Trading Under the Sun

Hello to all visitors of tradelikeapro.ru! About 6 years ago I read some book about forex, the book was absolutely useless, but it had an inspiring beginning: "By trading forex, you can be in any part of the planet, travel a lot and enjoy life, because all you need for work is a computer and access to the internet". And so, closer to autumn, I decided to move to warmer lands, to a place with the sea, bananas-coconuts, and palm trees instead of Russian birches.

I moved to Thailand, to the city of eternal celebration, Pattaya. Yes, I know it's banal, I know it's clichéd, but I like it here :)
What is Pattaya? It is a resort town, something like our Gelendzhik or Anapa, only more civilized and with warm weather all year round.

Below I will try to briefly talk about life in Thailand, the differences from Russia, prices, whether a visa is needed, etc. I am more used to writing technical texts, and I am not much of a photography lover either (all the photos were taken on a phone), so if something is not right, do not judge harshly.

The climate in Thailand is tropical, that is, it is hot and humid here. The temperature all year round averages 30 degrees, reaching 35 in spring. The heat is much easier to bear than in Russia; at first it is stuffy, then you get used to it. Naturally, you cannot do without air conditioning in an apartment. One advantage is that there is no need to buy winter and autumn clothes and shoes.

What made me move from Russia first of all was the excessive contamination of food products with chemical crap. My main enemy is monosodium glutamate, hundreds of E-additives, sausage with added "meat flavoring" (I'm not kidding), and fish and meat are a whole separate conversation, I won't scare you or you won't be able to sleep. In general, it got to the point where I literally had to hunt for food in various stores, searching for more or less safe products. I have a duodenal ulcer and I feel all this filth in food immediately.

Have you seen how fat our people are? Yes, partly from beer. But look at non-drinking women and children, it's awful.... And they do not even eat that much. I believe that the main culprit is food crammed with the output of chemical enterprises, which clogs blood vessels, disrupts metabolism, and then you know the rest...

In Thailand, of course, you can also get imported products, "improved" with all sorts of additives, but there is a large amount of alternatives in the form of the freshest fish, fruit, meat, and vegetables. By the way, cooking at home is not customary here, so apartments most often do not even have a kitchen. I have one, but I only use the microwave and kettle. Otherwise I eat in cafes and restaurants. Prices are nothing like Moscow's; you can eat well for 300-400 baht (1 baht is approximately equal to 1 ruble). There are also many eateries "for the thrifty" where dishes cost 30-60 baht, but I do not go to such places. Thai cuisine is spicy, I do not like the taste, so I eat in European, Chinese, and Japanese cafes. I always buy fruit for home, of which there are dozens of varieties here, and freshly squeezed juices (only 20-30 baht for a 0,3l bottle). Global fast food in the form of McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. is also present.

If nostalgia for Russia strikes, you can drop by one of the dozen Russian restaurants, have some dumplings with vodka, shed a stingy masculine tear, and once again forget about the motherland)) For fun I once took a Thai girl to a Russian restaurant and fed her borscht. That was amusing, seeing the face of a person trying our traditional food for the first time :) She said she liked it, but I didn't believe her. The taste is far too specific for Thais.

In Pattaya itself, of course, there is the sea. But the water is somewhat murky: some say sewage is discharged there, some think it is because of algae, I do not know. There is no dirt in the water; at least you will not see cigarette butts, syringes, and bits of paper floating on the surface, as at Black Sea resorts. Many tourists swim and are quite satisfied.

But in general, it is customary to go swimming and sunbathing on the neighboring small island of Ko Larn. You can get there in 45 minutes by ferry (it costs only 30 baht one way, just like the metro in Moscow :) ), or hire a boat for 150 baht. On this island there are several beaches, the water is crystal clear, and you can sunbathe and swim. The bottom is sandy, although pebbles sometimes turn up. The water is warm, there are no sharks, jellyfish, or other bothersome creatures, only some small fish sometimes swim near the shore.

Thais by nature are a very calm and non-aggressive people. They do not have the desire to cut your throat, as Egyptians do. At least you do not feel aggression like that from Arabs (those who have been to Egypt will understand). In general, Thais live in order to live; there is no chase after material values like expensive clothes, a car, an apartment, and other junk here. Let me quote a post from one forum (I cannot say it better):

The religion is Buddhism, and there are quite a lot of temples. Monks can be encountered on the streets. But since Buddha was not God, but an "enlightened" person, as he himself said, Thais pray not to Buddha, but to the spirits of the buildings where they live and/or work. For the spirits, special little houses are placed near every building and offerings are made every day in the form of food and drinks; scented candles are also burned (in large quantities).

Thais are also characterized by slowness and relaxation. Why hurry, when life is good anyway... Thai service is the slowest service in the world: recently I was buying a computer chair at Index (the local IKEA) and asked whether they had delivery. When I asked when they would deliver the chair, today or tomorrow, the consultant named a date 2 weeks away))

When you live here for a long time, Thai slowness is passed on to you as well. Laziness is everywhere here and there is no escaping it. Work, of course, gets done, but not quickly. And the most surprising thing is that in the end, in terms of speed, you manage to do everything just the same as when being in Russia. Now there's a mystery: it seems you are not hurrying anywhere... Maybe time flows more slowly here because there is no bustle, or maybe something else...

The atmosphere here is not just calm, but somehow benevolent and kind. There is a feeling of a certain safety, perhaps... It is hard to put into words, and until you leave you will not feel it, but in Russia the atmosphere is very aggressive, as if you were at war. Every day there is an expectation that something bad will happen: either from the government, or from the people around you, or that something will stop working... I cannot explain it, but you are constantly expecting some kind of "dirty trick", always on guard. Here there is nothing like that. There is no deep sadness, no depression, everything is fine.

The main languages are Thai and Lao (they differ in the same way Russian and Ukrainian do), and newcomers communicate with locals in English. Russian tourists, as in other countries, stubbornly speak only Russian and are very surprised when they are not understood. Russians who for some reason think that if they pronounce Russian (!) words slowly and clearly, they are obliged to be understood, are very amusing.
Only guides in tourist companies speak Russian; this is not Egypt, where Arabs know Russian better than English. In general, without knowledge of English at least at the level of secondary school, it will be hard here. Locals know it poorly and speak with a terrible accent that makes them quite difficult to understand.
The Thai language is not all that difficult (so far I have learned only a couple of words); the main catch is that there are shades of sound here. There are five intonations and the same word can have 5 meanings depending on the tone of pronunciation. The Thai language comes easily to people with a well-developed ear for music.

Yes, one more thing. In Thailand no one "shows off" (except Russian tourists), and no one will ever look at you arrogantly. The tolerance threshold is very high here, which is why there are so many gays and transvestites. What would happen in Russia if a man put on a woman's dress, put on makeup, and went out in the evening onto the street in a residential district? How many meters would he manage to walk? And on Airborne Forces Day?
Here everyone treats those around them very calmly. And since showing off is absent, no one strives at all costs to buy an expensive car or put on clothes from TSUM. Here you simply begin to value life.

There are a large number of clubs, discos, bars, and the like in Pattaya. This will not surprise anyone; you can get drunk and dance (on a table) in any corner of the world.

Pattaya is more famous for sex tourism. Bars with prostitutes, prostitutes without bars, gay clubs, Go-Go's (strip clubs), massage parlors with intimacy, transvestites, swinger hotels, it's all here. The main concentration of this kind of establishments is Walking Street, but there are many other places too, and more interesting ones without crowds of tourists.

Our site seems to be decent, so I can't tell you more. I'll only say that if you are a man, unburdened by family and having no problems with money, then Pattaya will seem like paradise to you :)

There are no freebies anywhere and you have to pay for everything in life. Therefore, one cannot avoid the practical question of how much it costs to live in Thailand. There is an opinion that everything in Thailand is cheap. I wouldn't say it's dirt cheap, it's just that everything is expensive in Russia)

The monetary unit of Thailand is the baht. 1 baht is approximately equal to 1 ruble, so it is very convenient for a Russian person here in terms of calculating the cost of goods. If you go here on vacation, it is better to bring dollars or a bank card with you: rubles can be exchanged, but only in a couple of places and at an unfavorable rate.

Food in stores costs about the same as in Russia, housing rent as in Russian regions, maybe a little cheaper. But in cafes/restaurants prices really are several times lower than in Russia. I already wrote about this above.

As for housing, you can rent a dirty little room without air conditioning somewhere on the outskirts for 2000 baht, or you can rent a big villa for about 80 thousand a month. Prices depend on the location, type, and size of the housing. Personally, I rent a two-room apartment (by Russian standards, the layout here is specific), fully furnished, in the city center, a little away from the roadway, for 20 thousand baht a month. In Moscow this would be the Garden Ring, and a similar apartment there would cost about 60 thousand, or a little more, monthly. So we can say that renting housing is relatively cheap.

My apartment is located in a condominium, which is a type of housing in the form of an apartment building with a small infrastructure: usually it is a restaurant, shared WI-FI (included in the rent), pool(s), laundry, parking, cleaning services, and a gym. I have this set, perhaps in other condos there are some additional services, I don't know.

One of the advantages of warm weather is that you do not need to buy warm clothes. Therefore, there are decent savings on autumn-winter sets, because they are not needed. Winter clothing is sold in stores, but only for tourists. As for prices. Locally made clothes a la "Cherkizon style" cost what they once did wholesale at Cherkizovsky. That is, very cheap: you can buy jeans for 300 baht, a T-shirt for 100, and flip-flops for 300.
In shopping centers, there are lots of little stores with "budget" brands: ZARA, La Coste, plus local (or simply absent in Russia) labels. Prices are 10-20 percent cheaper than in Russia. So you can dress "modestly and tastefully" too.
More expensive brands like my favorite Louis Vuitton, Armani, Tod's, Bottega Veneta, etc. are only in Bangkok, 2 hours away from Pattaya. And prices for some expensive brands differ from TSUM prices VERY strongly. Sometimes by 40-50 percent.

For those who like to get pig-squeal drunk: prices for alcohol in bars are very democratic, 3-4 times cheaper than in Russia.

Electronics here are generally cheaper. But not all of it. For example, photo equipment costs about the same as in Russia, but TVs are cheaper by about 30 percent. Refrigerators and household appliances, like vacuum cleaners, also cost noticeably less. Mobile phones, tablets, etc. are sold here at European prices, without the profiteering markups like in Russia. There are markups, but only if a specific kind of equipment is not yet officially available in Thailand, that is, it is "gray" import.

Another plus is that from Thailand you can fly very cheaply to many neighboring countries: the Philippines, China, Malaysia. In general, look at the map: a plane ticket to the states around Thailand will cost 100-150 dollars. I am planning to fly from here to many places, but so far there somehow isn't any time.

So how much does it cost to live in Thailand? The question is difficult, because everyone has their own demands and level of expenses. I'll put it this way: whatever you spend per month in Russia, you will spend about the same here. Personally, I spend something around one hundred thousand baht, but I spend quite a lot on entertainment. One fellow even writes that he lives on 300 dollars a month. But I would advise aiming for at least 30 thousand baht a month per person.

Tourists do not need a visa: upon arrival you will get a stamp in your passport that gives the right to stay in the country for up to 30 days. But if you want to live here permanently, then the headache begins... It is described in detail here. For now I use visa runs, but next month I want to get a student visa so as not to waste time on trips.

What did I want to say with this post? In order to move to a place where you will feel comfortable, you do not need millions of dollars. And very often, everything is much simpler than it seems. You do not need to be tied to a workplace, money can quite well be earned through the internet too, for example with the help of forex trading. You just need to stop thinking narrowly and throw the cockroaches out of your head. The opportunities are there, Putin is not forcibly keeping you in the country, understand already at last YOU ARE FREE and always have been free.

I hope I didn't tire you out, someday I'll write more about some other country too (I have many travel plans). So as not to miss the next off-topic post, be sure to subscribe to the blog updates via VKontakte or by email.