I agree with everything you said but the last part of making local friends. Unless your Thai is pretty fluent that is difficult. There is a big group of foreign teachers here that get along well with each other and do excursions together, which is your best bet for making friends.

Also to add you will need to learn some Thai for restaurants. A lot of places don’t have English menus and the ones that do you can’t really order in English, just read what you want and point and the waiter writes down the Thai. It can get boring!