Avoid Getting Sick in Thailand
Well, since I’ve spent the past two days sick and in bed it seems like the perfect motivation to talk a little bit about getting sick in
Thai food is amazing and eating is part of the experience of this wonderful culture. Take a few simple precautions and you’ll run little risk of getting anything more serious than some passing intestinal problems.
There are many intestinal parasites, bacteria and viruses which can be transmitted via food, water and eating utensils. Usually, the most serious one is hepatitis A.
The number one thing you’ll want to do before traveling to
Some other things you can do to protect yourself while in
When deciding what to eat in
Avoid places where the food appears to have been sitting for a long time or where there is an abundance of flies. Make sure the food you’re eating is cooked properly. Most problems come from undercooked foods, foods that have been sitting for a long time after cooking and foods handled by vendors who are not sanitary with their hands, especially fruits and vegetables.
Many Thai dishes are spicy as is typical of tropical regions. This is because some spices help to preserve foods from the rapid onset of bacteria. However, spices can also cause stomach upset among those who are not accustomed to eating them. If this is you, eat spicy food in moderation when you first arrive in
Most importantly – Do Not Eat Shellfish! This means no clams, mussels, oysters and even prawns. Even though Thais can eat them all the time without any problems many expats and visitors to
Keep in mind that hygiene is very often not that good in
So, in review always try to follow these precautions when visiting
· Don’t drink tap water. Only drink bottled water.
· Get a hepatitis A vaccine before traveling.
· Try to avoid ice in your drinks.
· Don’t eat food that has been sitting for a long time or food that is undercooked.
· Check for dirty glasses and utensils every time you eat.
· Check for debris in your water and ice (if you use it) every time you get a drink.
· Never eat shellfish.
What to do if you get sick
When you get diarrhea and/or vomiting, the most important thing is to avoid dehydration.
Get yourself to a hospital emergency room, I recommend Bumrungrad in the Sukhumvit area or BNH on Soi Convent off Silom (near the Sala Daeng BTS station). Don’t worry about the cost. It shouldn’t be more than 2000 baht for everything including the prescriptions.
The usual doctor’s prescription is a drug to stop the symptoms (diarrhea and/or vomiting), an antibiotic to help your body deal with bacteria, and electrolyte beverages to rehydrate. In more severe cases, they will give you an intravenous infusion of fluid.
Make sure that you take all of the antibiotics that are prescribed to you. Usually you will start to feel better before the treatment is done, but it is important that you finish it because all of the bacteria haven’t been destroyed yet. The small amount of bacteria that are left are usually the toughest ones so if you don’t fight it off you will get a relapse of this tougher strain.
When you start eating again you should have bland foods like toast, crackers or rice. Carbohydrates are much easier for your stomach to deal with at this time. Try to avoid fats, proteins and spicy food for at least 1-2 days.
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The plural of “Thai” is “Thais”, Thai’s means belonging to a Thai or short for Thai is.
And it took 5 years for someone to point that out. Fixed now
Thanks for the tips! I want to visit Thailand soon, hopefully next year and what I read here is helpful. But still I want to try Thai foods. When you go to every country, the trip would not be complete without trying the local foods. Blending with locals is also an eye opening; you get to know more about them and their cultures. Their cultures and way of living may not be the same as ours, but we also have to understand that’s how the way they live. Or maybe they’re not that educated to know more of a proper hygiene.
Fred: We are in Thailand and could have not seen the beach and been just fine. Not to mention not eaten the shellfish. Pattaya beach sounds enticing from the tour guides at the airport, but they pitch you into going out to an “exotic island” where theres “crystal clear water and clean beaches”… yea right. When you get there they make you wade out into dirty water and get on a boat with some drunk Thai guy who is a horrible watercraft operator, and they take you to the $h**iest beach i’ve ever seen – laiden with trash and debris and abandoned boat hulls… with hardly any place to swim because all of the boats that brought you in are at anchor indiscriminately (a small girl I was with almost tripped over / cut her self on an anchor as we waded through the dirty water to get to shore) and the place they take you is on an isolated part of the beach because the boardwalk has been destroyed and never kept up. My husband and I trekked across the razor sharp rock to the other side where they were charging you 10 baht to use the most unsanitary bathroom i’ve ever been in… and hawking souveniers left and right…. pitching you excursions to go shooting on the island?? and jet ski – again with people who are completely unsafe… weaving in and out of boats at rediculous speeds with no life preservers… even for children… and then they serve you an “island lunch” which consists of soup, whole fish (caught and thrown on a fire… literally) fried fish, fried chicken, fried rice, and pineapple. It would have been ok, except that the soup was the only food that was warm, and that hadnt been floating in a bubbling tank of bacteria. Did I mention the wild dogs everywhere begging for scraps as you ate, and hanging around the kitchen… I could go on, but you get the point. My husband is sick and vomiting all day today. Please if you get roped into this tour, dont bother going to the island – the beach at Pattaya is much nicer – and dont pay for your chair on the beach! You already paid for the tour!!! You might skip the parasailing too, as that one boat cut in front of our boat, and we almost clipped the parasailer’s line. Youre better off peeing in the ocean than braving the bathrooms, and dont eat the fish. They’re catching it out of the water near the beach where all the commercial Merchant traffic is…. unless of course you like diesel flavored shrimp…?
To never eat shellfish is like going to Thailand and not seeing a beach.
How can you say you have been in Thailand without eating Tom Yam Kung? Just be sensible where and when you eat it.
And if you worried whether they are fresh, eat them alive! (dancing shrimps – Kung Ten).
Really liked this article, the only thing I’d say though is about the antibiotics. You should always make sure it’s a bacterial infection, and make sure you (or at least the doctor) know the strain before starting them. If you don’t need them or have the wrong ones it can give you a far worse infection.
But I shall be avoiding ice on my next trip, someone had told me it wasn’t a problem last time I was there!
Hey, thanks for the great article. Honestly, about seven months ago I started a new dieting regime, I’ve been on the chubby side my entire adult life and I’ve tried everything. I found personally that the only thing that worked for me was hard work and putting the effort. Good luck and thanks for the great tips.
You have a good info here. I’m planning to visit Thailand this coming September for holiday. This is a very precious info for me to not getting sick and ruins my holiday there. Thanks a lot.