all right I am back I am back in Thailand for the second time this year uh we spent the month of January up north in shangai and now we are spending the month of June here in Bangkok and I feel like Thailand really gets the spotlight when people talk about Southeast Asian countries uh Bangkok always ranks you know right near the top of lists of most visited cities in the entire world uh it feels like every digital Nomad basically has been to changai at some Point uh and for a good reason this is a wonderful country no matter what stage of life you're in you it's great for 18-year-old Backpackers it's great for middle-aged vacationers it's great for retirees there's something for everyone here in Thailand but we also spent 5 weeks earlier this year in Thailand's neighbor to the South Malaysia and it feels like Malaysia kind of flies under the radar uh at least among Americans maybe among all westerners I'm not sure um but it feels like most Americans at least don't really know much of anything about Malaysia and I know so many people who have been on a vacation to Thailand but I've never really heard Malaysia come up uh I see Thai food all over the place back home uh but I rarely see like a Malaysian restaurant and it's a shame because Malaysia is a truly wonderful place and I think it deserves more attention now since I visited Thailand and Malaysia back to back knowing pretty much nothing about Malaysia going in I thought it' be fun to just kind of share uh some things that I found to be quite a bit different between these two neighboring countries so let's start with the difference that is the most immediately obvious and that is religion uh so Thailand is very obviously a Buddhist country uh the stat I found online is that 94% of the population here practices Buddhism and even if you didn't know that going in you would very quickly figure it out uh a lot of the the big tourist attractions have something to do with Buddhism uh there are so many Buddhist temples all over the place uh and they're very visually striking like they they stand out if you are near a Buddhist temple you will know uh and that's not to mention all of the the big you know Buddhist statues as well Outdoors uh yeah there's there's a lot of Buddhism going on here now when you get to Malaysia you will very quickly realize that it is a Muslim country uh now the percentage isn't quite as high uh only about 70 5% of the local population practices Islam and the mosques while they are you know quite beautiful uh they're not as visually obvious as your average Buddhist temple like there's not a bunch of you know Shiny Gold all over the place uh but despite this I I would say the presence of religion in just daytoday life is much more obvious in Malaysia than it is in Thailand and that is because of how people dress so you're not always going to be around a religious structure but you will pretty much all the time be around religious people and when you're around someone who's Buddhist uh you generally wouldn't know like it's not immediately obvious unless they're a monk but in Malaysia you see tons of women wearing a hijab everywhere you go now it's not legally required uh in Malaysia like it is in parts of the Middle East uh but still lots and lots and lots of women uh you know walk around wearing a hijab so uh I would say that makes the presence religion just much more visually obvious just from walking down the street and the presence of Islam in Malaysia shows up in places that I never really would have thought about ahead of time uh like for example when you go somewhere where people are wearing bathing suits uh so when we were in EO we went to a water park and right when you walk in they have a sign showing the recommended attire for non-muslims and for Muslims and for Muslims it's much more conservative uh for both men and women and uh this was an interesting experience like I've never been to a water park where so many people were you know basically completely covered from head to toe another place I didn't really expect this to show up is in alcohol ads uh so back home in the US uh on you most of the alcohol ads there's a thing that says basically don't drink this if you're under 21 years of age I think it's probably a legal mandate to have something like that uh but in Malaysia you have a similar thing on all of the the beer ads and whatnot but it says don't drink this if you're under 21 or Muslim uh because people who strictly practice Islam do not drink alcohol which brings me to my second point which is alcohol uh simply put alcohol is much more expensive in Malaysia than it is in Thailand uh Thailand is a place where you can go party you can drink a lot and not spend that much money uh that is much more difficult to do in Malaysia uh it is accessible like it is there you can find it easily it's just going to cost a lot more uh and that has to do with the Muslim influence in the government uh alcohol is taxed very high in Malaysia uh it is very expensive to get a liquor license in Malaysia and also there's just less of a market for it in Thailand most locals do drink some amount of alcohol whereas in Malaysia they do not and then there's also the legal drinking age uh so it's pretty similar it's 21 in Malaysia and 20 in Thailand and I don't have firsthand experience drinking underage in either of these countries but from what I've read online it is uh much more strictly enforced in Malaysia it's a lot easier to get alcohol underage in Thailand and it's not just alcohol Thailand recently legalized marijuana uh like not just medically legal but fully recreationally legal and oh my God it is everywhere uh especially in changai we spent a month there and we must have walked past I don't know at least 100 we weed shops when we were there uh seems like every restaurant that closed down uh during the pandemic just got replaced with a weed store uh and I I've been to places in the US where it is uh legal and common uh you know like Portland OR Vegas but oh my God this is on another level and don't even get me started on pie where weed is much more of the culture there now I don't really care about this uh I never really got into weed even though I am from a place where it is legal but even if you're not into it it's impossible not to notice it like it is just it's everywhere in Thailand uh at least in the more touristy Parts whereas in Malaysia uh marijuana is very illegal uh and the penalties for it are quite harsh I'm sure there's a black market for it but I would not want to be caught with weed in Malaysia so if you're a Backpacker trying to you know make friends and get stoned together I would say Thailand is definitely the better place for that also totally unrelated but I just walked past two massive monitor lizards here in lumini park uh Malaysia also has these so it's not quite a difference between the two countries but uh it is awesome to see these things but anyway on to my fourth point which is Backpackers uh not the Wilderness definition of backpacking but the budget traveler definition where someone Spends months or years at a time uh traveling around with only a backpack and Thailand kind of feels like the epicenter of backpack packing uh there are so many solo Travelers in their late teens and early 20s traveling around Thailand on a budget and there are so many businesses that make it so easy to do that uh in every city or every like touristy City there are so many hostels where you can get a bed in a pretty decent place for like5 to10 us per night uh and it's also really easy to book like a last minute uh bus or van between cities again for like around $5 and if you want go on a guided tour of a certain area you can just show up in the nearest city and there will be dozens of tour companies lining the streets that will pair you up with a group of people uh going on a tour either the next day or maybe even that same day uh at a pretty good price uh so this is amazing for uh budget Travelers and solo Travelers who want to explore an area pretty cheaply and uh also meet a bunch of really cool people uh We've we've done a bunch of these tours in Thailand and just had such a great time but in Malaysia all of this is not nearly as much of a thing like it exists there are Backpackers in Malaysia uh but what we found is that you know instead of uh budget hosts you get a lot more budget hotels that are more privacy focused than Community focused and in Thailand we got so used to finding cheap group tours by just walking down the street in a touristy area uh but in Malaysia we found this pretty hard to find uh like when we first got got to qual and po we tried to do the same approach and couldn't really find anything like all the the travel companies we found were more like travel agencies that'll match you up with a private driver for the day so it it makes it a lot more uh expensive and a lot less fun to explore the areas outside the city that you can't easily get to by train but that's not necessarily a bad thing in Thailand it's so easy to just get sucked into this West Backpacker bubble uh to the point where I never really felt like a minority in Thailand uh which is weird like as a white guy I didn't really feel like a minority uh I'd often look around and be like why is everyone German uh like seriously everything everything we did we just met so many Germans all over the place in Thailand and i' always heard about Australians taking over Thailand and maybe that's more true in the South but at least up north Germans everywhere and I it's it's fun I love hanging out with Germans they're great people but it's also not the reason I came to Thailand but Malaysia at least in my experience felt more authentic I always felt like I was in Malaysia I always felt like I was surrounded by Malaysians even when doing the touristy stuff uh it seemed like it would be mostly Malaysian tourists and not too many foreigners uh we spent a month in Georgetown and I would literally go days without seeing more more than maybe one or two white people uh which is funny because Georgetown is just about the whitest name I can think of for a city but when you look at the people it's probably the least white place I've been in quite a long time and I loved this it felt a lot easier to immerse myself in the local life there now I'm not saying my experience is the same as someone who actually lives there right that's obviously not the case but it felt a lot closer to that than it ever has in Thailand now on the flip side while Thailand feels very Multicultural just because of all the Backpackers and expats and Nomads and vacationers and all that uh Malaysia is a lot more Multicultural among the locals so here in Thailand most of the locals are ethnically Thai which makes sense uh but in Malaysia only about half the population is ethnically Malay which I had no idea about going in a huge portion of the population is ethnically Chinese or Indian and again I really enjoyed this it felt like getting a glimpse of multiple different cultures all in one place uh for example about half the population of Georgetown is Chinese and we happen to be there during February during Chinese New Year and they go hard for Chinese New Year uh we went to so many different Chinese New Year celebrations and they were some of the richest cultural experiences I've had since we started traveling like I might honestly have to make a a full video just about that it was incredible but yeah getting to start off the day with a Malay dish like Nasi lak and then explore Little India in the afternoon and then end the night at a Chinese parade just makes for such a good day and having this more Multicultural Society affects the language as well uh so last year uh me and Lexi traveled around Europe for a while and almost everywhere we went like everyone spoke English pretty fluently uh but in Thailand not so much I get the sense that English education just isn't nearly as prevalent in Thailand there's definitely been way more of a language barrier here than there has been pretty much anywhere else and I will say most Thai people we've encountered do speak a little bit of English uh like at least enough to to do their jobs for an English-speaking customer base like most people at restaurants know the common restaurant words uh people in hotels know the common Hotel words but in terms of like having an actual conversation I I found it to be uh much more difficult in Thailand than most of the places we've been in Malaysia however the language barrier was practically non-existent like I'd basically call Malaysia an English-speaking country I know that's probably not as much of the case in the more rural areas but uh at least where we are uh at least where we went we could go basically anywhere and uh everyone spoke English we could have a full conversation uh with anyone and they wouldn't struggle one bit and that's also the case even if you're not talking to people so in Thailand a lot of the menus at least outside of the touristy areas are only in Thai uh like maybe there will be an English menu maybe not but like you have to ask for it and that's certainly the case in our current neighborhood in Bangkok uh but in Malaysia uh the men the English menu is just always right there out in the open same thing if you take a grab somewhere so in Thailand the driver's phone uh will have the UI in top and if they have the radio on even if it's english- speaking music uh in between songs the DJ will be speaking Tha whereas in Malaysia the driver's phone uh I think every ride we had the driver's phone is just fully in English uh on the radio the DJ will be speaking English in between songs uh like yeah even though Malay is technically the official language of Malaysia uh it often feels like English is the predominant language at least where we were and I think that's because there are so many cultures and languages going on in Malaysia I've noticed in other parts of the world as well that when you have a place that is very multilingual English tends to be one of those languages plus if you go back far enough in Malaysia's history you also have the British Empire thing going on so I'm sure that contributes as well and this led to a feeling that I didn't really expect so I used to think that by going to a place where fewer people speak English that it would feel like a a deeper more authentic cultural experience uh but I found that the reality is that it's just so so easy to get sucked into this Foreigner bubble whereas in a place like Malaysia where so many people speak English uh I never really felt the desire to to meet other foreigners uh and there weren't as many there to begin with so uh once again it felt more like I was just kind of living among the locals and finally food I obviously can't talk about Southeast for this long without talking about food I love love love the food in Southeast Asia uh out of the 31 countries I've been to worldwide Malaysia is the best food country I ever been to in my life and Thailand is not far behind so instead of talking about the food itself though I want to talk about how it's sold at least when it comes to street food and I am going to use the term street food a little bit Loosely here so yes there is some food that is literally made and sold on the street uh but I'm also going to include these super barebones restaurants that are uh essentially a street cart but like in a inside an actual building with uh tables and chairs and whatnot I don't know if there's a better blanket term to describe all this so I'm just going to call all of it street food whether or not it is literally sold on the street and I will say Thailand seems to have more of a vibrant street food scene or at least it's more obvious it's more in your face I in every in every city I've been in Thailand in every neighborhood uh there are so many streets that just have food lining the streets like T you know dozens of of Street carts selling food uh anything from Little Bites to full meals but I would say it it skews more towards uh little bites a lot of the street carts just have you know things like meat on a stick or spring rolls or there's a huge variety of things and it's it's all really delicious food um but not stuff you'd want to eat as like a full meal and this is great if you just want to sample a bunch of things it's so easy to foro a meal here by just eating five or six of these little bites from Street carts and if you want a full legit meal from a street cart in Thailand uh you can certainly find that as well especially if it's like a rice dish or a noodle dish or a soup uh but I would say the street food scene in Malaysia skews more towards these actual meals that it'll really fill you up uh like my favorite Condor place just on a street corner in Georgetown Malaysia practically sends me into a food coma when I eat it like it's so much food and while there certainly are some of these one-off vendors on the street uh in Malaysia a lot of them seem to be centered or clustered into Hawker centers so basically you have a lot of these places where uh you'll walk into a building and have uh like 10 to 20 of these Street vendors just all selling food but like under a roof and you get real tables and real plates and silverware and stuff uh and you get a toilet um but it still basically is Street carts that you're buying from and this is honestly my favorite way to eat a meal cuz you kind of get the best of everything at these haware centers uh you get the variety and the affordability that you would get out on the street uh but you also have things like shelter uh which can be super important cuz some of those tropical storms are no joke uh the Hawker centers in Malaysia are honestly a big part of why I feel like Malaysia is the greatest Food Country I've ever been to so when it comes to food on a budget I think both these countries have their pros and cons I think Thailand is better for uh vacationers or someone who is constantly on the go someone who wants to try a million different things and I think Malaysia is better for uh someone who's just kind of in one place for a while and just wants to sit down and have a meal but add a fraction to the cost of an actual restaurant so if you're watching this video wanting to know which is a better country to visit I really can't answer that these are both wonderful wonderful countries and it really depends on your personal preferences uh but I will give some general opinions I would say if you're a solo Backpacker you know maybe right after high school or right after college uh and you want to bounce around on a budget and make lots of friends meet lots of you know like-minded Travelers Thailand is pretty unbeatable like I said Thailand feels like the Backpacker capital of the world and there is a very good reason for that but if you're past that stage in your life and you're traveling with an existing group of friends or maybe a partner I would say give Malaysia a shot it has a lot of the things that are appealing about Thailand but uh felt at least to me like a more lowkey and authentic experience uh during my time in Malaysia I felt like I was actually in Malaysia the whole time and never really got sucked into this Foreigner Nomad expat whatever bubble and I'm curious what you all think if you're from Thailand or Malaysia let me know in the comments why you think people should visit your country or if you've been to either of these places uh let me know if your experience was the the same as mine or different than mine I'm very curious to hear what other people's experiences are and I did film this video in Thailand but if you want to see some of Malaysia go check out this video I filmed a video where I went into the food culture in Southeast Asia and Malaysia in particular so uh yeah go check out that video and I will see you in the next one