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12-13-2010 , 04:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by A.I.D.S.
Ross Kemp's documentary about gangs .. ep. from Medellin, Colombia, part 1/5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4SuXmEre70
Are you arguing with me or supporting me? I think it does a pretty good job of illustrating that much of the violence there is pretty far removed from tourists and wealthy expats.

This guy also has a documentary on gangs in LA but obviously LA is still very safe for people with lots of money who don't do stupid things.
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12-13-2010 , 06:07 PM
I have heard so much good about Panama, and almost nothing bad. It's especially friendly for Americans because English is widely spoken and they use the US Dollar as their main form of currency. Not only that, but you only pay taxes on income earned in Panama. I'm guessing you probably wouldn't have to pay taxes on online poker income. Anyone know for sure?
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12-13-2010 , 07:41 PM
Well this thread has been sucessfully hijacked it seems, and not even in a good way...

Waste of a good thread potential

And btw: agree with spiv that sure in some respects Thailand can consitute more danger than a 'developed' economy, but however in all honesty the facts are skewed as people, especially young men go there for a 'hardcore' vacation, something one might not do with say... Vancover, which results in abnormal behaviour and copious amounts of alochol, once again something that may not happen in other countries.

Its all relative, and to boot don't be a dumbass and ur fine
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12-14-2010 , 01:23 AM
So I have taken all the "Thailand safety" stuff and put it in the Ask us about Thailand thread, it was completely out of this threads scope.
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12-14-2010 , 09:24 AM
I think we should add to this rating system some climat/weather factor - if I was going to exaptriate from Poland I definitly would choose Thailand/South America before Holland/Finland where conditions are the same, or even worse than here...
I would really appreciate such ratings from people living in Panama or Macau, these are countries I was lately considering moving to.
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12-19-2010 , 01:38 PM
Could someone do one for Morocco? I heard the live scene is pretty soft, but that's all i know.
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12-19-2010 , 02:48 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by myggenx
Could someone do one for Morocco? I heard the live scene is pretty soft, but that's all i know.
I would like to know more about the live scene in marocco, maybe you could share your knowledge?

Thanks
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12-19-2010 , 05:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by IIIII
I would like to know more about the live scene in marocco, maybe you could share your knowledge?

Thanks
Sorry, i just it in some thread, don't know anything besides that.
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12-20-2010 , 02:42 AM
South Africa

Cost of Living - 3 Far cheaper than the first world. Probably vaguely on par with South America. If you don't base yourself in Johannesburg or Cape Town it gets even cheaper.

Recreation - 10 A world in one country. Ito natural beauty all we don't really get is snow. An amazing climate. Culture, history, night life, rock, pop, jazz, classical its all there for you to find.

How Scary? - 3 Certainly not nearly as safe as the 1st World. While things are steadily improving a tortured history and massive inequalities will continue to fuel crime. As Soah indicated if you are sensible you should be ok. Don't go exploring townships at midnight for a taste of the real Africa!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

Poker Playing - 6 B+M in a licensed venue is explicitly legal. Online remains a legal grey area - but no one has ever been prosecuted. While online poker is not a legislative priority in SA this seems to indicate that government is working towards regulation.
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12-20-2010 , 03:17 AM
Country - Venezuela, Maracaibo
Firsthand Experience? Yes

Cost of living - 8 - Basic items such as food and rens are going to be cheap, arguably cheaper than thailand. Finding an apartment could be somewhat troublesome but it depends on your budget obviously.Public transportation sucks a lot but taxis are also cheap. Electronics are rather expensive.

Recreation - 7 - Depends on what you like to do. Nightlife there are a few clubs 3-5 that a lot of people frequent, most of the clubs are frequent by 18-24 y/o people. There is no such thing as a "pub" where you only go there for drinks, while some clubs might have tables expect at least 75% of the people dancing. There are very "natural"places to go close to the city as well.

For people that like eating out, there are many restaurants (over 200) and quality of the food in general is going to be good. Street food is very good.


How Scary
- 7 - if you stay within "safe" areas I think is VERY safe. YMMV. The police is perceived to be highly corrupt.

Poker Playing
- 8 - There are 2-3 casinos with big whales all nights, not sure about the rake but probably on the high side. For online poker, internet is not fast but generally reliable.

How Easy to get there an stay there?
- 8.5 - I think only people from Colombia require a Visa to get to Venezuela, besides that I think most countries are welcome and get a 90 day stamp, I am not sure about extensions but shouldn't be too much of a problem.

FWIW, I have lived in Buenos Aires and Thailand (Bangkok and Phuket). In Buenos Aires and in thailand you can get away without knowing any Spanish or Thai, however I think you need to be able to speak spanish to get away in Maracaibo, other than that I think is a decent destination for anyone looking for a "exotic" place to live at. Tourist are very rare in Maracaibo, which probably is good to get girls, I guess it depends...

The city is very hot all the time and probably one of the hottest cities in South America, I think the avg temp is 32c...

There are no signs in english so the major trouble is probably going to be the language.

Anyhow I was born in that city and I havent been there in around a year, probably will be next year (at some point).

P.S: In before Hugo Chavez.

Last edited by xonath0; 12-20-2010 at 03:25 AM.
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12-20-2010 , 03:51 AM
stormbind,

how easy is it to get to and from South Africa? How easy is it to get to other neighboring countries?
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12-20-2010 , 12:14 PM
Stormbind--I think you meant to have like a 7 for cost of living in South Africa--you talk about it being "far cheaper" than Western Europe and US. Anyhow, I disagree, and pretty much found Cape Town about as expensive as it is here in Atlanta. Maybe housing is 25% cheaper. Restaurants and taxis were the same. Joburg seemed a good it cheaper, but I don't guess people would want to move there.

Venezuela getting a 7 for safety is just crazy. By that rating Mexico should surely be a perfect 10.
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12-20-2010 , 10:09 PM
Well, I wasn't rating Venezuela, in fact I was rating "Maracaibo", what makes you think is crazy though? Have you been there and had any problems? I lived 90% of my life there and no problems. I would give caracas a 4.5 or a 5. I would give cities such as Merida a solid 8.5...
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12-20-2010 , 10:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by xonath0
Well, I wasn't rating Venezuela, in fact I was rating "Maracaibo", what makes you think is crazy though? Have you been there and had any problems? I lived 90% of my life there and no problems. I would give caracas a 4.5 or a 5. I would give cities such as Merida a solid 8.5...
Never been there. But judging by the homicide rate for the country as a whole, I'd say nothing in the whole place deserves more than a 5...at very best.

What percentile of safety would you put Maracaibo in compared to the entire globe? I'd put it at 20% tops...very generously. Venezuela's murder rate is 20 times or so higher than just about the entire European and Asian continents, so you'd have to make a really convincing argument that all of the less-commonly-reported crimes, like robbery and carjacking, are proportionally much less common than murder. Is it cool to live alone in a detached house near the city center with no bars on the windows or wall around the house? Because it is here in the US, and it is just about everywhere in the world.

I'm not saying people shouldn't live there because of crime. I've always wanted to go to Maracaibo, and I've been to a bunch of Latin American countries that are about as dangerous. But anyone who does so should do it despite the astronomical crime rate; suggesting that the safety situation would be something favorable that draws someone towards the place (which a 7 would imply) is really bad advice.
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12-20-2010 , 11:26 PM
I never intended to give advice, in fact I was only giving my opinion on the place.

Would you mind giving sources for your claims? I rather not make an argument though, is not the point of the thread.

You make tons of claims in this thread, generally disagreeing with people, a couple of people have posted their opinion of places that I have been where I also disagree, then again, that is not the point of this thread.

Your point is the same as two guys arguing whether a girl is a 5 or 9...

Anyhow, my suggestion is indeed very bias as any other opinion. Why haven't you visit Maracaibo yet? Hot as hell but nice place overall.
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12-21-2010 , 01:08 AM
wiki

Probably as good of a global index of crime as any. Most of the countries that really screw up their homicide rates are African ones. On the other hand, rates of crimes like robbery are useless for the purpose of comparison: tons of countries don't have functioning legal systems, so these crimes are never properly reported.

Africa definitely looks better than it is by this measure and Latin America worse (since a big portion of Latin American murders are between rival gangs).

I think my point is more important than that. People could make decisions based on the information given on this board--that's the whole point of it. So we should try to be as accurate as possible.


And I am planning to go to Maracaibo whenever I visit Colombia, which could be a while away. It seems like a hell of a bus ride away from most of Colombia, but there's probably interesting stuff to see along the way.
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12-21-2010 , 01:58 AM
Fair enough.

From Bogota if you go all the way up you will end up in Maracacibo, FWIW, from bogota going up you will find medellin, santa marta and cartegena, all really cool places, if you ever make it to Maracaibo let me know I might be there...
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12-23-2010 , 04:38 PM
@ orange

How easy is it to get to and from South Africa? How easy is it to get to other neighboring countries?

South Africa has 3(?) international airports it is easy to get to SA. 1 000s of folks managed to make the trip for the soccer so I am sure you can too. Neighbouring countries can be accessed by road or flight.

T50_Omaha8

Cape Town is a tourist city and a lot of 1st worlders retire there. The prices in Cape Town are notoriously high. Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Durban should be cheaper than Johannesburg.
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12-23-2010 , 06:33 PM
need info about Canada... anyone? thank you
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12-24-2010 , 12:13 PM
need info about Macau plz
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01-23-2011 , 02:28 AM
bump for more posts
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01-23-2011 , 02:54 AM
Country - Iceland
Firsthand Experience? - Yes

Cost of Living - 5 - It used to be a 1 being one of the most expensive places in the world but the recent bank crash devalued the icelandic krona by 50% so suddenly it started being reasonable for tourists. Lately though inflation has taken it's toll and prices are creeping back up again.

Recreation - 7 - Very good partying scene in Reykjavik, but mostly centered around fridays and saturdays with bars open until very late. Other days of the week bars close at 1. Almost zero pay-4-play scene if that's your thing. Lots of cold activities like hiking, snowmobiling etc. but surprisingly few options for skiing.

How Scary - 10 - One of the safest places with the lowest murder rates in the world. The police don't even carry guns. Most people speak decent english.

Poker Playing - 7 - The laws are very fuzzy. There has been an explosion of live poker in Iceland and the police seem to not care. It's likely due to the fact that one live tournament got busted by the police in 2007, but the D.A. decided it wasn't worth pursuing so since then live poker has become de-facto legal. You won't find many high stakes games and it's almost 90% No limit, mostly 1/2 - 5/10 NL.

There's very good internet everywhere and no legal problems with playing online (so far).

How Easy to Get There and Stay There? - 7 - Iceland is a major hub for transatlantic flights so it's very easy to fly there, about 5 hours from East coast US and 3-4 from Western Europe. Since I'm a native I'm not quite sure what the visa situation is for foreigners.
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01-23-2011 , 03:00 AM
Seoul, Republic of Korea

Experience Stationed and lived for two years as a member of the US Army at Yongsan Garrison downtown Seoul, right between Samgakji and Noksapyeong Stations on the 6 line.

Cost of Living: 3 The big issue here are the massive security deposits it takes to rent a place. "Key money," as it's called, is required on nearly every rental and one can expect to pay at least 20,000usd just to move into a decent 2 bedroom in the city. In nice places it can be more. 50,000usd is not uncommon. That said, you get it back when you move out just like a security deposit. It's just that a lot of travelers don't possess that kind of available money.

As far as food is concerned it's cheap and plentiful. Street food is available, edible, and cheap. Also delicious and clean from my perspective. Beers and coffee have similar prices to any big city in USA. Expect to pay ~4usd for a local beer up to ~10usd for an import (bottles, draughts, whatever.) Public trans is cheap, clean and easy. It's about 1usd for an average ride on the subway/bus and you can use both. Taxis are extremely available and you can ride across town for less than 20usd unless it's rush hour.

Recreation: 9 Nightlife in Seoul is unbelievable. Huge open shopping malls. Tons of live music of varying style and quality. Everything from the highest end booking clubs (which I promise you can't afford) to the lowest end dive bars (where you will likely be hanging out with many American service members and hippy expat teachers.)

Two specific districts I wish to mention: 1)Hongdae, which sits right between three very prestigious Korean Universities (including the amazing Ewha Women's University where I swear 75% of the women are hot) is a huge area of bar after bar after karaoke joint after bar after restaurant after coffee shop after bar. Live music everywhere. And it isn't expensive.

2) Hyewha: More of an artsy district farther north with several blues cafes and bars of that ilk. Lots of fun to hang around in most nights. Lots of dates going on here at all times. More cultured than the sheer madness of Hongdae yet still a ton of fun.

I only knock Seoul 1 point because of the lack of available beaches, but you can be in Pusan in 3 hours by KTX and use their beaches all you want. Also Jeju island is only a 1 hour flight away and though it was barren when I was there it was still a perfect place to have holiday as long as you're bringing your own company.

How Scary: 9 Clean and safe everywhere. Even if you're stupid you're likely to not find too much trouble. Minority groups may run into problems with elitist locals but they would sooner ignore you than start something. Tons of English spoken in Seoul at the lowest levels. Tons more spoken around the Universities. Police are conscripted 20 year olds for the most part and are everywhere. Only illegal drug I saw in two years was hash. You have to go looking pretty hard for trouble to find it in Seoul.

Poker Playing: B&M: 2 Online: 8 Walker Hill is the casino with the live games but the rake is absurd. Game can vary on juiciness. Online isn't so hard to play. I played stars for 2 years there and never had one issue. Fulltilt isn't accommodated and you need to have it installed before you go. If you do there aren't problems using it. Never tried Ongame or Party.

How Easy to Get There and Stay There: 5 Super easy if you're in the military and on orders. If not, it can be a bit of a pain. I know it's fairly easy to do consecutive 90 day stays. After that I'm not sure. I know visas can be hard to come by. You essentially need to be sponsored by a company from what I've been told. And that process can entail background checks out the ass. Thailand and Philippines are much more accommodating here but it's not awful.
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01-23-2011 , 03:57 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 40s
also, this thread should be about cities.. its ridicilous how different cities are inside the same country
+1, especially for bigger countries, these numbers can vary a lot from city to city.
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01-24-2011 , 01:04 AM
Lima, Peru

Cost of Living - Biggest expense will be rent. 600USD(everything included) will get you a decent, furnished place for one person/a couple in the main tourist district called Miraflores. 900USD will get you a decent place for two people. You can get way cheaper places in some not so nice neighbourhoods, but I don't really see the point of living somewhere where you can't walk around safely at night. There a several other neighbourhoods besides Miraflores where you are safe - the prices are probably going to be around the same as in Miraflores.
Food prices are very cheap compared to where I'm from(Scandi) - probably something like 75% cheaper in supermarkets. Tons of very cheap and very good places to eat out - $2-$3 two course lunches available pretty much everywhere.

Recreation - Lots of nightlife in Miraflores with both locals and tourists, a bunch of historic sites around the city(historical center in downtown, some old pre-inka ruins), decent beaches, surfing, a good part of the coast-line near the nice neighbourhoods are made into recreational areas which is nice, since Lima isn't abundant with parks like BsAs for instance.
Cuzco or Arequipa is a ~1½ hour flight away if you want to see some mountains, ruins, do some hiking or rafting. In general Peru is just loaded with amazing places both in the mountains and the Amazonas. I don't think it can really be beat when it comes to stuff like that.

How Scary? - Miraflores and the up-scale districts are safe both day and night. Some of the less up-scale districts are not so safe at night, and a whole bunch of the poorer districts are not safe at all for a gringo at any time of the day.
In general it seems like the Peruvians like to take good care of the tourists, so while travelling to various parts of Peru they have a bunch of safeguards in place to make sure nothing bad happens. You'll still get ripped off if you're a tourist fish, but most likely you'll be safe in pretty much every touristy place.

Poker Playing - Online: I don't think anyone cares what you do if you're here on a tourist visa and keep your money in a bank account outside of Peru. Personally I wouldn't want to deal with South American banking in general, so if you can keep your banking biz in your home country I would much prefer that. Internet connections, while not extremely fast, seem to be solid and reliable.
Live: There are plenty of B&M casinos in Miraflores with NL games. Usually it's 5/5 or 5/10 soles(2/2 or 2/4 USD) and once in a while there'll be a 5/10 USD game going somewhere. That seems to be a rare occurrence though.
Most casinos also have tourneys going through-out the week. LAPT has a stop here in April if you're into tourney poker.
There's a thread about poker in Lima somewhere, where a dude posted a link to his blog which he updates regularly with info about the live scene.

How Easy to Get There and Stay There? - Jorge Chavez Int'l Airport in Lima(Callao actually, but only 20 mins from Lima) has connections to a bunch of European and North American destinations. I've seen regular deals to and from the US, while flights to Europe seem to be rather pricy - $1kish return is the cheapest I have found.
Upon entry you get a tourist visa. My first entry was in Tacna in the south from Chile. I got 90 days without any questions. My second entry was in Jorge Chavez, where the immigrations dude asked how long I was staying, I said I wasn't sure, and he gave me 6 months. Visa can be renewed anytime you want by doing a visa run to one of the neighbouring countries. I've heard talk about a $1/day fine for overstaying but I haven't looked into it. It would be a shame to go to Peru without visiting some of the other parts of the country, so a visa run should be no problem.

I realize I forgot to do a rating, but I don't even know what I'm comparing to. I would probably rate it highly in every area, with the caveat that Lima is a weird place for a Scandinavian where everything is "in order" and by the books. The cops are corrupt, the politicians are corrupt, the public transportation is a mess, the social inequality is causing a very weird dynamic where it's very easy to see the de facto segregation in pretty much every part of the country. There'll constantly be some ******* trying to screw you over if you look like a gringo, and that can be pretty annoying since you'll have to either bend over or spend a lot of time arguing over a dollar here and a dollar there just to avoid the constant feeling of being a sucker.
Luckily you can avoid most of the ******** because you're "rich" compared to the general population, but I wouldn't ever want to settle down and spent the rest of my life here, because that means you'll actually have to deal with all the ********. If you want to spend a couple of years on a tourist visa though, I think Lima is a great place to do that. This is all from a Danish perspective though. I'm used to live in a place where a corrupt cop is extremely rare, and a corrupt politician would create some serious outrage, so it's kind of hard for me to accept that that's just the way things are run here.
That said I absolutely love how nice people, excluding the *******s who try to squeeze the gringo lemon for its last drop, are here. If a day goes by and noone has stopped me in the street asking me where I'm from, what my country is like, if I like Peru, if I tried the ceviche, and so on it feels like a weird day. The Peruvians in general seem to be good people.

Last edited by Badafro; 01-24-2011 at 01:06 AM. Reason: grammer are hard imo
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