jim Barbara how are you doing my love she says only staying in the touristy areas and this topic came up a lot as well in the responses a lot of people who come to Thailand stick to Bangkok puket Co Samui and changai they're the big hot spots and there is nothing wrong with going to those places it's your holiday but it is a mistake because just open up Google Maps look at the 77 provinces and start zooming in or go watch some content on my channel and you know look for hidden gems and just look for places that are away from these main hotpots Thailand is incredibly beautiful in every single corner of the country you just need to get out there and find it Maja says avoid tourist traps now this one is obvious but it's quite difficult to know when you're in a tourist trap until sometimes it's too late sometimes I find myself in a situation where it looks cool I've paid a bit of money to get in and I quickly realize it's a tourist trap and everything is built up to get money out of you from the souvenir stores to the drinks and the food being overpriced this happens all over the world not just in Thailand but you will find there are some places where you know it got popular on Instagram it got popular online and then it just became overrun with tourists and the locals decided to you know make some money make a quick Buck Jenna VR we she said that renting a scooter if they've never driven one or practiced and getting tourist tattoos now tourist tattoos doesn't mean actual ink on your skin it means grazes and cuts and bruises from crashing your scooter in Thailand by law you're supposed to have a license and you're supposed to wear a helmet but they're not in forced a lot of places here in Thailand especially on the island and even up north in changai they'll let you rent a scooter they'll let you rent a bike without having to prove you have a license you might have to them pay a fine to the police if you get pulled over but the fine just lets you carry on you can still drive a motorcycle with the fine in your pocket and so what that means is everybody rents scooters and not everybody has a good level of experience or any experience and they tend to crash on the gravel break too fast um just general basic mistakes I crashed my motorcycle um many times when I was first learning to drive and I crashed in P I crashed in trumon and I crashed in Bangkok and I hurt and bruised myself on every occasion if you are going to rent a scooter and you've never done it before make sure you take yourself to a very quiet neighborhood at car park a very quiet street and just go up and down practice turning practice parking practice stopping practice braking wear a helmet and be careful and make sure you're not driving around with your flip flops and loads of skin exposed because if you do come off you're going to get the Thai tourist tattoos just in re says rushing around and this comes up all over the place and you know people say don't rush don't come for too short of a time at least come for 4 weeks that's easier said than done some people only have a certain amount of holiday time vacation days but I do agree rushing around if you've got two weeks I remember I met these couple of girls from New York and I met them in pi and they were doing Bangkok changai Pi Kos Samui and kopang yyang full moon party and scuba diving at in cotal then going back to Bangkok and that was in a twoe trip and I was like wow they didn't have a minute to breathe they were having a lot of travel days getting from one part of Thailand to the other takes 3 to four to 6 hours even if you're flying obviously takes a lot longer if you getting an overnight train or a bus so if you're going to six or seven locations in a 2E trip you're going to be spending about 2 or 3 days of that trip traveling to those locations pick two or three places and stay longer in each one Jen's fitness journey says thinking Patong Beach represents puket and I think this topic is General in terms of it applies to not just other areas of Thailand but it applies to anywhere that you're going if you're going to be going to somewhere like kopang yyang for example there is hadrin and there's that beautiful beach there where they do the full moon party and it's packed and it's so busy and and it's full of tourists Backpackers young people getting drunk and having the time of their life but on the other side of the island on Zen Beach and in the north are pristine beaches quiet cafes and a real hippie neighborhood and it's very social and it's very together and it's very relaxing so you've got one side of the island which is party party thumping music and then the other side is all Zen and puket is no exception it's the biggest island in time land and Patong is the busiest area but it's absolutely overrun with tourists it's got the dodgy nightlife scene and yes you can go nearby and find your own little slice of paradise but you really have to get on the other side of puket up on the North or on the marina or down south in Rai Nan area and that's where you'll see a much more quiet and beautiful part of the island this way out says that thinking Cowan Road is the whole of Bangkok and I literally have been dedicating this channel since the start of this year to basically trying to show people that there is more to this beautiful city of Bangkok than just getting drunk on Cowan Road because that's what I thought Bangkok was I didn't know there was a world outside of Cowan for the first three or four years that I used to come to Thailand I used to land in Bangkok get drunk on csan road and then go somewhere else but hopefully if we've been watching the videos on this channel recently you'll know that this city is incredible and has Untold areas and neighborhoods with so much food so much adventure and so much culture JSP says being disrespectful to the Thai local culture and we talked about this earlier with you know walking around with your shirt off and just generally you know walking and showing off your skin and stuff like that in places where it's not really accepted we did touch on that at the beginning of the video but it is true there are other local Customs there are other cultures here where it would be seen you know insensitive to do the basics wrong for example you should never touch a tie person on their head you should never point at something with your feet you should never put your feet up on the chair I just got a flight the other day to Chang Ma and this american guy next to me just in the gate put his feet up on the chair in front of me and exposed his dirty shoes and the tie people looked around in disgust and I just I wanted to go over and tell him like don't put your feet up like that you're not at home and this is in Thailand you know showing the the soles of your feet is rude touching someone's head is rude and there are a few other things that you should be aware of before you come to Thailand a quick Google search a quick little bit of research will let you know what you should and what you shouldn't do Nal travel she's got such a good one here she says assuming that things will go to plan in Southeast Asia you should always expect some hustle and you should expect some delays and you should expect some stress I made this mistake especially the first few years that I traveled here if the bus says it leaves at 10:00 it's not going to leave at 10:00 it's going to leave when the bus is full or if the train is supposed to arrive at 1:15 it might arrive at 7:30 4 and a 6 hours later right it's Thai Time Thailand is not punctual this is not Japan this is a country where things happen at the pace that they happen whereas if you come from the West we're used to things being on time and if they're not we should get something back for it a discount or some kind of apology here in Thailand if something's late if something's running behind if your room's not ready to check in at 1: p.
m. but it's said on booking.
