anyone here been to Vietnam?

Luna Andrew said:
Thai massage is best :) i would love to get relaxed in massage parlor after the whole day trip from different islands. Well don't you think that you will get the specific info about climate like? people, cost of living , girls, food etc about from Google?
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The massages are one of the things I miss the most about Thailand. I forgot that in my monthly nut figures but I was in a shop at least 3 times a week.

I prefer the foot massage though. There's nothing worse than going in for a legit Thai body massage and having the girl keep grabbing your junk and asking if you want the special.

Yes, I know that sound like heaven to a lot of people but it's sort of like going into McDonald's for a Big Mac and they keep trying to push tacos on you. If I wanted that, there's a rub and tug on every corner. What I want is a kick-ass Thai massage.

But yeah, an hour or two of chilling out while some does accupressure on your feet . . . pure bliss.

And at less than $10 an hour, there's absolutely no reason not to treat yourself to as many as you can afford :-)
 


thefarang said:
And then you get this race to the bottom with some broke ass English teacher talking about how he lives like a king on $1,000 USD a month. Believe me, that guy isn't living like a rock star.
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What chu' talking about? Apparently, according to some you can live like a VIP in Bangkok for $285/month.

How To Live Like a VIP in Bangkok for $285.06 Per Month

LOL.

Fuck me, I spend about $3000/month here, and I definitely don't live like a king. Life is good and all, and we never go without, but I'd hardly call it living like a king. And I'm not even in Bangkok. I'm up here in the swamp.
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
But you lived in the expat area of Bangkok. For a small example, if I'm walking to the market, loads of times I'll have strangers stop and ask if I want a lift. They don't want anything from me, and are just being good Buddhists. I don't see anyone in Canada stopping for strangers, and offering a ride / help.
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My wife's family lives upcountry a bit. In fact, she owns her own home up there so we used to go stay at her place when we wanted to get out of the city or if she wanted so spend some time with her family. In fact, when I go back on vacation later this year the wife has already blocked off several days for us to go up to her house.

I'll give you that the rural folks are a lot nicer but there's still plenty of assholes too. :D

The point is that you cannot become Thai. Even if you were to go through the whole process of applying for permanent residency, you'll never get a Thai passport.

I've heard of maybe a dozen white people who have gotten permanent residency in Thailand. That was after 20 years living there, reading and writing Thai at a higher level than most Thais, and going through years and years of red tape to apply.

In fact, a few months back I was reading an article in the Bangkok Post or The Nation and this Indian guy wrote an OpEd piece about how Thais never believe he's Thai. His parents immigrated to Thailand 10 years before he was even born. He grew up in Thailand, went to Thai schools, is a Thai citizen, and Thais still argue with him that's not really Thai. Even after he shows them his Thai ID card they still tell him he's not real Thai.

If that guy will never be accepted as a Thai in Thailand, what's a white guy's chances? LOL

That doesn't mean that Thai people won't give you a ride, help you, be your friend, or whatever. It just means that you'll forever be a foreigner in Thailand. You'll never be on the same level as them. Even if you're family, you're still "the farang" (for those that don't know, farang is the Thai word for white/western foreigner).
 
I also wonder whether lots of them consider us farang big stomping buffalo's. As much as I love Thailand and Thai culture there really is a definite divide between them and us...I mean you have lo-so hi-so and then there is us farang and we dont even fit into the scale anywhere.

BTW....used to love dukes at emporium :)
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
What chu' talking about? Apparently, according to some you can live like a VIP in Bangkok for $285/month.

How To Live Like a VIP in Bangkok for $285.06 Per Month

LOL.

Fuck me, I spend about $3000/month here, and I definitely don't live like a king. Life is good and all, and we never go without, but I'd hardly call it living like a king. And I'm not even in Bangkok. I'm up here in the swamp.
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Dead on, my friend. That's exactly the type of post I'm talking about.

Then some down on his luck sap reads that blog post and searches on Google for an expat forum and asks if he can live like a king on his unemployment checks.

Oh the horror.

You see that guy's apartment? 3300 baht a month? LOL. No hot water. No kitchen. Just a room. Four walls.

And, I'm not just being a jerk to poor people. The problem is, if you're that desperate to live in Thailand, you have no room for error. You have a bad month or two and you're that crazy German guy sitting out in front of 7-11 on Soi 22 taking handouts from Thais who feel sorry for you.

In fact, just recently, a guy I knew joined the Bangkok Aviation Club when he took a dive out of his 20-something story apartment room after having lost everything. I mean, literally, he had to borrow 20 baht for his last meal that he ate about an hour before jumping.

Unfortunately, I only heard about how bad things had gotten for him financially after he jumped and people started coming forward with stories about him borrowing and hustling to stay afloat in the months leading up to his suicide.
 
Oh gees...I actually know who your talking about...read about the death on stickmans blog. Never met him personally but had seen him around sukhumvit with other expats before.

I'm not an expat but im there about ever 2 months for a 3 weeks or so know many people in the expat scene.
 
jryan54 said:
I also wonder whether lots of them consider us farang big stomping buffalo's. As much as I love Thailand and Thai culture there really is a definite divide between them and us...I mean you have lo-so hi-so and then there is us farang and we dont even fit into the scale anywhere.

BTW....used to love dukes at emporium :)
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Duke's is gone from Emporium now, right? They opened up somewhere else I heard.

One night I stopped in some bar a friend of mine owned. All of his staff know me. I mean, I've visited their homes back up in the villages kind of know me (but just friends, nothing more).

Anyway, when I walk in there's only three customers, some obvious go-go dancer and the two guy's she's with. The guys are shooting pool and the girl is sitting at the other end of the bar from me watching her customer for the evening play.

I ordered a drink and told the waitress and cashier to get themselves one too. The go-go dancer comes running across the bar, "Me too. Buy me drink too."

I tell her that I don't know her and she's obviously with a customer so I'm not buying her a drink. I was polite. I smiled when I said it. I even motioned towards her customer to let her know I didn't want to create a problem with him.

She gets all pouty faced with me and then, in Thai, starts talking shit about what a stingy foreigner I am to the staff.

The funniest part (for me, obviously) was the staff all know how well (or poorly) I speak Thai and knew I understood every word she just said. They went absolutely white.

I just looked at the go-go girl and told her, in Thai, "Don't talk about the farang just because you don't think the farang can speak Thai. You're a prostitute. Go sell your body and buy your own drink."

She was fuming. She grabbed her customer and told him they needed to leave immediately. As she stormed out the staff gave me a round of applause.

Unfortunately for us farang, wherever we go, the bad people follow because they're looking for money. I mean, just look at any nightclub that becomes popular with foreigners. Within a few weeks the place is full of prostitutes who hear the farangs are going there. And then all of the rip-off taxis pay off some cop to get the curb space out in front so they can charge you 300 baht off meter for a ride that should cost 60 baht.

So, we get a very warped view of Thailand. Even if you're out in the sticks, you'll attract more of the bad Thais than the good Thais because once word gets out that there's a farang in town, the scammers, gold diggers, etc all come running.
 
jryan54 said:
Oh gees...I actually know who your talking about...read about the death on stickmans blog. Never met him personally but had seen him around sukhumvit with other expats before.

I'm not an expat but im there about ever 2 months for a 3 weeks or so know many people in the expat scene.
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Yeah, Stick mentioned him in his article.

Dono was his name. Great guy. Good friend to everyone who knew him.
 
thefarang said:
That doesn't mean that Thai people won't give you a ride, help you, be your friend, or whatever. It just means that you'll forever be a foreigner in Thailand.
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I've never understood this argument, to be honest. Yes, I'll always be treated as a foreigner, because well, I'm a foreigner. It's the same as some immigrant family from India moving to a small sub-burb in Canada. They'll never be seen or treated as a natural born Canadian, because they're not. However, they'll still be very welcomed into the community, become friends with the neighbors, welcomed into others' homes, and so on. Same as here, I find.

What I find is it's expat's skewed perception of things, as if they're supposed to be treated as a Thai or something. And that skewed perception rubs off on the locals, which pushes them towards treating the expats differently. Just act like a normal dickhead, treat the locals like normal dickheads, and it seems to work fine.

If you view the locals as anything other than a typical human being, they're going to pick up on it, and treat you in the same manner. At least that's what I find. Besides, would you really want to be a Thai in Thailand? You gotta admit, having white skin around here has its benefits, and we do get preferential treatment in various occasions due to it.
 
Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That’s all I have to say about that.
 
thefarang said:
Duke's is gone from Emporium now, right? They opened up somewhere else I heard.

One night I stopped in some bar a friend of mine owned.
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Chris from Checkinn99 or Mark from Bar4 ???? LOL

Anyway, yeah Dukes is gone and they havent reopened in BKK yet. The guy that owned dukes also owns sunrise tacos. I really hope they open up again...their philly cheese steak was awesome.

Are you still in LOS ? We might have to catch up for a beer sometime as im sure we know some of the same people.
 
jryan54 said:
Chris from Checkinn99 or Mark from Bar4 ???? LOL

Anyway, yeah Dukes is gone and they havent reopened in BKK yet. The guy that owned dukes also owns sunrise tacos. I really hope they open up again...their philly cheese steak was awesome.

Are you still in LOS ? We might have to catch up for a beer sometime as im sure we know some of the same people.
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No, moved back to the US awhile ago. I'm back in Thailand at the end of the year on vacation though. Just a couple of weeks.

The expat community is so small, I'm sure we know a lot of the same people. :-)

Plus I used to shoot pool in the Bangkok Pool League so you meet so many people in the matches and going to the different pool halls/bars for the matches.
 
Dr_Ngo said:
I've been living here for the past 8 months in HCMC.

I'm just gonna say it's not a tourist friendly country at all. If you're visiting here, everyone's going to try to fuck you over $ wise. The more Vietnamese you know, the better your experience will be. I'm Asian and speak conversational Vietnamese, and they still try to fuck me over.

Money wise this country's cheap, the average person here makes $200 a month. A local lunch or dinner runs $1. 2 bottles at the hottest club costs $100. My new 2 bedroom condo's about $1000 (it matches western apartments).

Girls wise it depends on you. The problem is the language barrier because most girls don't speak English. However my friends that are english teachers here clean up, you just gotta know where the English speaking girls hang out at.

Viet girls have a bad reputation of being gold diggers, but most of that stems from guys vacationing here and falling in love with massage girls / PR girls at the clubs. There's plenty of beautiful, available women here, on top of that they all know how to cook.

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I would say 20% of guys here are gay and 70% of guys here make around $200 a month here. Lets just say the odds are in your favor, especially if you learn the language.

The country has great beaches too, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc.

The food is one of the best food places in Asia. The only places better are maybe Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.

If you come here just PM and I'll show you around
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can't wait to see there beaches that is what I have heard are really great and can't wait to see where the English speaking girls/ teachers hang out I forgot how truly hot Vietnamese girls really were until you posted those pics. thanks so much for your input and when I head over there I will send you a PM and be sure to meet up with you.

guerilla said:
Well, you can live pretty damn good in North America on $50k/year if you have a home and a car too.
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Not really G.


thanks everyone else of your input great info and feedback I was looking for.
 
Dr_Ngo said:
My internet is LITERALLY $5 a month, and my cell phone with 3g connection is $5 a month as well. The government heavily subsidizes it.
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I'm surprised that no one responded to this yet with the usual "oh noes, subsidiees?!? thats socialisms! freedom hatin' basturds".

I think a lot of people overlook central/eastern Europe when they're looking to move abroad. You're going to get a similar cost of living as you would in a lot of S.E. Asian countries (provided that you don't speak the language) and the infrastructure is much better (clean efficient metros and trams as opposed to smelly cramped buses, no random power outages, etc.).

I know a lot of foreigners here in Prague that have their living expenses at ~$1000 a month (rent, transport, food, alcohol, healthcare). They don't drive or live in huge houses, but honestly you're not really going to want a car given that it takes longer to get places then it would with public transport and you're going to be out in some village if you want a house.

Beer is dirt cheap (~$1.50 for a half liter of beer in a bar) and probably some of the best in the world. Even mixed drinks in clubs are $5-7 max.

The only thing I really miss from the states is a proper standing shower. Even 90% the reconstructed places seem to insist on having the sitting shower-bath abomination.
 
Krnuernberger said:
I'm surprised that no one responded to this yet with the usual "oh noes, subsidiees?!? thats socialisms! freedom hatin' basturds".

I think a lot of people overlook central/eastern Europe when they're looking to move abroad. You're going to get a similar cost of living as you would in a lot of S.E. Asian countries (provided that you don't speak the language) and the infrastructure is much better (clean efficient metros and trams as opposed to smelly cramped buses, no random power outages, etc.).

I know a lot of foreigners here in Prague that have their living expenses at ~$1000 a month (rent, transport, food, alcohol, healthcare). They don't drive or live in huge houses, but honestly you're not really going to want a car given that it takes longer to get places then it would with public transport and you're going to be out in some village if you want a house.

Beer is dirt cheap (~$1.50 for a half liter of beer in a bar) and probably some of the best in the world. Even mixed drinks in clubs are $5-7 max.

The only thing I really miss from the states is a proper standing shower. Even 90% the reconstructed places seem to insist on having the sitting shower-bath abomination.
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Yea people just think of SE Asia when moving abroad, but I know guys living VERY well in Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Estonia, Hungary) and Latin America (Colombia, Argentina).

Basically a cheaper standard of living, hotter women everywhere, and just the overall feeling of adventure. What's not to love? America's always going to be there waiting.
 
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