i am living in cambodia at the moment and have been thinking of setting up a grind house... anyone interested ? got any thoughts?

Possibly be interested if in PP, but I'm not gonna be out there again till next year.

i thought the whole point of places like cambodia was it being so cheap you don't need to have roommates!

cheap yeah ... sorting out good internet connections and backup is what may interest people,, plus in most the country regular power cuts to deal with to. plus security was burglary is an issue to!!!

selling it well

Actually Cambodia isn't as cheap as some people make it out to be.

Sure, you can live in a shack for $50 a month, but if you want apartment standards like in BKK + safety, good internet and stable power in PP you usually end up paying more and you'll have to deal with annoying poverty related stuff in a less developed place.

The only advantage is the cheap and easy visa, but that hardly outweighs the disadvantages, which is why most people living there purely by choice had troubles in Thailand and can't return.

I know a guy who rents a 6 bedroom, 4 bathroom mansion in Sihanoukville for $500 a month, so I think it's fair to say it's a bit cheaper than Thailand. It's also a lot cheaper for nightlife, girls etc than Thailand. You can find draft beer for 50c just about anywhere in PP or Snooky, that's just not possible in Thailand.

I was comparing BKK and PP, but Snooky is probably comparable with Krabi or so, although you'll need to have a thai handling everything for you to get good deals.

Khmer houses all suck imo. Everything tiled + crappy local furniture.

Not many people have carpet in the tropics. I was in Cambo 2 weeks ago and I thought it was significantly cheaper than Thailand for pretty much everything. Cambodia's sales and import tax rates are very low which means it's going to be cheaper than most places.

hotel prices in phnom penh and bangkok are similar, but you're not comparing apples. bangkok is spread over a large area and the bts and mrt open up the options whereas the part of phnom penh where tourists want to stay is a tiny area.

food is probably the same or slightly more in pp than bkk. i like thai food though. sihanoukville is incredibly cheap for food if you like seafood.

pp and sihanoukville the tuk tuks are probably higher in price compared to bkk taxis

the big saving is with nightlife. it's probably a third of what you'd spend in bkk. i prefer the gogos though.

so much this

I have lived here for 6 years and I don't think I have met anyone that lives here because they can not go back to Thailand.

On the other hand, I have met dozens of people, that used to live in Thailand for years and now prefers Cambodia. Just like me.

Khmer people is just not as spoiled with tourists as thai people, and most are genuinly happy to see foreigners here and will not try to take advantage of them.

Of course things are changing in the wrong direction and in the most touristy places you already have "thai" levels of scams. But venture a few kilometer away from the tourist traps, and mingle with the locals, and you will get a whole different experience.

^ was mostly agreeing with the relentlessly annoying poverty related stuff like pushy tuktuks, beggars and kids selling postcards. but yeah i'm judging it unfairly just by the touristy areas in PP / SR

and wouldn't be surprised if a bangkok quality apartment + internet + utilities ended up more expensive there (condos not townhouses spiv)

I found western food to be a fair bit cheaper in Cambodia than Thailand, especially anything containing beef. Plenty of places serving English breakfasts etc for ~75 baht. Thai food is widely available too.

There's a Burger King at the airport in PP, A Whopper with Cheese meal there is about $5.75, which is ~170 baht. The same meal at Burger King in Thailand costs ~255 baht, and the quality of the beef was better in PP.

Obviously nobody is going there to eat Burger King, but it's a decent example because you are talking about the exact same meal.

All in all I was pleasantly surprised at the food situation in Cambodia. There were lots of things available there that you don't see much of in Thailand (e.g. western style Chinese takeout, Australian-style meat pies, Doner kebabs etc). Along with the usual Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Khmer food. The French influence also means there are a lot of small, cheap restaurants that serve very good coffee.

I read the first five pages of this thread and almost developed an ulcer. Jumped to the end and it now seems that there is a reasonable discussion taking place rather than the rants of a few "superior" beings.

Can anybody recommend where to "re-start" my read without needing meds.

the first post by kick2dante, then you'll contract aids

Yeah. I'd better take back what I said. Having taken a "lucky dip" and started reading again a lot closer to the end, it seems to have turned into no more than a "I get my rocks off for less than you" thread.

Never mind. I'll just have to look somewhere else for a worthwhile read. Adios.

may i suggest the lonelyplanet forums for a more family-oriented read

uwotm8te?

hotels the same in bangkok as PP? not even once

i stayed in the heart of the tourist area for $14 a night (was $15 but got discount for 5 days) in a hotel that was plenty decent, obv not baller but had aircon/hotshower/clean/ 2beds ........ you are paying at least double that in BK, at least

food is also considerably cheaper in cambodia where you can get just about any meal for $5, try getting good western food for that price in thailand


i think for my lifestyle i would need $800 for snooky, $900-$1000 for PP, $1100ish for pattaya and $1200ish for BK


agree with this cambodians all extremely friendly, thais had major attitudes i thought and just awful customer service

Went to Nagaworld yesterday, and it is indeed nit infested. No great players, but all decent-semi predictable regs with 1 fish that ran like God (against me, sigh!). 2 tables were running by 8 with 95% regs. 5 people bought in for 200$ at my table, 4 at 500$ and I covered.

All and all, very beatable, but a boring nit game.

If you eat thai food, then thailand is cheaper for eating.
Western food in PP is usually incinerated , and you need to be choosy where you eat. It's safe to eat anywhere in Thailand.
Cambo actually imports a lot of food from thailand and other bordering countries, making it more expensive.
http://www.aseanaffairs.com/cambodia..._cambodia_soar
PP smells of sewage, and they piss in the street.
You get power cuts.
The guys doing PP on the cheap , have a very low standard of living.Thailand is miles ahead.
Khmer women aren't as clean as Thai women.

Hopefully my OPINION, won't start a trollfest. Just making newbies aware of commonly held opinions of Cambodia. It has it's charm, but is very third world.

Literally none of the things you typed are true except the power cuts, and Thailand also gets those btw.

Just because Cambodia imports food doesn't mean its expensive. What makes imported stuff expensive is tax, and Cambodia doesn't have it. That's why the same bottle of Jack Daniels that costs 1400 baht in Thailand costs half that in Cambodia. Thailand also imports a lot of food, and unlike Cambodia they tax it heavily. So food is generally much more expensive in Thailand, the exception being local seasonal fruit.

It was all true. Comparing PP to Bkk , is like comparing a Porche to a Tuk Tuk.
From multiplex cinemas, shopping malls , skytrain, tube , skyscrapers, world class living, rooftop restaurants , night markets , boxing , some of the worlds top entertainers play in BK. It's a world class city.
To a place that smells of sewage , and you have to go around on old Daelim mototaxis or home made Tuk Tuks, with a gas tank that's an old plastic bottle, , with a tube in it, behind the smoking driver, and in front of your face lol. It's a mobile bomb.
Does PP have a single cinema yet? And I don't mean that Flickhouse rubbish!
PP is a third world city , lacking in amenities. I will be visiting PP shortly, but let's not mislead anyone thinking of going there, that it's in the same ballpark as Bkk.

I think we can all agree that BKK has more stuff in it than PP does.

That's not what you wrote in your post though. You were saying that Thailand is cheaper than Cambodia, which it isn't.

It's also not true that expats living in Cambodia have a lower standard of living. You don't have to live in a big city with shopping malls and movie theaters to have a high standard of living. Some people don't actually enjoy those things at all. Pretty much all the things I quoted I couldn't care less about. Skyscrapers, trains, multiplexes and malls are things I actively avoid. That's why I live in Samui. If that's what you're into then I agree, Bangkok is definitely a better choice. But it will still be more expensive than PP, there's no getting around that.

PokerSpiv,

You don't understand what the term "lower standard of living" means.

The things that you value may be lumped into what they term as higher quality of life, but definitely there is should be little to dispute that Cambodia has a lower standard of living.

I'm just trying to make people aware of what PP is like , compared to Thailand. I was shocked at the poverty , the smell , and that they don't have garbage collection as such etc. There was a family living under a tarpaulin in the same street as my guesthouse, The Flamingo.

Anyway. I can never get the numbers down in PP, compared to Pattaya. I would be happy if you could show me otherwise.
Transport in Pattaya is negligible if you stay on the baht bus route.
Thai food at foodcourts and little Thai places is 30 - 50 baht and sometimes includes water.
Happy hours and two for one deals makes the drink cheap, or use one of the cheap bar complexes.
Sex can be similar cost.
Non prostitute girlfriends are easier to find
Accommodation is harder to compare. In PP, you get a bigger apartment for the money, but security isn't great , and you would need transport. In Pattaya, you would need to stay over Sukhumvit in East Pattaya to get a cheaper house , but would need transport. Or stay in a studio nearer the baht buses and nightlife.
Saving on visa costs is big.
But if you have money, you can have a better lifestyle in Thailand than Cambodia.
It's hard to way it all up. But , imho, I have never managed to get PP to work out cheaper , except for the visa. What draws me towards PP is being able to work there. Otherwise, I wouldn't consider PP over Thailand.
Even for stays of a few months, I still find Thailand cheaper. Although Snooky sounds like it might be cheaper, but looks a bit lame. PP guesthouses are poor value.