Quote:
Originally Posted by HelloFriends
List at least a dozen other places, with beaches, year around sun, live poker, very safe, no victims of crime, cheap. You said dozens, I'm good if you can name 12.
Generally speaking, SE Asia... almost everywhere is cheaper and 100x safer. In most places you can be stumbling around drunk in the middle of the night and you still probably won't be touched. I don't really drink much, but I do have a tendency to wonder around at night looking for late night food. With a few exceptions of big cities and tourist traps, you're really safe. I never felt the need to change anything about me, and carried whatever I wanted with me whenever I wanted. You can play poker on the internet instead of playing what is almost microstakes live that has ridiculous rake.
In contrast, the Latin American cities I've visited I didn't even bother taking my DSLR anywhere. hahaha Big chunk of the cities didn't look just poor. They looked "ghetto" with all sorts of shady people where I felt I needed to watch my back 100% of the time and be on my guard. And that's during the day. I didn't get a good vibe wondering around during the day, and I sure as hell wouldn't come back at night.
HelloFriends, you're used to it and maybe you think this is all normal. But trust me, it's not. I've visited almost a dozen countries in Africa and none of the big cities outside of South Africa come even close to the ghetto-ness that is in Latin American big cities. This was a big revelation for me, at least. (Although I haven't been to Kenya/Nigeria/Congo or anything like that.)
THIS is not happening anywhere in Asia, except for maybe Manila/Jakarta:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=06f_1381668990
But what would really piss me off about living in Brasil is ridiculous import taxes. Hello $1900 Playstation and $5000 crappy motorcycle that costs $1400 in India. It's just not good value, unless you live like a total tourist out of your backpack.
IMO, the biggest things that Latin American countries have going for them are:
- Spanish is a good language and useful to learn
- Women are hotter and have more style and passion
- People in general are much easier to relate and make friends