As some of you will know, my wife Sally, who almost always accompanies me on these visits to Thailand, is a wheelchair user. I thought, since we have been here with the wheelchair a few times now, that a few comments on travelling with a wheelchair might help other users to decide that yes, they can come to Thailand and enjoy a visit.
Thai law makes provision for accessibility, and over the past ten years huge strides forward have been taken in providing adaptations for particularly wheelchair users. But given that the country was starting from a very low level of provision, the job is not yet complete.
Taking things in order. Airlines. We have always flown EVA from UK for the very good reason that they offer TCT supporters special terms. Their provision for wheelchair users has been first-class throughout. They will provide a pusher at Heathrow and at Suvarnabhumi, allowing us to take our own wheelchair right to the door of the aircraft and then presenting it at the door on arrival. At the door, the stewardesses descend on Sally in numbers, helping to support her to her seat, making her comfortable and rendering me cheerfully redundant. EVA score top marks on the international leg, as do Thai Airways on domestic flights. Thai make full use of airbridges to and from the aircraft, and on the one occasion when an airbridge was not available a special vehicle with a lifting body and a tail lift - the sort of thing normally used for loading the food trolleys - was provided so that exiting the plane was easy. Nok Air are slightly less distinguished: leaving Bangkok for Nong Khai was fine since they used the airbridge at Don Muang. But on arrival at Udon Thani for some reason they disdained the airbridge and made us disembark by steps. Not Sally's favourite, although we made it without mishap. If you really can't do steps, either warn Nok first - or travel Thai!
Getting around inside Thailand involves getting in and out of a lot of minbuses. There is really no way of avoiding this, since the train service is sketchy. Sally has developed her own unique way of climbing into a minibus, which involves putting her wheelchair cushion on the top step, kneeling onto it, shuffling on her knees between the front seat and the bulkhead, then twisting upward onto the seat. It sounds awkward, but it works. But if you can't get into a minibus you may have some travel restrictions, unless you can use rental cars or taxis. Bangkok Taxis are OK, and the drivers (so far) very helpful, but they have one restriction, which is that many are powered by LPG and therefore have limited luggage space. We have an aluminium Wheeltech chair (ebay, £50) which dismantles very readily. The handles fold down, the footboards and supports come off and the wheels pop off in an instant. If you take the brake off first. Dismantled it will fit in the boot of a Bangkok taxi, although the drivers are often bemused. It is also very light so that even when fully assembled it is easy to lift in and out of vans, taxis etc.. There is one snageroo, which is that the retaining nuts on the folding handles are prone to shake out, and did so last year on the flight from Udon Thani to Bangkok. A wheelchair with one handle severely affected by droop is a useless wheelchair, so tighten all the nuts before consigning to the hold! Outside Bangkok, service areas and airports increasingly provide properly adapted disabled loos with handrails and emergency buzzers. Doorlocks can be unreliable, so post a minder outside to avoid unwelcome interruptions.
Away from the cities and the motorways, Thailand has a great many 'Turkish' loos, the squatting kind. These are not easy for people with balance problems, or, as someone pointed out at Mae Tao Clinic, for people with replacement hip joints. All hotels have a common affection for modern 'low-rise' loos. These are almost as impossible as 'Turkish' loos for people with weak legs. For someone travelling alone a device which sits onto the loo seat and adds four inches or so might take up some luggage space, but would be worth the trouble. Some might even find it worth brining a folding commode to place over the loo on the grounds that it would provide both a raised seat and handrails in one easy package. We make do with a sort of rolling lift from me that rocks Sally up to her feet, a technique honed to perfection by years of practise. I like to think.
Hotels. Every hotel we have stayed in has gone out of its way to be helpful and welcoming. The Redemptorist Centre in Pattaya - where all the rooms in the new block are disabled friendly - is the only one to offer grab rails everywhere in the bathroom, and especially beside the loo. There is a lift to all floors. This is not always the case in small hotels, so it is worth making sure before you arrive that the hotel know that you have special needs and that a ground floor room is available if there is no lift. A ground floor room is, of itself, no guarantee of accessibility: we have had to avoid staying at one well-known guest house in Mae Sot because the ground floor doors are protected by two foot high concrete barriers: I assume that this is flood protection, but it also deters the disabled. Instead we stay at Phannu House, where there are wheelchair ramps and ground floor rooms. Because Phannu has no eating facilities (Casa Mia is but a few minutes walk) we have thought of getting reflectors or lights for the chair for nighttime returns from supper, but we haven't done anything about it. Cyclists and motorcyclists seem to go freely without lights, so why not a wheelchair?
In Bangkok we stay at the President Park. It has lifts to all floors, but no specially adapted rooms. The ramps into the hotel are very steep and quite slippery, I have to use shoes not sandles when pushing the chair. The staff, however, are brilliant and will cheerfully help push up or brake on the downward leg. A caution - here and all around Soi 26 there are steep ramps: so steep that a footboard set too low will catch and can catapult the wheelchair user out of the chair and onto the pavement. Consider raising the footboards, or make sure your 'pusher' has a quick right foot to raise the front of the wheelchair as you attack the ramp.
A prize must go to the hotel we are in today, the Andamania in Khao Lak. They had built a ramp specially so that we can push easily into our bedroom, which is ground floor. The Manager came to ask whether there was anything they could do to make us more comfortable, and we pointed out that the sunken bathroom was a bit of a problem. Within 4 hours a second ramp had been installed, all handmade by the hotel handyman.
And that is the nub of the tale. Thailand is not perfect in its provision for disabled access, but there is a huge willingness - eagerness - to help, which simply overcomes any obstacles. Thailand is not called 'the land of smiles' for nothing. So if you are a wheelchair user, and you are considering a holiday here - go for it. You'll have fun.
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