Of all the reasons I chose Thailand as my traveling destination, their reputation for spectacular beaches was at the top. Nothing soothes the mind quite like calmly walking along a white beach lined with palm trees as warm ocean water splashes gently against your feet. This is the paradise I wanted to find in Thailand – and I did. Of all the beaches I saw, these are the top three:
Khao San Road
Khao San Road is the most active and ethnically diverse street that I have ever seen. The place is open 24/7 – attracting backpackers and tourists from all corners of the Earth. During the day, it’s lined with absurd amounts of merchandise, travel agents, and blaring stereos. At night when the market closes, all the restaurants and bars open, allowing travelers to meet, greet and share traveling stories with each other.
The first thing I noticed about Khao San Road was the openness of everything. Since almost everyone there was traveling and had no time constraints, they were more than willing to chat for hours at a time. People were just “hanging out” without a care in the world about where they were going or what would happen next. It didn’t take long for this care-free attitude to rub off on me.
Throughout the Thailand travel forums I’ve seen a lot of people asking what to do during their first night in Bangkok. Based on my experience there, I’ll try to give first timers some advice and suggested places to go.
First of all, if you plan on staying in Thailand for longer than thirty days, you need to purchase a tourist visa from a Thai embassy in your country. A tourist visa permits you to stay in Thailand for sixty days. Since I decided to stay for six months, I purchased three tourist visas for a total of 180 days. You don’t actually receive three physical visas. The embassy will attach a visa card to your passport and mark it with the number of sixty day entries you bought. Each tourist visa costs $40.00 CAD (In October, 2007).
