Land of Smiles

See, just because a country is described as a "Land of Smiles" doesn't mean its denizens will smile and be kind indiscrimately to every passing stranger. It doesn't mean you can walk in in a terrible funk, seething and raging and all impatient, and expect to come out feeling completely at ease, calm and serene. It just means that if you go in and are nice to people, people will be nice to you in return. Or a little more specifically, it means that as long as you keep an open mind and try hard to be nice---and people can see that---people will generally be nice to you in return.
This thinking can be applied to bring new perspectives to many specific situations. For instance, the way delays are dealt with in the country is, if you are strict about it, really terribly inefficient. But who said you had to treat a delay purely as an avoidable inconvenience? If you can be philosophical about it (and if you've done enough planning to be able to afford to be philosophical about it), it's really no big deal. Or, for another instance, lots of travellers complain about the flabbergastingly long queues at airport immigration. But it's not news. You should know about it already. You could have prepared yourselves for it (by not turning up too tired, by minimising carry-on luggage, and just by being mentally prepared.) If you're prepared, it doesn't have to be that bad.
In short: there's nowhere in this world where you can expect kindness for nothing. Only places where you don't have to pay so much in kind before others start reciprocating. And sometimes, hospitality is best experienced by those who are not really expecting it, or at least have an open mind.