Even though I was born in Thailand, I have probably forgotten about my birth country and honestly don’t know much about it. And because I have dual nationality, I thought I would give myself some knowledge about the country I love so much, but yet, know so little about it. What you are about to read is mostly from the top of my head because I want to share my own knowledge more than researching them.
Firstly, the flag for the Kingdom of Thailand has five horizontal stripes in three colours, red, white and blue. These colours stand for nation, religion and king.
I usually get confused with the colours when I shouldn’t be, only knowing the obvious that the blue in the middle is twice the size of red and white. When I was at school in Khon Kaen, I remembered that every morning we had to stand in the school field facing the flag and sing the national anthem song while the flag was being pulled up on its post. I admired how Thai people have time to do this, shows strong tradition in the culture and the love for the king.
I somehow remembered being taught that Thailand many, many years ago used to be called Siam. The country is surrounded by Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and the Andaman Sea.
Where Britain has a queen, Thailand has a king named Bhumibol Adulyadej. He is the 9th king who’s the world’s longest serving head of state since 1946. Before this moment in time, Thai people respect the king so much you’d be surprised. I can’t really explain how unbelievable is it but the wrist bands I have on all the time shows my worthiness for the king. He has done so much for our country and this is the least we can do to show him that “we love our king”. I visited Thailand 3 years ago and pupils in public schools had give up Fridays of school uniform to wear yellow polo t-shirt with some kind of symbol related to the king.
In case you haven’t notice in the news recently, Thailand isn’t very stable like it used to be anymore. Ever since the ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ruin our country by dividing people in to red shirts and yellow shirts against our current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the king. Thaksin Shinawatra escaped Thailand to London but even then manages to form red shirts protesters with his words and money. Why can’t he just leave us in peace rather than making promises so that some empty-headed people will help him cause violence? He’s probably relaxing in front of the TV laughing how he controlled stupid people in to doing what he wants even when he’s not in the country to that much of damage. Let’s go off this subject before this whole blog becomes all about the government!
Amazing Thailand? Haven’t you heard about this already? Thailand is known as the land of smiles. Personally, I think this only applies to foreigners but then again it’s like me whose always give out friendly smiles. We are very popular for the main religion, Buddhism, with our famous Buddha, monks and beautiful temples. I was more than once couldn’t enter religious places with shorts on. They don’t allow revealing tops or shoes either, but in tourist places you can’t always be prepared when the country is like 40 degrees odd.
Saying hello or greeting there is different. Instead of shaking hands and spreading germs, a Thai person would put both palms together, position them at the centre of their chest and bow their head facing the person they are greeting with their nose almost or touching the tip of their figures. When someone do this gesture to you, it would be reasonable do the same back unless you are an older person or an elderly.
The Thai traditional costumes vary throughout the country. There are four parts in Thailand, I think? There’s the main part or the centre, the north, the south and the north-east. They all have similarities but all represents their own part with different textures and decorations. Most traditional clothing comes with Thai traditional music and dance, unless you go in the Thai restaurant where you see the waitresses with pretty dresses on. They are basically showing of the textures and patterns and if you are Thai like me, you can usually tell which part they are representing.
Food, food, food. Where I come from, we eat major spicy food. Chillies are one of Thailand’s main exports. When you think you’ve ate something spicy, you really haven’t unless you come to my house! No? But seriously, Thailand is famous for the most hot and spicy foods. My mum told me, people eat chillies so that they feel they need to eat rice and survive, makes sense to me! Cooked rice are served in every meal because that’s our main thing, it helps to fill you right up and not just because it tastes nice. Well, maybe that too but the proper reason is that when you eat you eat to the full and rice does that to you.
If you ever visit Thailand one day, don’t ever miss the chance to taste our exotic fruits! They are not at all hard to find. In fact, they are everywhere in every season. People sell different kind of fruits on the side of the roads throughout the country (no joke) so you can never ever miss out on good tummy fillings!
You’d be glad to know that money there is less than here in Britain, which mean that you can spend more for less. The currency in Thailand is baht. There are 25 and 50 satang coins which are very small and no one really uses them much these days. Coins come in one, five and ten baht pieces and this year I noticed that two baht are back in use again but it’s confusing when they’re just slightly bigger in the same silvery colour. The notes vary in size and colour according to denomination. Every note has the face of the king on them; 20 baht is green, 50 baht is blue, 100 baht is red, 500 baht is purple and 1000 baht is white. There used to be 10 baht note which was in brown, even 1 baht note too but they are very rare. My great auntie framed all the Thai notes which are very cool when you see how old they are and you wonder if they still exist.
I would like to suggest some places if you’re thinking that Thailand is your future holiday destination. The capital city is Bangkok and that’s where your flight will land first so before going off to the beach, I recommend everyone to check out the city. I’ve been a country girl all my life, living in a small town in the countryside and now in Aberdeen, another small town. Going in to Bangkok is like going in to London but way bigger, more traffic and skinny people. The city is so busy and full of tall buildings, I actually thought I was in Japan! Also don’t ever drive a car yourself because you will 99.9% of the time, get totally lost!
So maybe you preferred to be in your bikini, getting tanned and watch the beautiful sunset etc. Pattaya is a great place with breathtaking sea sights and unbelievable night clubs but it is one of the most dangerous parts. When I was there earlier this year, I spotted a European man lying on the road, sleeping? Or was he so drunk that he couldn’t get back to his room and probably lost everything he owned?
Yes, you should be scare. Everywhere you go there will always be people trying to squeeze your money out the wallet. So you should take me as your personal guide… No? For best beaches, you should definitely go down south to Phuket and get on the boats to the islands! For cultural view and waterfalls, you should turn around and go north to Chiang Mai! To visit me, you should come to the north east, Khon Kaen. I could go on about all the cities and how they are different and unique etc. but I’m not going to. That, I will leave you readers to get excited about!