Thailand - first impressions

When we are in a very different country, it does feel we are living much more than the days and hours we spend there, right? It's all new and our senses are stimulated all the time. I've been writing a lot since I arrived, but will just publish a small post written yesterday for now.

"After 2 days in Thailand, I obviously don't have a good cultural picture, but I'll try to draw my first impressions.

a) Sense of privacy is very different here. Many times, people have their business at home and consequently naturally ignore the concept of business hours, working much longer (as well, they seem to expect we understand they might be busy at 1p.m. watching their favourite soap opera and therefore will take longer to serve your lunch). In addition, they naturally approach tourist with question like "where are you from?", "where did you buy your scarf?", "how much did you pay to get here?" and so on.

b) Thai people are really friendly. 80% of the time they are genuinely helpful and in 20% of the occasions they expect some benefit from you - it's not only that straight forward to tell one from the other, though.

c) Finally, Thai people tend to be very, very reverent to both religion and the monarchy. We can see mainly Buddhist symbols everywhere - temples, houses and car mirrors. Equally, pictures of the king and queen are commonly seen in public and private buildings, and the anthem is played at 6p.m. in every park and bus station in the country.

After the coast and the big city, I'll head to the rural and mountaneous areas to experiment the simplicity and spirituality of the north (probably some hard time in comfort and communication as well). I'm loving it so far!"