When I lived in Japan, I had many arguments with fellow Western women on this subject. The argument was usually, “well, I do this in America/UK/Australia…” or “whatever, no one’s ever said anything to me about it,” which was infuriating because just because no one in Japan ever said anything directly didn’t mean that they weren’t thinking things. Comments like, “aren’t you cold?” are as obvious  statements of protest to Japanese people as, “put some damn clothes on, woman!” One of my friends suffered a humiliation when a coworker finally got fed up with her hip-hugging pants that showed the tops of her underwear that the woman marched over to my friend and HIKED UP my friend’s pants, while my friends were still in it.

In many non-Western countries around the world, the people have an unfair stereotype of Western women being easy or promiscuos that isn’t aided by how a stereotypical Western tourists dress. Imagine in your head a “slutty” or “inappropriate” woman, the kind that would make you gasp or leer and say, “oh my god, what is that woman doing?! Avert your eyes, children!” If you’re a Westerner, it’s probably something super tight, skimpy, possibly see-through–showing side-boob at the mall, perhaps? Okay, now let’s take some steps back on the conservative scale and imagine yourself as a person in a country where women (and men) typically wear long sleeves and cover their legs: what’s your image of provocative dress? Mini shorts and a tank top? Probably. Not so long ago in most Western countries this stuff would have been considered taboo. In many churches in America people would never dream of wearing things like that, so why on earth would anyone try and visit a mosque or a temple that way?

A woman might have feminist or political reasons for not wanting to dress conservatively in a country, especially one’s with a mandated dress code, but remember: you are a guest in someone’s home. All guests should be respectful to their hosts, or else their hosts find passive aggressive ways of trying to tell their guests they’ve overstayed their welcome. Showing respect goes a very long way in having those wonderful travel experiences we all want. If you’re content to be merely a tourist, then fine–dress however you want. If you want to meet people, to be invited into homes, to have fun while haggling while shopping–dress like the locals. On a practical note, it’s usually more appropriate for the weather (yes, long sleeves are more protecting in hot sun than burning your skin in a tank top) and you’ll be less of a target if you look a little savvier than the average tour bus tourist.

For women who want to know what to wear in each country, Journeywoman
has a great guide from real travelers called, “What Should I Wear?”

Photo credit: Some rights reserved by j.o.h.n. walker

5 types of tourist in NYC. Funny because it's true. (Jon Keegan)

So in my research about traveling in Barcelona, I came across a somewhat funny article called Barcelona Clothes and Dress Code: Tips on How to Blend in With the Locals. The primary reason for this article is to keep tourists safe from scam-artists and pickpockets, but I would argue that those people would be targets anyways no matter how you dressed them up simply because they obviously lack something vital as a traveler: common sense.

People spend all this money buying money-belts and fancy traveling gear when you could simply just dress and act like a local, as much as possible. Obviously this isn’t possible everywhere in the world, but it’s certainly possible in a worldly cosmopolitan city like Barcelona that’s full of foreign expats. For example, I live in New York City — a city that tourist guides will tell you is dangerous. Don’t do this, don’t talk to these people, don’t stop here, etc. Yet somehow millions of people live in this city without ever getting pickpocketed their entire life, yet a tourist manages to in the few days they’re here. Amazing odds, really. Like most of these tourist women do in their hometowns, I carry a purse every day, and like they probably are back home, I’m very careful with it. Yet somehow these visiting ladies come here wearing a fannypack because they’re suddenly a tourist. If you wouldn’t be caught dead in something at home, why would you wear it in a cosmopolitan world city suddenly because you’re a visitor?

Being a tourist is a state of mind! We’ve found that if you don’t act like one then most people won’t treat you like one, especially not thieves — cause really, why bother with the person who MIGHT be a savvy local expat when you could harass the tour-package couple with their map hanging out of their back pocket?

Tuk-tuks are the predominant form of tourist transportation in Thailand. They vary in form depending on the country, but here they’re more or less golf-carts on steroids. You tell your driver your destination, he gives you a price, you offer a counter-price, and then settle wherever it makes you happy. You accept that you’ll probably never get the Thai-price, but you are satisfied with something 10%-50% higher (NOT 2x-5x higher).

Except of course here in Phuket. A 2 mile journey costs more than a New York City cab ride, and hey–at least in a cab you get to be fully enclosed and have a pretty decent chance of survival in the unfortunate case of an accident. I am simply baffled at the $25 charge for a 5-mile journey up the island. This would be crazy in America, but this is absolutely ridiculous in Thailand where you can take a bus 300 miles to Chiang Mai for the same price. BTW, I’m not advocating being a jerk and haggling over everything. But there’s a difference between being overcharged 10cents or even a dollar, than being overcharged $15.

The problem is multi-fold and obviously the local government has a lot to answer for, but since I can do pretty much nothing about that, I’ll blame the people I have a smidgen of a chance of influencing. That would be us, the tourists and travelers. Now, I understand how it is–you walk out of your resort, a tuk-tuk driver tells you it costs $10 to go up the beach. You figure that’s not so bad, and besides–you don’t like haggling and you don’t really want to bother. But here’s the rub: everyone I’ve met in Thailand complains about scams and crazy prices–but it didn’t get this way because Thai people are thieving jerks, it got this way because someone just throws money around and doesn’t care if he’s getting scammed (or he does but just whines about it later.) So don’t be the cause of it! If someone’s quoting you a price more than London or New York, you laugh and walk away. 9 out of 10 the driver will chase you and discount his price. You don’t even have to walk away, just standing there often brings you a discount or the very tricky, “What price do YOU want?” This is Thailand, there isn’t even a meter!

You never to tell a tuk-tuk (or anything without a meter) that you are going to an expensive hotel, even if you are. Tell them you’re going to a nearby cheap hostel and your price suddenly drops. Once we got pretty mad at a shared-truck driver for charging us 5x the local price to our destination, he got pretty embarassed and then admitted to us he only did it because we told him we were going somewhere expensive, therefore, would pay it. On many other occasions, after asking the driver for his price, he went, “uhhh….” and looked us up and down before pulling a number out of the air. We’ve caught people changing their prices mid-haggle because they deemed us dumber/smarter than they originally thought.

Furthermore, we were told by a local that this group of drivers has not only fixed prices to an insane level, but they’ve also set up these signs to make themselves look official. The prices, for what it’s worth, is not based on distance–it’s based on a mix of where you want to go, where you are leaving from, and how much competition there is. We found that the most expensive place to get a tuk-tuk was, surprise surprise, around the resort hotels. One driver had the nerve to ask for about $45 for a 20 minute trip–more than the cost of the airport which was 60 minutes away.  But this is where I blame tourists…where on earth did that number come from? There must have been someone out there who thought that price was reasonable. =P

But hell, if some sucker/lazy holidaymaker is willing to pay 10x the local price for something, why not?  But let’s remember, just because you don’t want to deal with haggling on your once-a-year vacation doesn’t mean life ends here once you’ve left. You accept a stupidly inflated price and all that does is make it worse and worse for everyone other tourist, and yourself when you come back. This has come to a head in Vientiane (Laos) and here in Phuket where the prices are more expensive than anywhere else in Thailand. When you try and tell a driver that his price is 10x the Bangkok price, they say, “But this is Phuket!” Dude, it’s still Thailand.

I’d personally like to know how much money they need to pay the mafia or whatever, because the way the prices are–if they just took 2 or 3 fares then they’d be making more money than I did in Japan. And no matter what the drivers say, it’s STILL Thailand.

Sunset over Kata Beach

For our next beach, we decided to head down south from Karon to Kata beach. The difference between the two is pretty stark, despite being only a few minute drive from the other. Kata felt much more developed, but at the same time not in an ugly necessarily. Club Med takes up a huge chunk of the land, but is hidden behind a wall and a line of pine-trees. From the beach, the development is hidden behind the trees which makes it feel more “remote”–but of course it’s not as the endless line of beach chairs indicates.

Being near a Club Med, there were many, many, many more families and children there. As we’re not huge lovers of children, this was kind of a downpoint for us. However, I’m sure this is not a bad thing to most people out there. Despite the children, it was relatively quiet. There was the occasional jet-ski motor sounds, but other than that, not much to report. Sand and water wise, the sand is white, extremely fine, and powdery. The water is quite clear and pretty as well, though the waves were a touch bigger in Kata than they were in nearby Karon. Supposedly there’s quite good surfing there, but we weren’t there during the right season.

Kata also has some decent food options, but they were all quite pricey (remember: we are on a string tight budget so pricey to us is actually quite reasonable.)

In the end, out of the four beaches we ended up going to during our 10 days in Phuket, we thought Kata was the best overall choice if you want a mix of entertainment, food, a beautiful beach, but smaller crowds (but it’s still pretty crowded.)

Here’s a tip we learned after the first two days in Phuket: the crowds absolutely disappear after 2-3pm. So if you have no absolute necessity to sunbake, then going mid-afternoon is a pretty surefire way to have the beach nearly to yourself (all things considering, this is still the premier island to visit in Thailand.) Despite the beautiful daily sunsets, the beach is pretty devoid of people except joggers, romantics, and local Thais swimming fully clothed or playing beach soccer, definitely not a bad way to go.

One of the most important things is to choose a tour group that is reputable and ethical. Any sort of contact with tourists changes a village, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Tribes are allowed to develop and change, just like our societies do. This also means some people may have romantic notions of people living in huts and wearing traditional outfits all the time, the reality is, like the many other groups of people, jeans and t-shirts are more comfortable, and easier to acquire.

There’s good development and bad development. Some tour groups basically just dump a busload of tourists into a village. The village gets no money from these tours, so they basically have to beg or sell junk to the tourists who come. You know you’re on a tour like this if you come in on a bus and then have a thousand people try and sell you trinkets. There are a few companies, especially in Laos, where the actual tribes either run the village visits or get money or community development assistance. These are probably the most “authentic” experiences you can have, though no experience is really going to be authentic on a tour group. That’s just how it is, but not everything can be “authentic” anyways. What does that word even mean?

Tourism dollars can be a great help to tribes, but can also be exploitative. Take for example, the case of the Long-Necked Karen women in northern Thailand. Historically speaking, these tribes did not exist in Thailand. They’re actually refugees from Burma who basically live in a village built solely for tourism purposes. They are not considered Thai citizens and have few real options to leave. If they don’t wear the neck rings, they don’t get money. Their village is basically a human zoo for people who’re curious about them. There’s nothing wrong with this curiousity, but people should know the situation. If you really want to see them, go to Myanmar. More details about this group can be read about it here and all over the internet.

Before you trek or board a tour bus, try and make an effort to learn a bit about the culture you want to visit. There’s excellent museums in Chiang Rai, Thailand and in Luang Prabang, Laos. At least that way, authentic or not, you did more than just snap a photo at someone.