Thailand

Thailand is where a huge number of Indians cut their international teeth, and it’s the perfect place to do it. The flights are short and cheap, the infrastructure just works, your rupee goes a gratifyingly long way, and the food is — let’s not be coy — among the best on the planet. A single trip can swing from temple-hopping in Bangkok to learning to dive off Koh Tao to doing absolutely nothing on a beach, and somehow that all feels normal.

The food is the real headline, and Bangkok is its loud, sweating, neon-lit capital. Don’t treat the city as a layover — eat your way through it. Plastic stools on the pavement, a wok firing on the corner, a plate of pad kra pao for the price of a Mumbai auto ride that’ll embarrass every Thai restaurant back home. Then point yourself at the water: the Andaman side (Phuket, Krabi, Phi Phi) for the limestone-cliff postcard, or the Gulf islands (Samui, Tao, Phangan) for the diving and the parties. They run on opposite monsoons, so the coast you choose depends on the month.

Best of all, the one bit of friction is gone: Indian passport holders now get visa-free entry for short stays, so there’s nothing to arrange beyond a flight and a loose plan. Pack light, carry a power bank, accept that you’ll eat one too many mango sticky rices, and don’t try to cram the city and three islands into a week. Thailand rewards the traveller who slows down and orders the thing they can’t pronounce.

November to February — the cool, dry season, and the most reliable beach weather of the year.

March to May is the hot season — punishing in the cities, still fine for the islands if you don’t mind the sweat. The southwest monsoon (roughly June–October) soaks the Andaman coast but it’s greener, cheaper and quieter — and the Gulf islands (Samui, Tao, Phangan) often stay sunny while Phuket gets drowned. In short: pick your coast by the month.

NovDecJanFeb

Good news — Thailand is visa-free or visa-on-arrival for Indian passport holders.

• TypeVisa exemption for short tourist stays
• Processing~0 days
• CostFree on arrival

Indian passport holders currently enjoy visa-free entry for short stays — always confirm the latest limit before you fly.

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  Grand Palace & Wat Pho, BangkokThe gilded, glittering heart of old Bangkok — the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha, then Wat Pho next door with its 46-metre gold reclining Buddha and the original Thai-massage school where you can get pummelled back into shape afterwards. Go early, cover your knees and shoulders (they enforce it), and ignore anyone outside who tells you it’s “closed today.” It isn’t.
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  Island-hop the AndamanThis is the Thailand of the screensaver: longtail boats nosing between limestone karsts, water the colour of mouthwash, Maya Bay and the Phi Phi islands off Krabi and Phuket. Take a boat day, snorkel, hunt down a quieter beach than the one everyone shoots for the ’gram, and stay out for the sunset. It’s touristy for a reason — the reason is that it’s ludicrously beautiful.
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  Chatuchak weekend marketFifteen thousand stalls of food, vintage clothes, plants, art, gadgets and things you didn’t know existed, sprawling across a chunk of Bangkok every weekend. Go hungry, go early before the heat builds, and abandon any plan to find a specific thing — you won’t, but you’ll leave with five others. Follow the grilled-meat smoke and the longest local queues.
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  Learn to dive in Koh TaoOne of the cheapest, easiest places on earth to get PADI-certified — warm, clear, shallow water and a whole island built around the dive schools. Three or four lazy days gets you Open Water certified for a fraction of what it costs almost anywhere else, and even if you never dive again, you’ll have done it somewhere that looks like this.