Have you ever lived in a city so easy-going, long enough to realize that it has made you totally complacent and spoiled for choices? We have! With over 40 combined years of living in Bangkok and after traveling a little bit, we have come to notice how ridiculously easy we have it. Here’s how Bangkok has spoiled us.

It’s Convenient as F*&$

Excuse our French, but seriously, every time we travel, we always end up comparing that place to Bangkok. We know we shouldn’t.

This is possibly true for any major city in the world but Bangkok is on another level or perhaps we’re just slightly biased. Still, even looking at it objectively, you have to admit how convenient everything is here.

Plenty of street food

Another way that Bangkok has totally spoiled us and many others we presume is the vast amount of street food options. Not just that, some of these places stay open late night. So when you’re craving for that Pad Thai or fried rice in the middle of the night, you just have to walk a few hundred meters to get one. Places like Silom, Sathon, Khao San and some parts of Sukhumvit are best to get late night street food.

There’s also Took Lae Dee – a very popular restaurant among expats, school kids and even locals. In Thai, Took Lae Dee literally means cheap and good. We half agree – it’s cheap but it’s not THAT good as we’d pick street food over it any day.

There’s a 7-11 every corner

Out of toothpaste or need something in the middle of the night? No worries because there is literally a 7/11 on every corner. Sometimes you’ll even see two right across each other! If that’s not enough, there are other 24/7 convenient stores like Lawson 108 or Family Mart.

photo credit: thaivisa.com

I mean, really, do we need so many convenient stores? Bangkok, you clearly know how to spoil us.

So many transportation options

Bangkok has so many transportation options, making getting around extremely easy. Even though the city is notoriosly known for its traffic, you have the BTS (skytrain) and MRT (subway) trains, which reach almost everywhere in the city. It’s also being extended to reach even more places.

We also have locomotive trains, cheap AC and non-AC buses that will get you within and between cities.

Then there are river and canal boats, which are a great way to see the city and local life. You get a unique perspective of Bangkok through them.

You can even hop on and off Tuk Tuks, hail a motorbike taxi or grab a cab. If they reject you or charge ridiculous prices, not to worry – there are alternatives. Uber and Grab are both extremely reliable, safe and economically viable taxi services .

Seekster services

The inspiration behind this post was the launch and success of Seekster, which is basically Thailand’s first on-demand service marketplace. Have a broken air-conditioner or need an emergency car maintenance? How about a maid to clean up your apartment? Seekster is here to make sure we don’t have to lift a finger.

Well, you kind of do to make the online booking. But after that…you can do whatever it is you were doing.

Again, another reason why Bangkok has spoiled us that we never had the opportunity to learn any responsibilities or new skills. All our friends who live here have the same problem but those living abroad in Australia, United States and other parts of the world live completely different lifestyles.

Out of all the countries we’ve been to so far (which aren’t a whole lot), there’s nowhere like Bangkok when it comes to conveniences.

There’s Value for Money

After our recent trips through Sri Lanka and UAE, we come to appreciate one thing about Bangkok – it’s cheap and there is value for money for goods. Sure there are expensive things but there are also plenty of accomodation, restaurants, bars and other attractions that are fairly priced.

In Sri Lank, we paid $15 everytime we visited a museum or historic site. Since we are from SAARC, we got 50% off, which means other foriegners pay $30 each! In Thailand, we only have to pay around $8-10 for a visit to a national park, museum or touristic site.

When it comes to accomodation. Oh my god, there is no place better than Bangkok (again from our experience). We stayed in a very clean, spacious boutique hotel in Jomtien for less than $30.

In Sri Lanka, it was very difficult finding places that fit well on our price-quality curve. We actually bolted from a hotel in Colombo because it was so dirty and disgusting, even though we paid around $45 for it!

Then there’s obviously food. Being able to get a full meal (rice, soup and meat/vegetables) for just $1.5-$2 is just mind-blowing.

Mai Pen Rai / Sabai Sabai Attittude

Another painful way Bangkok has spoiled us is the ‘mai pen rai’ and ‘sabai sabai’ attitude. This basically means that people in Thailand are very relaxed. Everything not only happens really slow around here but people are generally just easy-going with life. We live in a quasi ‘work-hard, play hard(er) environment, which makes it difficult to have real responsibilities.

In many cases, if you do something wrong, you’re barely repremanded. Again this is a generalisation based on our experiences and doesn’t speak for all industries and businesses. Now we’re not trying to step on any toes here. There are plenty of hard-working people with lots of responsibilities, goals and ambition too. It’s just we’re so spoiled from everything, it’s easy to get distracted.

Similarly, if there is a heated argument, locals quickly calm each other with a “cha yen yen” (cool down/relax). You might be thinking, isn’t that a good thing? Well, yes, but I think that arguments can be healthy as well as they help in developing problem-solving and negotiation skills. Setting arguments aside bottles them up inside and you don’t grow from them.

This ‘no-problem, no-worries’ attitude isn’t always the best way to go and could ultimately spoil you when traveling because the real-world might not be the same way.

Maybe this is why we started traveling. To escape the complacency and getting out of our skin and comfor zones.

So what about you? Do you find a destination that totally spoils you in some way? We would love to know in the comments below.