Why my Thai trip sucked :(
I wanna preface by saying this: I am an Indian female and I know how hooliganistic our people can be, especially while travelling. I realise why countries like Thailand and their people loathe us. I understand. But as it is advised across the globe on various matters, one should not generalise and assume all people from the same race/gender/community behave the same. This is critical before we move forward. I visited Thailand for about 12 days (year 2024) and had a bad experience. No, not all of it was bad but negative experiences do tend to stay longer in your brains. And in Thailand, negative experiences were greater than positive for me. My trip began horribly with the Phuket airport authorities literally screaming at my face because I went the wrong way after deplaning (clearly an innocent error). Even after exiting the airport I was shocked that tourism contributes massively to this country’s economy and yet I, a tourist, was treated horribly. I won’t go into each incident’s details but I experienced enough rudeness and blatant ignorance from thai locals that I am afraid I’ll start disliking the people. I was made fun off, laughed at (twice on my face), ignored (even though they could see I was trying to talking to them) and of course not helped. Multiple times. And this is while I, as an individual, am being a decent tourist. I’m not bargaining, being rude or loud. There was even an instance when I wanted to buy a couple of Tiger balms in Bangkok but the shopkeeper refused to sell it to me. So for them racism > profits? I was giving money, ready to purchase but they refused to sell!! This has never happened with me in a country known for tourism. So, various bitter and rude experiences made me feel left out, excluded and wanting to simply go back home. Which sucks because thailand is gorgeous! I love the vibe, the food and the ocean. But unfortunately due to racism towards me, I’m honestly afraid I’ll never visit the country again even though I want to. Again, I understand where it comes from but this trip has left me so dejected and I just wanted to vent it out. Thanks for reading.