Philippines and Thailand, both are tempting locations in South East Asia for tourists and retirement living.  Philippines and Thailand have many benefits. Let’s have a closer look at both of them.
Airports and Transportation
BANGKOK When you land on Thailand’s latest and biggest Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport it surely will be one of the biggest and most technologically advanced buildings you ever been to. It’s so huge that Thais use little cars and Segways to commute inside the airport’s building. When you finally get trough all the emigration and acres of the airport and decide to go to downtown Bangkok, nothing easier. Just go with one of the taxis companies by the airports exit and go on the smooth and new freeway, with multi leveled intersections. Big and modern metropoly will start to unveil before your eyes with high skyscrapers and some traditional buildings. Then when you decide to travel in the city it’s infrastructure will amaze you how modern and advanced it is. One option you have is to hop on on one of the Skytrains that is hanged above the city and admire cities tall apartment buildings of different shapes and amazing locations. Bangkok’s subway system runs smooth and quiet. You can use your mobile phone on the trains and on every station they have barriers protecting the passengers from the live tracks and they are closed until the train stops completely. The transportation in Bangkok is simply state of the art. On the roads of the city you don’t really see cars older than 20 years. Most of them are brand new or in the good condition. Taxis are not older than six, seven years and very colorful. Other means of transportation in the city are Tuk-Tuks (kind of a motorcycle tricycle) which are of the same price as taxis. You also can hail one of the motorbike taxis. They are just simply motorbikes with a rider that can get you from one place to another for again price not different than a regular cab, although quicker.

MANILA: The Filipino airport is far less advanced. Upon arrival to the Manila’s airport NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport) you will be struck that the main Filipino airport looks like they were still the seventies. During rather quick walk through emigration, arrivals and customs you can notice that the electronics (displays, fans, etc.) don’t really work as they should. When you make your way out of the building you can take  dilapidated taxi or simply walk out to the street and take a jeepney.  Jeepneys are one of the most popular means of mass transportation in the Philippines, on the front they resemble old U.S. military vehicles. During your journey towards the centre of the Manila you will experience heavy traffic with plenty of ancient vehicles pumping tons of pollution in to the air, people and street vendors walking between the cars. Roads are often uneven and high volume of cars occurs most part of the day. You can find buses in the capitol all of them at least fifteen years old, sometimes thirty. All of them ram packed. In the downtown and on it’s outskirts they are three lines of elevated railways. First two form LRT (Light Railway System) and the third line bit more roomy is called MRT (Manila Metro Railway Transit System). Above systems had intentions of decongesting the city although when you travel on them you are often bond for heavy human congestion inside the wagon. From the trains you can have a glimpse on the dirty metropoly, full of dirty buildings, poor people trying to make ends meet and skyscrapers in the vicinity of slums. If you want to just commute on a short distance in the local area you can use a tricycle. This invention one can only find in the Philippines. It’s basically a motorbike with a side car welded to it. Great and fast for maneuvering between the traffic.

Climates: Thailand vs Philippines

THAILAND CLIMATE: Thailand lies in the tropical weather sphere. In the north of the country they are mountains, rest of it is rather flat with few bigger mountains in the middle and hills and valleys here and there. In the mountains there are nice places to hide from civilization and there are interesting religious sites. Chung mai is one of the bigger cities in the north and has much to offer. In the south there are numerous beach resort cities with large ex pats communities such as Pataya or Phuket. In the country you can find cool spots for rock climbing or nice tropical forest hideouts.

PHILIPPINES CLIMATE The Philippines are located more to the south than Thailand, the climate there depends on the location but is generally hot and humid. The country is located on more than 7.000 islands and on them you can often find mountain retreats that can help you have a rest from constant heat during the hot season. The Philippines’ fauna and flora are one of the richest in the world and the vistas are breathtaking. In the Philippines you can find high mountains, volcanos, forests, jungles, beautiful beaches and tremendous diving spots. Manila, the capital lays in the biggest north island, Luzon. In the middle there’s Cebu, second biggest city known for having great diving spots in it’s vicinity. Far up north there’s Baguio city which is nicknamed the Summer Capital of The Philippines thanks to it’s colder mountainous climate that gives Filipinos a place to rest from continuous heat. Boracay and Puerto Galera are one of the many beach resort areas that have many foreigners settled in them.

Thailand’s and Philippine’s history

THAI HISTORYThailand is the only South East Asia country that never has been colonized by western powers. In the past it has strong hand rulers that were able to exploit tensions between the colonial powers. During the II world war Thailand was Japanese ally and straight after war they arose as American supporter. It’s a kingdom ruled by monarchy to this day with a fresh constitution written just in 2007.

FILIPINO HISTORY The Philippines were early discovered by Magellan in 1521 and added to Spanish Crown Territory in 1565. Spanish have changed the life o tribes living on the islands unifying them into one nation: The Philippines. At the beginning of 20th century the Philippines gained independence although U.S. were in charge of the foreign affairs. During the WWII Japanese invaded the islands which were claimed back by U.S. forces in 1945. After war until now the Philippines stayed more less a democracy. Although the corruption here is classified as 8th in the world.

Culture and Religion in both countries

THAILAND The countries culture has many influences from India, China and bordering Cambodia. Thailand’s main religion is Theravada Buddhism with other minor theologies like Islam, Christianity and other kinds of Buddhism. Thailand’s visual arts and music is rich and sophisticated. Traditional Thai wear and architecture is beautiful with many small details. They catch and eye being so rich in gold and colors.

PHILIPPINES The Spanish brought to country Christianity, it’s religion for over 90% of Filipinos, second is Islam with only 5%. You also find here Taoism, Buddhism and other religions. Culture of The Philippines as cooking has been diversified by many influences, mainly Spanish, American and also Mexican. Although there are tangible left overs of Austronesian culture, names, expressions and numbers are Spanish. There’s plenty of building erected in the Spanish style. Biggest American legacy is use of English that is official language of the Islands, and therefore the Philippines are the 3rd biggest English speaking country in the world with the population of over 90 millions. Plus the culture differs from region to region as The Philippines are unified tribes under the flag of the Philippines.

Cuisine and goods: Thailand vs Philippines

THAILAND The Thai cuisine is thought to be one of the best and richest in the world. Is a bit similar to the Chinese cooking although has much more character to it because of it’s spiciness, hotness, often also sweet, sour, salty and bitter, many times all above tastes are mixed together. The Thailand’s basic staple food is rice, often noodles too. Meats of all sort are used in the meals, fish and seafood. The best thing about countries kitchen are the spices and sauces, they are delicious and there’s wide variety of them. Vegetarians can have a hard time in Thailand as most of the meals consist either meat or seafood. But there is never problem with finding fresh fruits as there’s abundance of them there. Western meals can get pricey although generally there’s no problem with finding them. Also one can easily avail plenty of western food products and goods.

PHILIPPINES The Filipino cuisine is quite diversified. It’s a mixture of influences of the Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Indian and sadly American kitchens. Many tourists don’t even try it being misled by guidebooks saying bad things about it. The local cantinas sometimes look shabby although most of them sell delicious, fresh food free from GM products. Staple food is of course rice but inn the Philippines you can also find noodles, potatoes and bakery. The later is rather not very good with plenty of sweet soft breads. From Chinese Filipinos have their national snack, balot and many other more sophisticated meals. From Spanish they inherited a bit of European cooking, and Americans commercialized the market bringing fastfoods and barbecued greasy scraps of meat (like: heads, ears, noses, skins) that U.S. used to sell to locals who managed to make delicious! The selection of western goods is poorer than in Thailand although plenty of them have much cheaper equivalents. Prices of fruit and veggies differ from region to region, but there’s no problem with finding them cheap in western standards.

Most important now!!!

Societies in Thailand and the Philippines

Thailand Thailand’s society is a hierarchical one and it depends on the social position and the age of the person. Generally the oldest members of the society plus buddhist monks receive most respect. It’s an undemocratic society with believe in authority and favoritism. Thais rather avoid confrontation and try to keep calm, I don’t touch you and you don’t do anything to me. People of Thailand have in their tradition building a social net of relations. Although the foreigners are kept outside this net of contacts and don’t be surprised when they sometimes ignore you or look on you with a disgrace. Only one type of relation you surely can experience by dealing with Thai people: the relation with a material background. Mostly on the street from the locals you’ll hear short and most of the time same dialogue: What’s your name? Where you from? Do you want to buy my T-shirt, bracelet or a ring. After so many years of western influence locals still refuse to learn English so sometimes you can have a hard time trying to ask for a way or a product. Thailand is advertised by it’s government as a land of smile, although foreigners can have an impression of coldness from the locals. The smile in Thai tradition has a bit fake meaning and it helps them to avoid conflicts with others. Perhaps the Thai’s monarchs were smiling this way to their enemies in the past.

The Philippines Filipinos’ society is based on a supportive barkada. Barkada is a group of friends, very often family that support each other. In this relationship everyone supports everyone by doing there bit for survival of the whole group. It has very long tradition and is making the Philippines happy and special place. Filipinos are very friendly and open on new people with disregard on their beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, social position or color of the skin. They are very hospitable and always willing to help. One of the most popular expressions on the islands is: ‘KAININ TAYO!’ which means: ‘Let’s eat together’. Filipinos always invite you to eat with them, always. The people of the Philippines are open minded lot with big hearts and able to generate happiness in the hardest moments. In the latest rankings for the happiest people in the world they have taken very high place to their own amazement. Also there is no tendency of these people to moan about their dead relatives. BAHLA NA! Is another expression that means: ‘go with the flow and don’t worry!’. Materialism is not so widespreaded like in western countries although it’s existing and growing mainly due to Yankees’ influence. Over all The Filipinos are one of the most pleasant people on planet earth to deal with and around 90% of them speak English. They love foreigners to come to their country and this love is not based on materialism. It’s a human to human love that the rest of the world should learn from them.

Security in the countries

Plenty of people think that there are guns on the streets of the Philippines after seeing one of security guards with a shotgun. There are guns in the Philippines, it’s true. But on the other hand country is very well secured by those heavy armed security guards where Thailand is the 3rd country in the world for murders with use of firearms. I have walked through doggiest areas of Metro Manila at night such as Paranaque or Las Pinas and never felt in danger.

So reassuming, two countries are both beautiful with rich natures and interesting cultures. Yet they differ a lot. One has supporters the other has opponents. You really would have to visit both countries yourself to make the decision which is better. Although the Philippines have much more welcoming character and it’s easy to communicate with locals since most of them speak English, even children and elderly in little villages. Thailand lost it’s oriental character because of it’s industrialization and westernization. It’s nothing like in 1971′s movie: “Bruce Lee Karate A Muerte En Bangkok”. Bangkok has lost it’s character due to to many expensive apartments and people getting cold in chase of money. If you want to learn what the life is really about come to the Philippines and see yourself!

Jozef Gorka