I don't even know where to start in replying to this post.


Best advice would be to learn how to play poker first before travelling/moving overseas i think?

thai food is cheap, western food is more expensive.

drinks are not cheap at any clubs where foreigners attend, one of the things firstcomers assume wrong

you can only 4-table online?

if you are coming for only 3 months Id suggest having the money saved beforehand

99% sure non-thais are not allowed in this profession and Id assume you would not be happy working 12 hours a day 6 days a week for $200 / month

There's two foreign Doorman working in Chiang Mai the whole time I've been here, so I guess it's possible. Can't imagine the money is good though

You sure about this Spiv? It might backfire and make the girl even more hot. A surefire way is just tell her ya got the clap

In my experience if you tell them you are married and therefore not interested in sexual services they will respect that.

Just save some money man and come out here and go nuts, imo its the only way and soooooo damn fun!

how can i find a ****ty place in chiang mai? atm im living in a small condo, paying 11k+bills+internet. furniture is nice but id much rather prefer a place with bad furniture, no TV etc. but a bit more space, like a 1-2 room house. i heard these places are actually cheaper, i dont mind paying more than what im paying now though. i just feel like now im paying for nice furniture, big TV, services etc which i dont need (i download shows/movies on my notebook and watch it there anyway, looking back not used the pool that often). id much rather have more space and maybe a little bit space outside, where i could fulfill my life long dream of building my own stone pizza oven or put in a hammock to nap all day.
thing is that the sites people refer to here only list condos etc, not what im looking for.
any help/suggestions on how to get a place like that?

That might not be much cheaper if you are coming from the US, but liquor is more than twice that price in places like Australia and the UK, so Thailand is still a lot cheaper, even for that. For instance to buy a bottle of beer in a bar in Perth you are looking at the equivalent of 240 baht per, and a shot (if it is even legal to purchase which it isn't in many places) is like 300 baht. Last time I bought a vodka-redbull in Perth it cost me 500 baht.

In many beer bars in Thailand (especially in cheap places like Pattaya and Samui) you are paying 50-60 baht for a beer and 60-80 baht for a mixed drink of house vodka/gin. That is 1/4 of the price we pay at home.

OTOH most people don't drink every night when in their home country, whereas they do when they are in Thailand, so your entertainment budget will be much higher nevertheless.

Where abouts do you want the place? You can get some super cheap 1,2 or 3 bedroom houses that are out of the city for 5-15k. They will have loads of space and probably **** furniture. There are quite a few Thai real estate websites with houses like this, I'll have a look.

You might also want to check out Baan Thai (think its called that) on Nimmanhieman Road. I've heard they have large condos for decent prices but not much inside them. I've not actually seen them myself though so don't quote me on that, but it might be worth a look.

I was wondering what back up internet to get. I was thinking about an internet sim card. I have a 1-2 call sim card and would like to keep that number. Is that as easy to transfer my number as in other countrys?

Also what's the best of True/Ais/DTAC for reliability of service in Bangkok. I am on 1-2 call AIS now. I do not need the internet on my phone everyday so this will just be a back up for grinding so a basic package is all I need with the emphasis on its reliability.

atm im at hillside 4, would like to stay in the north/northwest of the moat. i like shopping central to get tons of cheap sushi and i want to start training more at lanna muay thai gym which is in that area too. i dont mind being like 10-15km away from that without having to cross the whole city. atm i only have a bicycle, tried motorbike for the first time this week and crashed, ill rent one soon but want to take it slow.

www.houseinchiangmai.net

Finally got pictures uploaded, not from my camera, but from my new roomates, (aussie peter). Good three day weekend.

First day/night in Khanom. Pretty boring/mellow, stayed at a niceish hotel, had a good pool right on the beach. There's no surf at all and you could wade out like 20-30m and be waist high which is cool for drinkin Leo's while floating in the warm water. Didn't really check out the 'town' if there is such a thing, but we were just happy to find a beach after 3+ weeks of Nakhon. Next day half of the people left back for Nakhon, didn't ask, so 3 of us go over to Koh Samui. Didn't want to pay like 1.5kbaht for the hotel shuttle to the pier, so went to the main street spoke some sloppy Thaiglish and had the thai hospitality get us there for 500bt and twice the fun with some old dude. Got bungalows right on the beach for only 450bt so even the one other busto ET was able to relax.

Met some cool german next door, he was halfway through his Thailand trip but two nights ago crashed his rented motorbike. 6+ hours in Thai hospital, no broken bones, no head damage, but gashes and bandages to the point where he's flying out the next day. Gets me a little scared about getting a bike, he said he wasn't drunk, a dog just walked in the middle of the road at night he swerved and crashed, the person behind him pretty much fell on him. I give him my sleeping pills, he smokes us out, rollin up a beauty. Didn't ask him how he got it, but he had no problem just smoking it out in the open. I thought Samui was awesome, rocks kind of reminded me of the Oregon coast, climbing along finding some crabs and **** all stoned is sanuk makk makk. I haven't checked out Phuket or any other beach but this definitely makes me want to. Dinner spot on the beach, pretty empty where we were, away from Chaweng where it looked like the parties were at. No one else wanted to go to Full Moon Party, but I had friends to meet so didn't feel as toolish soloing it. Turned out to be pretty cool, the hotel bus ride was full of a bunch of Uruguayans that were my age and super fun loving. I spoke some spanish and felt fine about it, but then they started speaking their normal speed and I was gg. Still much more fun to be able to tell a story or a joke or whatever as well as understand most of what they say than know phrases and maybe form some basic sentences (my spanish v my thai). Never been to SA, more reason why I should put it on some sort of life-travel list. We all get numbers for boat rides, I get the short stick as the Uruguayans fill up one boat and I just let a couple go ahead of me mai pen rai. Then the director guy just starts calling numbers after mine and I'm like uh oh, Thai dude sees this, helps me out, we jump on the next boat out. Guy works/lives in Koh Samui, originally from Nakhon, knows English b/c his family had to move to Germany. Had to work at 7-11, but loved the German style of life. One day after like 8 years goes back for a short trip to Thailand, first day he decides he wants to stay. Goes to Koh Samui, says "I speak English and Thai, I have Thai citizenship" is snap-hired to be a deskman at a nice resort. Free food/accomodation, 30kbt a month not a bad Thai-life. Said he just left most of his stuff back in Germany, told his parents to sell it or give it away.

Going to the FMP by himself, so i get to bring him to our group from Pattaya. Pretty cool night, so many hot latin girls omg. Could've got more drunk than I did, just shared some buckets and kind of wandered around chatting it up with the Pattaya group mostly. In at 12am, out by 5am. Definitely reccomend to anyone and everyone, from a safety/sketchness standpoint it's really much more organized than I thought. The buckets are just them mixing a pint of alcohol plus a shark/redbull and coke/sprite, (thought these were just like buckets of who knows what). They had a sleeping area and a police presence too.

The fire jump rope is pretty cool- yes people getting burned, always someone gets it going for a decent amount, maybe 2 or three for a while, then some drunk donk comes running in and takes a flame-rope in the gut and they all go down. Definitely a fun spectator sport. It was honestly a bit more mellow than I expected: no massive orgies on the beach or naked girls running around, people were sitting at bar tables or just sitting and talking on the beach. Like a big rager on the beach, which is nothing to sneeze at and i had a good time. Pattaya kids said the night before was actually more fun.

Thai-Peter gives me a lift and I get to crash at an empty hotel room. Says he wants to visit Nakhon show me around, and I can come stay at his place in Samui anytime. Good to know that I'm 3.5hrs and 400bt from a spot to stay on a sweet ass beach. I didn't really do anything there either, got in from Khanom at like 430 headed out to FMP at like 1030, so still a lot to see.

Come back to the new place and landlord came by installed 3BB DSL, big fridge and some new furniture and curtains while we were gone. I had taped up old towels for curtains and we put the TV on our sole coffee table. I can just imagine this guy seeing our ghetto-ness and just going out and getting a TV stand and curtains all for no cost, like farang residents, good for business, they pay on time and they teachers. What landlord would arrange your groceries in the fridge for you haha. 6kbt total (5k was original we said we'd pay 1k more for fridge/furniture etc), 2bdr big kitchen/patio, making the place way better than anything I stayed in at college. Good times! Chill spots around us and I'm not seeing the damn students 24/7 because I know longer live in the same place a lot of them do! Better times!

Will attempt to post pics in the thread, but here are links for now.



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def true, my dad is from Oz and just got back from a trip and said he couldn't believe he was paying $16 for a 6 pack of beer at a liquor store ($10 at most in cali). I was just saying that since they are only looking to spend $500 each for rent (which is not very much money imo) i just wanted to let them know that in thailand partying is more expensive than its usually said to be, as well as the point you made about most people here partying almost every night (myself included). my overall point was that before i came here everyone i have ever met who had been to thailand has talked about how cheap their trip was and all that stuff, when in reality it can be a decently expensive place to live if youre a degen.

$80+ a night is a lot of drinking, specifically individual drinks(not bottles) at tourist-geared places I'm guessing?


I refuse to get into the bargirl debate once again, but will say I could never live in phuket because basically there are tons and tons of working girls of one sort or another and "normal" girls are tougher to find...non tourist places(including bkk) are not like this!!! However if you never approach/talk to a girl when you go out of course your gonna be stuck paying for it...pretty sure this is the same everywhere in the world, lol.

agree that western food tends to be similar priced to back home, but there are plenty of cheap options(that also tend to taste better imo-most western food here sucks), where you can order more food than you can eat for $3-4.

offtopic Q:

going to perth, australia at the end of june to get the non-immigrant visa and explore the city

asking tips for hotels/what to do/what to see etc.

PM if you dont want to derail this thread

if someone wants to join on the trip i am flying thai airways from bangkok direct to perth

someone explain this to me

trying to book thai airways flights from phuket to bangkok. using the search from the main page, not going through any promo sites (through which you sometimes get better prices)

one way costs 3445 baht incl. taxes

if I then search for round trip and include the same flight as the first leg I get 4280 baht per flight (8560 for the whole trip incl taxes)

wtk?

It's so easy to burn money drinking here man. Even if you try and be smart and split on a bottle, you could be looking at 2,000 baht between 3-4 people, plus 1,000 baht or more for mixers, shisha.. buy a round of shots for your friends, go to the next bar and repeat.

Phuket and Bangkok are like day and night as far as meeting girls. I haven't seen too much of Phuket but at Karon beach it seemed like the entire female workforce was employed in the go-go bars or at massage parlours. In Bangkok just head to RCA or any regular bar/club and work your game.

It's still cheap by most western standards. If you had a bender like that in a place like Perth or London it would cost you over 10,000 baht. A single round of shots or breezers/mixed drinks here for 4 people is going to run you $48, which is 1500 baht.

yeah, its relatively cheap....but a lot come here way under budget for going out

i have rooms open in the Kata mansion for June, and will probably be giving the place up in July unless something changes. anyone interested in taking over this awesome house, i'd be happy to put you in touch with the landlord.

Either you misread my post or I misrepresnted my intentions. I don't want to play poker for a living, for one thing I can't beat mid-stakes and don't intend to learn how to. But as so many posters here talk about how easy they find the poker grind, I was wandering if they are all accomplished mid+ stake players or some grind the micro's to subsist.

which is why ordering individual drinks @ a tourist place is a fish move...not that I've never done it, but for anyone watching their budget it should be avoided.

leaving for malaysia at 8am today with heffs976 for visa run, do we need to do anything extra besides just fly back to phuket? btw i have a 2 entry USA visa he has a non imigrant UK visa.

Lessu tells everybody to go to McDonalds but I believe that's optional.