Andrew Rondeau

Andrew is the owner of this website and has been a Leader, Manager, Coach and Consultant for the last twenty-five years.

Back From Thailand And Well…

By Andrew Rondeau
Published 08/16/2008

For the last 2-weeks, my wife and I have been in Thailand along with my sister, her husband, their son, his girlfriend and my brother!

And what an amazing place Thailand is.

I truly fell in love with the people, the food and the beaches.

We started in Bangkok, which is hustle, bustle and alive 24 hours everyday.

The hustle and bustle of Bangkok!

We spent most of our time shopping, bartering and eating!

The shopping markets are awesome. One called Chatuchak was just overwhelming and a truly unique shopping experience.

We took a clean, air conditioned but packed train to Mo Chit.

This is us getting on the Bangkok Skytrain (see if you can pick out my brother!)

We could see the market from the train and it must have been a mile long and wide. I have never seen such a huge market with so many tiny stalls selling almost anything you want…but you must barter. Most market holders start at double the price you eventually end up paying.

Chatuchak Market - Spot The Tourists (and my brother again!)

We then moved onto Koh Samui, which is an hours flight from Bangkok.
It was paradise.

This is the view from the little known Jungle Club - amazing!

Again more shopping and we visited temples, waterfalls, beaches, swam and the number of restaurants to chose from is vast.

We ate out almost everyday for lunch and dinner and every single meal was just fantastic. I must admit I did overindulge but that was allowed, wasn’t it? I was on holiday.

I came back 6lb heavier!

Just one of the quick lunches we had - spot the toothpicks!

I would like to finish off talking about the Thailand people. They are just so graceful, happy, welcoming and helpful.

Many parts of Thailand are poor and the people have very little but they are so happy – smiling all the time. The service we received was the best I have ever experienced.

One time after a long day sightseeing, we purchased a couple of cooked chickens from a roadside stall. The owner of the stall, chopped them up, carried them to our car, greeted everyone in the car, shook my hand, spent 5 minutes sharing his views on what and where to visit on the island, wished a great evening and went back to his stall.

That was customer service and guess what…we went back several times more.

However, he was not the only one.

Once we visited a large ceramics warehouse. My wife, brother and I decided to sit down for a rest. Within 60 seconds one of the warehouse assistants, came across offered us some water and switched on a cool fan for us.

Such service!

Here in the UK, the chickens would be thrown in a bag, given with no eye contact and the owner would be talking to their friend on the telephone discussing last nights TV.

And if it was a UK warehouse, someone would have come up and said “You can’t sit there”.

Therefore, I fell in love with Thailand – the people are amazing.

Oh yes I nearly forgot, next time I shall tell you about two incidents where my wife and I were nearly killed.

See you next time.