If you are tired of being a robot on a daily basis where you go to work, come home to eat some crappy McDonalds burger, watch some boring show on TV, sleep...and repeat this on and on for years, this might the article for you. First off a little bit about me in this article I wrote about my experiment trying to move away from the US.
Basically my life is no different than a robot. Work, eat, browse the net, and sleep x 5 days a week. Once and awhile Ill go out to see the movies or eat a nice place, but at the end of the night I still feel down with no fulfillment in my life. It feels like people all around are trying to 'one up' each other by getting the latest wardrobe, or taking out a new lease on some car that they are slaving over. Quite frankly Im tired and it's time to move on.
Welcome Thailand!
Thailand is country in the southeast part of Asia where the climate remains the same throughout. Warm with periods of rain on and off. Yes, this country has a tropical climate which makes it great for walking in shorts and flip flops while going to the beach. The food is one of the best in the world and the people are very friendly. Let's move onto my experience.
I remembered when I first got off the plane to going to Thailand. I arrived in it's biggest called Bangkok and was put on a big surprise when I arrived there. There was TONS of places to walk around the city that featured anywhere from huge Mega Malls to the privately own businesses that had all sorts of goodies. For days all I did was walk around to try different types of food. There was a street vendor that cooked up fresh Pad Thai which is made with gluten free rice noodles, spices, some fresh egg and super huge shrimp. The cost of this? ONE WHOLE DOLLAR! The same dish goes from $8-$15 depending on the restaurant here in the US. I remember going through a whole week eating nothing but SEAFOOD everyday for cheap!
There were many great experiences even at the outdoor fruit juice vendors. For 30 cents they sliced up a fresh organic Papaya and some Mangosteen (which is a superfruit), poured some ice and blended all up waiting for me to gulp down. A bottle of water was 7 cents in case I wanted plain H20, not like $1.50 here in the United States.
People were open and friendly to me. If I needed help with directions, someone was always willing to help me find my destination. The culture was awesome to marvel at. Being a Buddhist centric nation, they always focus on karma and treating people with niceness. Not only that, but gold plays a huge role in their culture. It's very fascinating that they give more respect to gold than to say Federal Reserve notes.
There were plenty of activities to do. Want some dancing lessons? Many places to go learn. Wanted to learn how to cook delicious Thai food? So easy to find. Towards the end of my travels, I noticed my skin was looking better, my hair was stronger, and I lost weight! I lost weight due to the huge amounts of walking I did (which was fun to do, not a chore since there were so many places to see) and eating their healthy food (Thai food uses tons of herbs, gluten free ingredients with tons of veggies).
After all that walking around the city, my feet were killing me. Not a problem. I went to visit a massage place that would massage your feet for $6 for the whole hour and done professionally! I remembered feeling like Nirvana after my feet felt like feathers at the end. As for fun, you can go to one of the mega malls and pretend you are Steve Perry of Journey or Billy Joel at the Karaoke Machines.
There I was in Thailand. Had a great time with great memories of people Ive met. Then it was time..... I flew back home and WHAM!
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Reality had set in. It was back to the robotic lifestyle, work, eat, tv, sleep. There are hardly any places to walk around here unless you consider walking at strip malls watching soccer moms scramble with their kids as fun. People here weren't as friendly as they were in Thailand. The food was bla....it lacked flavor and punch. There were some good things of course. Internet was a bit faster, traffic was better and was easier to get around places having a car.
But all those little benefits in comparison to Thailand?
The next few years Ive decided to visit Thailand but on a longer basis. I stayed mainly in Bangkok but did venture out in the south like Khanom Beach, Chang Rai and part of outer Bangkok. One place I stayed for one month, another places for a few months. There was of course some growing pains, but at the end I learned many lessons and got the knowledge of how to live really cheap in Thailand. Cheap as in $600 a month on average.
Yes, you can live on $600 a month in Thailand. In the next article I will go over how this can be done (yes, im talking about Bangkok, the most expensive part of Thailand). Here's a few key pointers I will go over the next article as I wanted to write this article as a preview. Here are the key points:
- How to live safe, nice and comfortable for DIRT CHEAP
- Eating healthy, organic delicious food cheaply
- Having a great lifestlye overall
- Transportation
You might have checked other sites and read people saying you need a BARE minimum of a $1000 to have any kind of life (speaking if you are a single person). I would say that it is FALSE and it is possible to have a great lifestyle for less than that. This requires of course being smart with your money, how to spend it and also 'when' to spend it.
I will go over also on possible ways to obtain that money (one way which of course Im experimenting on) to live on if you are not a retiree. Also will go over about having back up plans if all else fails.
Till next time, I will post Part 2 of the next article that will go more into detail on how to actually live very cheap in Thailand. Also on how to get around issues with visas.
Before I go, if you have a wife, two kids, live comfortably in your house with a good job, have a social life like watching Monday Night Football with your buddies, then this series on how to live cheap in Thailand is not for you.
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