Thailand Top Tips: Height Matters
- R
- Jan 4
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 18
Many online travel vlogs and blogs often paint rosy, Instagrammable pictures of how wonderful foreign destinations are. Having been in Thailand for over six weeks now at the time of this blog, I feel a little confident in now being able to pass on some tips and observations to fellow future Thailand travellers.
Tall Tales:
The average height for Thais is 164cm (5ft 4½ inches) for males and 154cm (5ft and ½ in) for females [1]. In comparison, the average Scottish man is 175cm (5ft 9in) and 161.3cm (5ft 3½in) for women. Those of you who know L and I, know L is below average [2]. And L is also the shortest in our family. But here, L is reborn like an Amazonian, and I have never seen her push so many Thai grannies out of her way like skittles.
Those of you above average like myself, will find yourself avoiding a lot of head-level obstacles, especially around yellow/black hazard-taped concrete structures that can appear quickly in your eye line, so work on those core muscles and apply the 5 D’s of Thailand: dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge [3].
[2] I know what I wrote…
Kerb Your Enthusiasm.
As you all know Thailand has a wet season (known as reudu fon) from April to October (but ran on a bit longer in the south this year…). This drops a lot of water which can lead to flooding in the cities. The urban drainage systems are quite robust to try and keep the pavements (and shops) free from flooding. As a consequence, despite the average heights of the people here, you will encounter some of the tallest kerbs you have ever seen.
Here are a few pictures of L standing beside some kerbs for scale (if this blog were written in Victorian times, we would get sooo many views…).
So again, prepare yourself with some exercises, this time on those quads and gluts!
Soaring Skyway Stresses
You may have seen pictures of the busy Bangkok streets and heard how pedestrians might find it difficult to cross roads. Fortunately, the Thais have solved the problem with ample numbers of pedestrian flyovers. Just be aware that these do bring their own fears to overcome…
Steep Stairways
Get working on those stepper machine exercises, cos you are going vertical.
Stainless Steel Sizzling
Bare hands on stainless steel handrails in a country with blue skies and 30+ degC all day temps is a great barbecue combo…
Stay on Target
Those who don’t like heights will be pleased to hear that there are safety barriers along the pedestrian walkways. I am sure they were designed for the average Thai, but, those of you who have a fear of heights and are also tall, will irrationally reasonably feel that those barriers only come up to your knees (safety barrier now a trip hazard!) and that the slightest breeze or wobble from you will cause you to go flying over the barrier and crashing into the traffic miles below. FML.
Pro-tip: Walk to the nearest BTS and use their nice escalators and wide skywalks to cross the roads.
I hope you found these tips useful, and I'll see if I can come up with some more.
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