• Life Advice & Visual Arts Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    🌌 Share Your Dreams! 🌌
    📸 15 Years of Photo Contests 📸
  • LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

Travel The MEGA Travel Thread!

cool guys thx

coincidentally just today i done some online checkin at expat forums and got some more info
 
Jamshyd said:
Incidentally, Penang is an island in Malaysia. A visit to Penang is a reminder that the Thai do not eat food, they eat garbage.
Click to expand...



Is it really named after Penang?




At any rate, lighten up, there's all kinds of fantastic Thai food. Go up north for the Khao Saoi and then tell me you know of a better kind of noodle soup curry.
 
^ No one can tell for sure if it is or if it isn't - the Thai are notorious in their linguistic transcription. But chances are it is, since Malaysia (and Penang in particular) has some of the best cuisine in the area IMO.

I have lightened up. I just am unable to call festering fish-carcass "food", as much as I am unwilling to call dog-carcass "food".

As for curry, there is an infinite amount of infinitely-better curry at its homeland: India.
 
^ No, just someone who sees Thailand for what it is and isn't afraid to voice his opinion.

See, the funny part is that I never call people "monumental douches" and run away.
 
DzNutz said:
cool guys thx

coincidentally just today i done some online checkin at expat forums and got some more info
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what your plans are, as you haven't really said anything about what you want to do while you're there.
It's not as easy as Jammy makes it out to be, I remember all the trouble and hassle he went through to get his work permit, and after that he struggled to even make enough to eat and pay rent. It wasn't a holiday...
You won't be able to stroll up to any of the countries you listed, without teaching qualification or experience, and expect to find work, legal visa, and a way to support yourself on holiday. If you want to work in the region, and make enough to eat, drink, pay rent and maybe even afford a few holidays a year, you'll need that job lined up before you get on the flight. If you do end up going without a solid plan in place, make sure you have enough to support yourself for a tourist for each day you plan on being away.
I've lived and worked in Thailand, have traveled extensively throughout the region, and think it's awesome that you want to visit. Just don't show up expecting it to support you.
 
Approx how much would you say it costs per day to live in Thailand... rent, food and some extracurricular activity?
 
chrissie said:
Approx how much would you say it costs per day to live in Thailand... rent, food and some extracurricular activity?
Click to expand...


Depends which area, on the smaller islands (which IMO are more fun) you can expect to live in some decent accommodation for $25 USD a night (depending on whether its peak season or not), meals are approx $4-5USD each. if you want to stay in a hotel, then expect to pay a fair bit more.

extracurricular activity costs depends on what you do.

scooter hire per day works out to be around $6USD per day, gas is pretty cheap too. drinks are around $1USD per beer if not cheaper, cocktails youre looking at $2-3USD.
 
I always thought it was cheaper there but I guess the dollar has suffered a lot in recent years.
 
carl said:
I'm not sure what your plans are, as you haven't really said anything about what you want to do while you're there.
It's not as easy as Jammy makes it out to be, I remember all the trouble and hassle he went through to get his work permit, and after that he struggled to even make enough to eat and pay rent. It wasn't a holiday...
You won't be able to stroll up to any of the countries you listed, without teaching qualification or experience, and expect to find work, legal visa, and a way to support yourself on holiday. If you want to work in the region, and make enough to eat, drink, pay rent and maybe even afford a few holidays a year, you'll need that job lined up before you get on the flight. If you do end up going without a solid plan in place, make sure you have enough to support yourself for a tourist for each day you plan on being away.
I've lived and worked in Thailand, have traveled extensively throughout the region, and think it's awesome that you want to visit. Just don't show up expecting it to support you.
Click to expand...

Oh for sure. Do take note. I lived in absolute poverty there, and because I am numerically impaired I even managed to go broke several times and homeless once. I forgot to include this caveat in my PM to Dz.

nickels said:
^
That isn't funny. In fact, I haven't ever seen you post anything funny.
Click to expand...

If by my saying "funny" you thought I meant to make you laugh, then you're sadly mistaken.
 
chrissie said:
I always thought it was cheaper there but I guess the dollar has suffered a lot in recent years.
Click to expand...

it varies alot with the exchange rates, the costs i summarised are probably quite conservative, along with some rough conversions to USD .
 
I'm reading Damage Done, which Jam recommended. Certainly making me think twice about Thailand as a place to begin my incipient farang career. I might go back to Plan A, which was Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

I certainly don't plan on smuggling (or even using, really) drugs while teaching in Asia, but Damage Done strongly implies that the Thai police receive a bounty for busting drug users. I'm sure there's corruption everywhere, but I've used up more than my share of luck for one lifetime.

Anyone ever taught/lived in Vietnam?
 
^ Thai police will certainly make you think twice before calling any of the ones back home "pigs" :). After all it was they, at the command of Thaksin, who mass-executed meth addicts in public. The irony (or perhaps not, seeing this is Thailand), many of those who were shot would have been Red Shirts now, and indeed I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Red Shirts ARE current Yaabaa users.

That said, it is well known that that book does take some liberty to exaggerate AND that all of this was years ago. Reportedly, things have improved these days, but not by much. Still, even if we were to think the best case scenario, it would still be uglier than the ugliest in the west.

The fact that Thai Police are corrupt is simply accepted by Thai and foreigner alike as the sun rises from the east.

But don't let that hold you back. After all, day trips (ok, weekend trips) from bkk to Cambodia or Laos (both infinitely more interesting than Thailand) can prove prudent for drug users. It is a better alternative to seeking drugs within Thailand.
 
I really think Thailand, like Goa, India, is really trying hard to lose its image as a welcoming place for drug tourists, and both places are trying to gentrify and cater to a more upmarket tourist clientele. I predict that by the time Thailand has reached a low First World standard of living, it'll have a similar tourist market to, say, Italy nowadays -- a classy place for straight-laced middle class Chinese and Indians to relax in resorts and look at scenery.

Part of this I think doubtless has to do with not only Thailand's rising standard of living, but also the fact that the tourist market in SE Asia is increasingly Asian and decreasingly Western. Asian tourists 'do things proper' when they travel, on the average, because overseas holidays are still very much a status symbol above all to these new middle classes. By and large Chinese and Indian tourists are transported by private car, stay in 4 and 5 star hotels, eat at proper sit down restaurants, lay on the beach and read but don't swim, and are by and large quiet and law-abiding. They don't ride tuktuks, fall for jewelry scams, eat street food, live in dorm-style accomodation, or party it up, nearly as much. Except for maybe a bit of sex tourism among male businessmen, they're model tourists who spend their time and money in way that's surely much more palatable to the locals in Thailand.
 
Does anyone else know Connor, the Aussie guy that got arrested in Bangkok with some of the red shirt protesters?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/25/2908805.htm

I met him when I was over there in February he was asking me to come and work for a volunteer organisation and last night I saw him on TV protesting with the locals and they announced that he's been arrested. Playing with fire really...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top