How long can you live in South East Asia with €50.000,-?
- Thread starter jeanpaul1979
- Start date
You could also goto jail, and live for free! $200/month -- what a horrible life that would be, even in a poor 300 person village in Thailand.
Would you like to be poor and poverty stricken in your home country? If not, then you definitely won't like it in SE Asia.
Saw him do spoken word 3 times in the 90s. Get In The Van and Black Coffee Blues are great books.
The average income up-country in Thailand is double that, in Bangkok 4X that. That's locals living a much simpler lifestyle than most westerners would consider. If you think you can live on $200 a month in Thailand you haven't a clue.
If anyone cares, here's what a $200/month lifestyle up-country in a rural village is:
Obviously, you build your own house / hut / shack. Go into the jungle, grab some bamboo, and make a really sturdy pad that's elevated about 3 feet off the ground. Throw a roof it, and you're good to for sleeping! You'll sleep on a little straw mat that's about 0.5cm thick. Naturally, there's maggots, cockroaches, ants, spiders, and everything else all over at all times, so get used to them, and keep your sleeping quarters as clean as you can. Otherwise, you'll end up with maggots breeding in your ears, and shit.
No running water. Instead, you collect rain water for your showers, laundry, and cooking. Just make sure to collect enough during the rainy season to last you several months. So you end up using stagnant water that's several months old. Probably not too great for the body.
You'll probably have some ducks and/or chickens in your yard, so on the special feast days you just grab one of them, chop its head off, and fry it up. Then once every few months you'll head out to the jungle with your friends and family, and collect a bunch of bamboo. Take it home, clean it, dry it, boil it, and you have a free food source!
Nights out will consist of sitting around on those bamboo made tables in the mud with other villagers, and drinking cheap and potent lao khao (Thai whiskey) at $3/bottle, which makes everyone blind drunk in no time. And I don't mean just tipsy, but BLIND drunk, and you have to put up them all night. You'll just hang out and talk about rice, Thaksin, the red shirts, maybe play some cards, and that's about it. Maybe play some marbles with the kids.
You'll have to learn to be a dick, because although the people are extremely friendly, they're very poor too, so will try to get absolutely everything they possibly can out of you. They'll have no qualms about leaving you starving and without shelter, if that means they get an extra $100 that month.
For work, you can be a rice farmer at $4/day. Or maybe there's someone building a house nearby, and you can get a construction job for $6/day. From there, you just try to find odd jobs you can do, or maybe build things at home you can sell in the city, to make a few extra dollars. Maybe you have a wife and kids at home, and they can make & sell Thai soup from your house, and make an extra $30 - $50/month. Maybe you have some older female relatives, and they can weave up some mats that you can sell in town for $5/piece.
And that in a nutshell is basically how everyone earning $200 - $300/month in rural NE Thailand lives. Might sound really interesting, and a cool thing to do to check out "the other side", but I can pretty much guarantee within a week almost everyone here would be craving a nice suite at the Marriot, with a hot shower, king sized bed, hi-speed internet, satellite TV, and room service.
Obviously, you build your own house / hut / shack. Go into the jungle, grab some bamboo, and make a really sturdy pad that's elevated about 3 feet off the ground. Throw a roof it, and you're good to for sleeping! You'll sleep on a little straw mat that's about 0.5cm thick. Naturally, there's maggots, cockroaches, ants, spiders, and everything else all over at all times, so get used to them, and keep your sleeping quarters as clean as you can. Otherwise, you'll end up with maggots breeding in your ears, and shit.
No running water. Instead, you collect rain water for your showers, laundry, and cooking. Just make sure to collect enough during the rainy season to last you several months. So you end up using stagnant water that's several months old. Probably not too great for the body.
You'll probably have some ducks and/or chickens in your yard, so on the special feast days you just grab one of them, chop its head off, and fry it up. Then once every few months you'll head out to the jungle with your friends and family, and collect a bunch of bamboo. Take it home, clean it, dry it, boil it, and you have a free food source!
Nights out will consist of sitting around on those bamboo made tables in the mud with other villagers, and drinking cheap and potent lao khao (Thai whiskey) at $3/bottle, which makes everyone blind drunk in no time. And I don't mean just tipsy, but BLIND drunk, and you have to put up them all night. You'll just hang out and talk about rice, Thaksin, the red shirts, maybe play some cards, and that's about it. Maybe play some marbles with the kids.
You'll have to learn to be a dick, because although the people are extremely friendly, they're very poor too, so will try to get absolutely everything they possibly can out of you. They'll have no qualms about leaving you starving and without shelter, if that means they get an extra $100 that month.
For work, you can be a rice farmer at $4/day. Or maybe there's someone building a house nearby, and you can get a construction job for $6/day. From there, you just try to find odd jobs you can do, or maybe build things at home you can sell in the city, to make a few extra dollars. Maybe you have a wife and kids at home, and they can make & sell Thai soup from your house, and make an extra $30 - $50/month. Maybe you have some older female relatives, and they can weave up some mats that you can sell in town for $5/piece.
And that in a nutshell is basically how everyone earning $200 - $300/month in rural NE Thailand lives. Might sound really interesting, and a cool thing to do to check out "the other side", but I can pretty much guarantee within a week almost everyone here would be craving a nice suite at the Marriot, with a hot shower, king sized bed, hi-speed internet, satellite TV, and room service.
Interesting site but since when is sleeping on a mat and taking cold showers living like a VIP. You could flat share in the western world for almost the same money and have much better facilities.
edit just realized that 285 is split up but still.
Update on my trip and living costs:
I've been living in Boracay, Philippines now for 2 months now, rent is $350 per month for a very decent and clean hotel like space - I rent it from a local family. Great central location, between d-mall/whitebeach/party area and bulabog beach (kite/windsurfing beach).
I eat out always, no fancy tourist restaurants, well kinda, but not the ultra touristy high priced ones. Outside the central tourist area you can get a good meal for $2 - $4. Beer is only $1.
What's really cool about Boracay is everyone speaks English, I mean the locals speak it well too...And it's pretty laid back. You don't get hustled at all over here, on whitebeach a little maybe if you look like an eskimo but that's about it.
Anyway I don't go out much, mostly surfing for me, eating, relaxing, every other day a massage to keep my back in shape ($3.50 for 30 mins).
Internet is wireless here and works with an usb dongle (if your place doesn't include internet). It's prepaid and slow as hell, but skype works well, and with rapidshare and other filesharing hosters I get a speed of up to 300 kbps. Torrents are slow as hell and opening 10 website tabs at the same time isn't a good idea either. You pay $11 for 30 hours when using a dongle.
To sum up...
$350 rent
~ $450 for food and eating out 3 times per day
$50 for a 30 min massage every other day
$100 for going out at whitebeach
and $100 for small stuffs and things I forgot etc.
Oh yeah, I rent a bicycle from a local for $45 p.m.
Then surfing is the most expensive part for me, I pay about $500 per month for equipment rental. So in total I spend about $1600 (1200 EUR) per month for a good quality life.
The thing is if you want good prices you need to talk to locals. For example the place I rent, you can only find it trough locals, same for the bicycle, if you rent it from tourist place and you pay standard price you pay 5 times as much. Also for accommodation, the cheapest tourist place around is twice what I pay and my room is pretty nice and central still.
Anyway, just wanted to update this thread and keep it kind of like a log also for myself while sharing it with anyone else interested.
I've been living in Boracay, Philippines now for 2 months now, rent is $350 per month for a very decent and clean hotel like space - I rent it from a local family. Great central location, between d-mall/whitebeach/party area and bulabog beach (kite/windsurfing beach).
I eat out always, no fancy tourist restaurants, well kinda, but not the ultra touristy high priced ones. Outside the central tourist area you can get a good meal for $2 - $4. Beer is only $1.
What's really cool about Boracay is everyone speaks English, I mean the locals speak it well too...And it's pretty laid back. You don't get hustled at all over here, on whitebeach a little maybe if you look like an eskimo but that's about it.
Anyway I don't go out much, mostly surfing for me, eating, relaxing, every other day a massage to keep my back in shape ($3.50 for 30 mins).
Internet is wireless here and works with an usb dongle (if your place doesn't include internet). It's prepaid and slow as hell, but skype works well, and with rapidshare and other filesharing hosters I get a speed of up to 300 kbps. Torrents are slow as hell and opening 10 website tabs at the same time isn't a good idea either. You pay $11 for 30 hours when using a dongle.
To sum up...
$350 rent
~ $450 for food and eating out 3 times per day
$50 for a 30 min massage every other day
$100 for going out at whitebeach
and $100 for small stuffs and things I forgot etc.
Oh yeah, I rent a bicycle from a local for $45 p.m.
Then surfing is the most expensive part for me, I pay about $500 per month for equipment rental. So in total I spend about $1600 (1200 EUR) per month for a good quality life.
The thing is if you want good prices you need to talk to locals. For example the place I rent, you can only find it trough locals, same for the bicycle, if you rent it from tourist place and you pay standard price you pay 5 times as much. Also for accommodation, the cheapest tourist place around is twice what I pay and my room is pretty nice and central still.
Anyway, just wanted to update this thread and keep it kind of like a log also for myself while sharing it with anyone else interested.
LOL. Boracay is pretty touristy. You need to hook up with a Filipina and have her show you the better and cheaper spots.
5 years and you would be living very decent. In comparison in some parts of European union people live on 500Eur a month (average salary). I am pretty sure Asia is cheaper place than Europe (even if its East Europe). So maximum 500Eur per month on an average living, meaning 8.3 years. 10+ years on a tight budget (comfortable tight though).
Ok so after reading that "live like a king for 285$" we can bump it up to 20 years
In some parts of European union - i.e. the poorest parts of the poorest countries. Most capitals or cities in the EU 500EUR might cover rent..maybe.
Don't ever bother to show your ass in Singapore or HK, coz those 50000 euros wont last beyond 6 months here and that too on a Mcdonalds diet.