Often when I tell people that my interests include Thailand their reaction can be varied. Some people are interested but others have their own ideas what a Thailand has to offer the holiday maker and what they should expect if they ever travelled there. Through out my 10 years of travel in the Thailand I have encountered both the positive and negative side of this Kingdom but overall I have nothing but positive things to say about Thailand and its people. Thailand is far from perfect and a short search on the internet will soon show you this, but what country is perfect?

Not so long ago I met up with a friend who had just returned from their holiday of a lifetime to Thailand. Her plan was to spend some time in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, Phi Phi and Phuket to enjoy all that Thailand had to offer. Jungle trekking in the north of Chiang Mia, scuba diving in the south and the cosmopolitan city of Bangkok, it all sounded an ideal holiday to me. During her four weeks I would imagine she would have met many Thai people and gained an insight into Thai life and seen how another culture lived, maybe even picked up a few Thai words on the way. Thai people love to talk especially if it means practising their English.

When I met up with his friend I was eager to get her holiday stories and to find out what she thought about the country I have grown to love. My excitement was short lived when I heard her say that her overall impression of Thailand was ‘dirty’. I just couldn’t believe this, after 4 weeks of tropical rainforests, eastern culture, coral reefs, white sandy beaches glorious sunshine her first adjective of to describe Thailand the land of smiles was dirty’.

Sitting for a few minutes in stunned silence I listened as she described what her holiday actually entailed. The more she discussed her travels the more I lightened up and the more I felt justified to criticise her and many other travellers like her that visit Thailand for that matter. She arrived in Bangkok airport without any pre booked accommodation, not a problem in anyway if you then use the tour desks to get a hotel. Oh no what her and her friend did take a local bus to Khao San Rd and found a cheap hostel costing 300baht per night, this worked out to be around $4 a night. After a few nights in this ‘dirty hotel’ they took the overnight train to Chiang Mai and again started the search for the cheapest accommodation in town.

As I sat listening to her “holiday of a lifetime” I realised that for 4 weeks she had been bumming about in Thailand taking every cheap alternative on offer and actively searching for the cheapest accommodation at each destination. This is a very popular way to travel around Thailand and most of Asia and I first experienced the country this way so I’m not knocking it. In fact I would say the opposite and advise people to try it as you come across some hidden gems in street vendors and sometimes in the accommodation.

However if you do choose this way to travel then you should expect a little reality. The hotel standards of a $60 hotel are just slightly higher than that of your $4 room. The area these $4 rooms are located can often be in a part of town that you would not frequent if you were back home. I could go on here about how you if you pay nothing for services then you should not really complain about the service but I wont. Here’s a thing though, if bum-type holiday gets too much for you then you can always consider checking into a hotel with some star rating, maybe even pre-book your accommodation or try flying to save you some time.

If you spend 4 weeks paying the bare minimum to live in any country, chances are you will come across some dirt on your travels. When travelling to a foreign destination or to a culture you don’t understand and then you live on the bread line, I can almost guarantee that after four weeks things won’t be great. If you tried living on the breadline in your home country things wouldn’t be great either.

It’s a holiday folks, a break away from the drudgery of your everyday life, if you choose to spend 90% of your holiday money on the flight then sit in the gutter because it’s all you can afford maybe you should stay a little closer to home next time.

I still maintain that Thailand is one of the best destinations for any holiday. The warm welcome you will receive, the variety of activities above and below the water, and of course the glorious weather makes this a destination you should return to again and again. You just have to pull your self out of gutter sometimes and enjoy your holidays!

To get the perfect Pad Thai you have to go to Thailand and spend some time eating at the street vendors in Bangkok, now this isn’t for everyone as the hygiene at these places may not seem to be that important to them. I have taken various family members and friends, from the UK, to my favourite vendors but some of them have down right refused to even sit at a table and wait while I eat, but that’s their choice and loss.

Pad Thai looks such an easy dish to do when you actually watch the Thai people but it is very hard to replicate back in the west, in-fact its hard to replicate even when you live in the country. The basic ingredient of rice noodles can be your 1st stumbling block as the type used in Thailand are often not available in the west. The ideal type are the thread rice noodles not the broad rice noodles and they must be softened first before you start the dish. In Thailand this step is not necessary as the noodles they have seem softer and only take 30sec or 1min to soften in the wok with some water.

The list of ingredients are also a point of disagreement, with everyone having their own recipe and style and some people actually saying their is an official recipe that other don’t follow. The following list of ingredients are what I have seen go into the majority of Pad Thai’s in Bangkok, it should be noted that the amounts have been omitted as this is a very personal preference.

• Thin Rice Noodles (pre-softened)
• Firm Tofu (cubed or strips your choice only make it bite size)
• Dried/fresh/frozen prawns (shrimp)
• Meat (your choice which, bite size pieces, can be omitted for vegetarian option*)
• Cooking Oil
• Shallot (chopped)
• Garlic (crushed roughly)
• Egg
• Pad Thai Sauce (see below for more on this)
• Crushed Red Dried Chillies
• Beansprouts
• Crushed Peanuts
• Spring Onions
• Lime

Pad Thai Sauce

The sauce used for Pad Thai various from vendor to vendor but after some time I believe that the pad thai sauce is far more simple than I first thought. To make a Pad Thai sauce combine equal amounts of tamarind paste and fish sauce (about 3tablespoons of each) with 2tablespoons of palm sugar, bring to a simmer and stir it gently until the sugar dissolves and the sauce is runny, this takes about 2-3mins.

An even easier method to making pad thai sauce is to add fish sauce, brown sugar and oyster sauce directly to the noodles as they get stir fried in the wok, I’ve seen this done many times by street vendors often replacing the brown sugar with palm sugar.

The Method

Again there are much differences on how best to bring all these ingredients together, so what I suggest here is just that, a suggestion.

Heat the wok and add 1-2tablespoon of oil, shallots and garlic. The wok should be on a medium high heat but be prepared to increase it as the stuff is added. Fry these for about 30 sec then add prawns and meat and cook it quickly moving the stuff in the wok all the time. Add the tofu, fry for 30 sec then add the noodles all the time ensuring the food is moving in the wok, If the noodles start to stick add a few tablespoons of water. After about 2mins move all the food to one side of your wok and crack in the egg on the free side and fry it rapidly while moving it about, when it is almost cooked move the noodles mixture onto the egg and add the pad thai sauce, or sauce mix, and fry for a few more minutes. Last thing to go in is the beansprouts, spring onion and chillis, mix these through the Pad Thai and remove from heat after about 30secs.

Plate the food up and sprinkle crushed nuts over the top, serve with a wedge of lime, beansprouts and peeled cucumber on the side of the plate, with fish sauce, dried chillies and more crushed nuts as the accompaniments. This is, to me at least, the perfect pad thai.