Post One (The First Five Pages

This is an Island of Sand Publication. Published August 2009 (First Edition)
Thailand Travel Kit: Huts, Trip Itineraries, and Tips for the Budget or Upscale Tourist by a Thailand Insider who has lived in Thailand for Eight Years and Spent Two of Those Years on the Islands: Might Save You the Cost of the Book On Your First Day.

By Jack B. Wily

Let it be stated clearly in the beginning. Opinions expressed about places stayed and restaurants eaten in and about Thailand in general or about any other operations or people are the opinions of the author only. Any resemblances of characters to living people are strictly coincidental.
DAY ONE
Preliminary Note: I have tried to put together a linked table of contents for the Kindle, but the nature of this writing and its informal style means that some info is scattered here and there; and, one difference between the Kindle and a book is still that you can’t flip through the pages of a Kindle. If you are planning to go to Thailand, as I imagine you are, I would advise keeping a small notebook to make notes of information that it might be necessary to memorize. Much of this writing is a kind of travel wisdom, that having read will be in your mind, and I will link place names and info that I think are key with the table of contents, but if you see something of particular interest that you might forget I suggest making a note (or a kindle bookmark if you have one), perhaps marking the DAY (I have divided the sections based loosely on the day they were written, but they do tend to pertain to certain topics in a somewhat linear fashion.). The DAYS will be listed in the table of contents, along with some sections such as FOOD. The rest you can read and amaze your friends, or other-half with your seemingly insider knowledge of tourism in Thailand. I hope this Kindle book (or the book edition) is of value in your travels and would like to hear any input you might have. I will put an email contact in the table of contents.
The knowledge gleamed from this book, combined with a standard guide book such as Lonely Planet (I plan to check and see if there is a kindle edition as the one I have was written in 2001 and states that there is no electricity on Elephant Island; if you go there this will give you an idea of just how much has changed in eight years; there is electricity all over Elephant Island. I wouldn’t consider coming to Thailand with an outdated used edition.), should allow you to enjoy your trip more and perhaps save some money or misfortune. Forgive me if the organization of this first edition appears somewhat convoluted. I think you will find, if you tolerate this, that you will come across tidbits extremely useful to travel in Thailand. Especially, take a look at the Southern Thailand Itinerary diary and the descriptions of hikes and kayak trips on islands covered that are in the table of contents/index. You may notice at times that I do not give exact logistics for places I mention, but you will find that they are almost all delineated in other parts of the book or in summaries that are in the table of contents. Have patience. Again, I recommend making bookmarks on your Kindle of things of interest or annotating a small notebook with the same if you have the book edition. Do this before you leave home. A Final Note: Do not attempt to use this like you might a standard travel guide by looking only through the table of contents or index. For example the Tiger Huts category in the indexed table of contents will bring you to some information about Tiger Huts. However, if you read the book through once as a story you will catch other tidbits throughout about these huts. Some of the information is of the kind that will stick in your head. For this kind of general information I may not have included it in the table of contents. General advice might fit into this category. For example, if I write that Thais don’t drink water from the tap because it is of questionable quality, and instead buy bottles of water, you may not find it indexed. NOTE: I have broken chapters into writing days, but considering rewriting and editing and indexing, etc., each day is about three days of work.

Rather than insert photos, I have chosen to post photography that is linked only to places mentioned in this book at http://jack.islandofsand.googlepages.com For personal questions received by email, unless they are somehow ... personal ... I will post answers in a Thailand Questions and answer blog at: http://Thailandhuts.blogspot.com

You can email specific questions to islandofsand@yahoo.com

This guide is written by a fiction writer and is told partially in anecdotal form. But each story in this case is real and if you spend an hour or so, I can promise it will save you the cost of the book before you finish your first day in paradise. After that it’s up to you—how much you read and think about the little stories.
I was once taken to Hawaii on a company trip with a Japanese firm. My way was paid and it was all planned out and I probably didn’t have much interest in the plan. But I saw some of Hawaii and I saw a few things pertinent to this story. I saw a lady with a taxi station wagon charging five bucks to get back into Honolulu (this was about 15 years ago) from about a mile outside the city. I was waiting at a public bus stop for a bus that charged a quarter. She was picking up Japanese mostly who, considering the fare in Japan for a taxi and with their strong currency, weren’t that concerned about five bucks, but after an hour sitting in her taxi, riding down to the beach and waiting, and then stopping at every other place along the way, all of them were screaming. “Don’t take this car ... it’s a rip-off!” They were happy to pay five bucks but when this lady waited to fill up her station wagon like a can of sardines, they had had enough. I had lived in Japan at that time for about fifteen years and I felt sorry for them. And when you come to Thailand the Thais will understandably look upon you as being rich if you are from any developed country. In many cases you will find great service and great places, but it is best to be aware that they will try to charge you as much as they can in some instances and to be on guard. Ask prices before you eat if you don’t see them on a menu.
We will try to write this guide with stories that are pertinent to certain areas, as you might find in a traditional tourist guide with sections on food and places to stay and stuff like that, but as I said it is in an anecdotal form, so the stories that follow are somewhat mixed up.
When you arrive at the airport you may take a taxi. Nowadays the taxis at the airport are generally metered and there should not be a problem, but I would ask about the meter and look for it in the taxi. It used to be common practice for the taxi driver to quote a price that was about five times the metered rate. OK, today most of the taxis at the airport are metered, so how does this help me? This will help you when you travel around in Thailand by taxi, as some will stop and quote an outrageous rate when they are not controlled by the government of Thailand as they are currently at the airport. I have been in Thailand for seven years and I still get picked off by taxi drivers who tell me they want three hundred baht for a seventy-five baht metered trip. Taxi trucks stop and ask me for a few hundred for a thirty baht trip. It is a nation of extremes. Sometimes I take a truck and a driver will carefully hand me back two baht out of a ten-baht coin for an eight-baht trip. I admire these guys, but I have been stuck paying an extra hundred baht because I wanted to go two hundred meters further than the taxi-truck route. I look upon the honest drivers as true allies. Then again we are tourists and we do have more money, so push it as far as you feel comfortable with.
Let me start out by saying that this guide is a guide aimed at saving cash, that I, a starving writer with a hankering for month long trips am interested in this topic. This guide is targeted at people who take long-term trips, but the info can be useful for the tourists who stay a week or ten days. No one likes paying more than is necessary. Am I right? On the other hand people with planned stays of ten to fourteen days can take some of the more strict financial advice with a grain of salt and they should. For us a special dinner is five hundred baht for two. If you are here on a more standard length of trip—and five hundred baht is still about 15 dollars—then obviously this amount for a deluxe meal is still a bargain. Of course, it still may depend on your ... (to be continued in seven days)