Hi

What do you guys personally think is the best place to live in Thailand for a 20 year old (longtermish like 3months+) and where its most easy to find real Thai people and not as much tourist

Im currently live in Patong and before that in Bangkok (1 months and 10 days)

But so far I havent felt that Ive met any real Thai people yet

Thank you

Jens

Have you tried Los Angeles? Looking for Thai people in Thailand is so last year. You need to keep up with the trends.

Edited April 14, 201214 yr by villagefarang

You will meet real Thai people everywhere in Thailand, but if you stay in the tourist areas, you will be treated as a tourist.

You can go to any reasonable size town and meet the real people, but the main problem is communicating with them. Away from the tourist areas, unless you can speak Thai, you are going to find it very difficult. English is the 2nd language here, but very few real Thai people can speak more than a few words. Even English teachers.90% of English teachers that I have met here I have had to converse in Thai because their English is about as good as a bar girl after 1 month in Pattaya. By the way, I'm somewhat ashamed to say that my Thai is far from fluent, probably a lot better than the average Farang, but fluent - no.

So the bottom line is that unless you are an absolute wiz at learning languages, you are unlikely to experience the "real" Thailand.

Pattaya?

I have lived in a non-touristy district of Bangkok for 4 years and can't help but tripping up over "real" Thai people. Where did you live in Bangkok?

Since you're in Phuket, relocate from Patong to Phuket Town. Looked like the basic Thai small city to me, though still heavily touristy. If you really want to mingle with the locals, take a trip up north, preferably a city with a university so there's at least some rudimentary English comprehension by the younger locals to get the communication started with. Places like Chiang Mai or Khon Kaen.

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dear lord ,you cant find thai people in bkk ? I am sick looking at them

Stayed in Sukhumvit but most Thai people Ive met/seen during my stay there were taxi drivers and freelance prositutes in clubs :/ Unfortunately I didnt have the feeling there were any ''normal'' girls in the clubs Ive been. Also not a lot of Asian guys.

And fewer ''normal'' thai people.

Edited April 15, 201214 yr by JensdeJong

Try some local joint near a university campus. Can't guarantee that you'll be able to make the difference between freelancers and uni students, though. If you're looking for something Thailand might have been 20 years ago, again head north or all the way to Myanmar.

And then there's the language barrier. If you're looking up to join a group of friends spending a night out, you'd better speak Thai. They won't bother to change their chatting to a foreign language just because you're there.

If you're really eager, just find a thai girlfriend who'll squeeze you in. Plenty of girls available for a young farang.

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Come to Phrapradaeng. As far as i know i am the only farang in residence here.

There is a farang school teacher buit he he lives in Rat Buran.

Thousands of real Thais and one Thairang. (my child half thai and half farang)

Thanks for the replies so far!

The only real Thai people live in Bangkok, Hua Hin or slightly north of Bangkok. 60% of these real Thais are at least 50% Chinese.

The other 90% of folks who are technically Thai are really Lao, Cambodian, Burmese and Malay.

Go back to BKK. What you're lookin for can be found tween Suk 23 - Suk 77 on either end of the road (bout 2 kilometers either way).

Stayed in Sukhumvit but most Thai people Ive met/seen during my stay there were taxi drivers and freelance prositutes in clubs :/ Unfortunately I didnt have the feeling there were any ''normal'' girls in the clubs Ive been. Also not a lot of Asian guys.

And fewer ''normal'' thai people.

What part of Sukhumvit? It's long. The 'lower' Sukhumvit areas are essentially huge red light districts which, if you stayed down there, I find it hard to believe you didn't know before settling in... The upper Sukhumvit areas are outside of this and have quite normal, often middle class, working Thais who are just fine for the most part.

To get helpful advice, you **really** have to be more specific about what's important to **you**.

And even more productive would be to just travel around Thailand for a while and talk to like-minded farang residents, get to know a place for a while - if it doesn't suit you move on, if it does, hang around.

so OP wants to find real Thai people who he can talk to in English?

OP, I know what you are trying to say but it is really more about what you do than where you go. The best place to meet "real Thais" who are not involved with tourism is in Bangkok, it is in the more expensive "Westernized areas". If you go into the rural areas you will meet real Thais but good luck communicating with them and good luck getting them to see you as not an ATM. What I would suggest is to find some hobby. This is the easiest way to meet real Thais. If you do not have any hobbies at all than volunteer yourself.

There seem to be an insane number of young people in Thailand these days. I came when I was quite young and had an e-based income and rarely really met anyone young like me. The youngest farang living here seemed to be late twenties/early thirties and even then the average farang was retired. now the place is just crawling with twenty-somethings often quite young. I wonder what they are all doing here and how are they earning a living?

The reality though OP is that farang come here and want to live out this fantasy of "meeting the locals" like they are Captain Kurtz in Apocolypse Now. They want to view themselves as some character in a movie. Reality is that it seldom works that way and Thai people are hardly that different from where you came from.

The only real Thai people live in Bangkok, Hua Hin or slightly north of Bangkok. 60% of these real Thais are at least 50% Chinese.

The other 90% of folks who are technically Thai are really Lao, Cambodian, Burmese and Malay.

Go back to BKK. What you're lookin for can be found tween Suk 23 - Suk 77 on either end of the road (bout 2 kilometers either way).

LOL try calling them Burmese or Cambodian and see how that goes,