Last updated on May 5th, 2026 at 06:48 pm
Thailand — A Place Where Little Steps Matter A Lot
Small steps, ledges, and raised thresholds are everywhere in Southeast Asia. A lighthearted warning from two travelers who kept tripping over all of them.
In the middle of the night when you're sleepy, you must remember to step up and over this ledge going in and out of a bathroom in a hotel. How do we know? Because we keep tripping everywhere we go.
Ok, we must confess. We're encountering a phenomenon in Thailand we'd never seen before: small edges, ledges and steps. And we find ourselves tripping all over Southeast Asia.
Watch out! Edges are everywhere!
Everywhere you walk, it seems, there are small steps up, down, into, and around everything built by man. Clearly, we exaggerate when we say “everything.” But we believe it's reasonably accurate to state that many man-made structures here feature small steps.
For example, if you walk into a home, there are little steps up and down, and in and out of bathrooms, kitchens, walkways, and other areas inside and outside of a home throughout the property. They're built into houses — even one-level homes where there's no need for them.
The same conditions are present in shopping malls. Imagine walking in a mall. You see a cosmetics vendor not inside the four walls of a store. But rather, it is in the middle of the mall — just like the vendors we see in malls in the west. Except this one in Thailand is on a 1″ high beveled edge. These edges project out into the mall area. If you're not paying attention, you'll find yourself tripping over them as you walk through malls.
These obstructions are not tall like those in the west. They're itty-bitty small ones: 1 inch high here, a half inch beveled ledge there, a 1/4 of an inch nub here, and a 2″ drop down out of the blue there.
You're only a broken toe away
And here's the most dangerous of them all: a 3″ ledge that sticks up out of the floor in front of bathroom doors.
These are common in hotel rooms in Southeast Asia. Now, we know they're put there to keep water from overflowing out of the bathroom in case of flooding. But for the traveler, these can be dangerous and hurtful. In the middle of the night when you're sleepy, you must remember to step up and over this ledge going in and out of a bathroom in a hotel.
How do we know? Because we keep tripping everywhere we go.
Yes, if you want to visit Thailand, bring a small flashlight with you. You'll need it until you get used to the small steps up and down onto these little platforms that seem to exist everywhere. Or, use your cell phone flashlight.
We're getting better at it. We're not tripping so much now that we've been here for 5 months. But we remain in the on-guard mode.
Why is this? We don't know. All we know is that we're tired of tripping. And we really need a lot of batteries for flashlights.
If you think these tiny ledges exist because the Thais are shorter and smaller in stature than westerners, we think not so. These edges, risers and steps are not the right size to matter to them as they walk around. It is as if they build these things to make walking interesting! Seriously, we think in retrospect it's just an easy, cost-effective way for them to build.
Tom & Karla
Tripping thru South East Asia
p.s. Karla solved our problem. She found hard-toed sandals for us in Vietnam.
Rovertrekkers: What's your experience with this travel challenge? Ever seen anything like it?
