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Comment by thinbeige | Hacker News Reader

Slightly OT: Everytime there's a discussion about living in SE Asia or Thailand people give many good reasons to go.

Very rarely to never one dares to mention girls there as a reason. In this thread there's one person only who does mention girls.

Since I have never been to Thailand or SE Asia I am just wondering how much weight does this factor have in decisions to live in SE Asia (this is a serious question).

Edit: Fyi, this post got so many downvotes and I just don't understand why. People try to hide the truth and want us to believe that everybody goes to Thailand because of all these amenities, good Internet but not the one reason I mentioned? If downvoters keep on this hypocrisis I will delete the post again. This is ridiculous. I would like to see one downvoter replying and explaining why he downvoted.

Guys, keep on downvoting. I think the downvoters are exactly those who visit Thailand just because of this one reason.

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Do you really expect an uncomplicated answer given the range of people we're talking about?

I mean of course there's a subset of heterosexual young men who weigh women high in their travel decisions, and that's across every ethnicity for almost every region of the world, not just SE Asia. Pick a country. There will be a reputation there, of one or a few ethnicities or nationalities having privileged status in the dating pool. North American gringos -> South America; French guys -> American girls; White guys -> Japanese girls; Argentinians, British guys, etc., etc.

Of course girls is a factor for some. And then of course it's hardly a factor at all for many others who, SEA in particular, want cheap living, beautiful nature, safety, super polite and humble population, and escape from Western first world social practices, people, egos, politics they don't like.

If you're trying to chalk everything up to a single thing, you're showing a limited mind.

Edit - hijacking my own comment, after insulting religious institutions on the Muzzmatch thread, I appear to now be defaulted to the bottom of comment threads, despite upvotes. That's happened to all my comments since then, when they used to be defaulted at top and usually hung around there. Hopefully it's temporary... ? Am I going to need a new account/ VPN ?

Edit2 - yep, blocked from posting ('too much posting', well over an hour after last post). Farewell HN. Orthogonal out.

I wouldn't say "safety" is a reason to come to Thailand. Unless you meant "learn to practice personal safety in every aspect of daily life"

Edit: to clarify, even if you ignore all the household issues to deal with (eg "electricians" saying "what's that third wire for" is common) Thailand is number four on the most dangerous places to drive list. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-dan...

Outside of Bangkok, the following are just accepted norms for driving:

• no seatbelts

• no child seats

• ignore stop/give way signs/traffic lights

• drive the wrong way on the side of the road (applies to vehicles of all sizes)

• no understanding of how roundabout works (enter without looking, force existing traffic to stop for you)

• drive at 150kph+ on a 90kph road

• ignore marked turning/straight lanes, cut across non-turning traffic to make turns at intersections

I've seen kids drive better in GTA than some people do here.

Fair, I guess I meant comparatively to alternate cheap living destinations of digital nomads.

Indeed. I have lived in Thailand many years and the terribly dangerous driving habits are one of the very few things that make me wonder if I should move somewhere else. I drive quite a bit outside Bangkok and see very rude and dangerous behaviors constantly.

Thailand has the world's highest traffic fatality rate. A study concluded that it was because of high government corruption. I took a look at the data from the study that might be of interest to some people[1].

[1]https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bad-drivers-indicator-governm...

also add insanely high levels of gun crime and violence compared to most of the region/world (peaking around payday), and Australia levels of deadly wildlife

I won't deny it. Pickups driving 150 km/h, minivan drivers on pills, no seatbelt. It all happens.

But living and driving and driving in SE Asia makes me always wonder where these data come from. It is against my personal experience.

Thailand has pretty good, multi-lane and empty roads. Good and modern cars. And really fast emergency response, police checkpoints, etc. - compared to it's neighbors.

- Indonesia (Bali is the worst place for me in the whole world, other places are also bad) - really bad roads, lots of cars, zero hope to get the victim to the hospital on time,

- Laos,

- Myanmar - there is now a lot of cars in country with almost no roads and no driving culture) or

- China - good roads, good cars but 'I am the person that matters on the road' culture. Tons of deadly accidents that I have witnessed myself.

Getting back to Thailand from Indonesia makes me always feel so safe on the road (I usually drive motorbike in the North in winter).

Broaden his narrow mind then, rather than downvoting.

Who says orthoganol downvoted anyone?

It wasn't a factor for me, because I am more attracted to European/Caucasian women. And sure enough Murphy's law did have me end up with quite a beautiful Thai lady, I dare say could possibly be out of my league in the US or Australia. However this was not by design.

I came mainly for the tax benefits base and low cost of living of setting up an office in Thailand. There's quite a lot of annoying bureaucracy involved but a good agent can handle that. It's also a great place to self fund a startup as your team can all live quite cheaply giving you double the runway.

Anything else I can add has probably already been said.

Honest reply, kudos.

Women aside (since I'm in the same boat as you), how's the tax situation like? How much are you spending per month on CoL?

Well as someone who is NOT a US Citizen (this doesn't work for US citizens) I'm able to base my tax residency in Thailand, which has no CFC Laws and enables me to remotely manage and control my offshore corporations and not pay tax on income abroad unless its remitted to Thailand within 12 months of earning it. In other words, I only pay tax on what I spend on Thailand. As for my local Thai company it exists mainly to issue work permits and pay a small amount of taxes to justify our existence. The profits from our creations are generated in overseas corps.

As for CoL costs it totally varies. Some of the local people I hire can live off their salary of $700 a month. A comfortable western lifestyle would be about $3k a month, imo. I spend a lot more due to travel.

As someone who spends less than $3k a month and lives a comfortable western lifestyle in a first world country, that seems rather high.

Now I haven't been to Thailand, but in Vietnam you could live very, very comfortably for half that.

It depends on your idea of comfortable.

Some western foods for example are highly priced compared to local options: imported au/us beef is similar cost to Australia ($20-$30 a serve) but local "steak" is maybe $3 to $4 a serve. It also has the consistency of a finely barbecued shoe.

It also depends on the area. A lot of expats want to live in areas surrounded by other expats, so things are priced higher in general.

If you go live "in the sticks" ie you will stand out as one of few/only foreigners in the district, things can be cheaper (once people know you're a "local")

I would qualify spending $20 per serve on steak as bourgeois, rather than comfortable, at least if you're making a habit of it.

You can definitely live a very comfortable life in Thailand at about $1300. This includes swimming pool, gym, to-the-door food delivery, etc. I'm locals, though, so it might be a bit more expensive for expats.

You could be on the low end of "comfortable western lifestyle" in the Bay Area for $3k/month, renting at $2200 in the East Bay, spending $300 on groceries and $500 on entertainment. Something doesn't seem right.

What doesn't seem right is that, if you're in the Bay Area, it probably feels like you're just barely scraping by with $3k.

He's running his businesses in a tax efficient way so he's keeping a lot more of his money than when living in CA.

So the equivalent of that in Thailand would be about $1300 a month. My estimate of $3k includes a spacious 2 bedroom western style condo with a pool, gym, a nice motorbike, uber, eating out almost every meal, drinking, vacations to the beaches/islands every few months and entertainment.

Also not a US citizen. Interesting -- very nice that there are no CFC laws! That said, I honestly don't understand why not every country has them. Not having CFC laws generally makes it super easy to avoid tax, leading to a massive loss of tax revenue.

Some would argue just because you live somewhere doesn't entitle the government to profits generated in another country that has nothing to do with them. Also in Thailands case they seem to just be happy as long as we are living there and spending money in their economy due to its appetite for tourism.

That's a valid argument. But if you're sitting in Thailand controlling an entity (i.e. making payments, etc) on say Jersey, does that argument make sense? It's an artificial arrangement for the most part. (Not that I'm against the practise since it's legally possible in some jurisdictions; just an observation)

> Murphy's law did have me end up with quite a beautiful Thai lady

I’m not sure what our think Murphy’s Law says, but it doesn’t result in someone finding a soulmate.

In a nutshell, Murphy’s Law states that “anything that can go wrong, will”. It is sometimes decorated with the add-on “and at the worst possible time”.

Yeah you're right, I'm quite jet lagged right now and it was a poor choice of phrasing. oops

Honestly the majority of expats I see in Thailand for women/girls appear to be retirees.

It's not really that common (for me at least, but I don't live in an area popular with expats) to see young or even 30s/40s guys with a Thai "girlfriend", and those I do see, it appears to be more likely a legitimate girlfriend. (Note the difference)

Hi, I lived there for about a year - so I feel like I have some understanding of how things work. How much of a factor that plays is totally up to you. For some introverted men from the US, this can be the number one reason they go to Thailand. There are plenty of people who live relatively normal American lives, i.e. going out on weekends and being normally social. Then there are people who really dislike the girls there for whatever personal reasons but still enjoy Thailand for its amazing other draws. Things like extremely cheap cost of living, amazing massages (seriously this is huge), insanely gorgeous vacation destinations less than a $100 ticket away.

It is kinda personal but yes girls are considered major perk of Thailand (both "normal" and not). Thats one of the reasons i spent there 2 years.

How was it when you came back? Culture shock, hard to get along again or was it easy?

Fwiw I lived in Vietnam for 6 months and had girls stop me in the streets to take a picture with me and give me their numbers.

I think you should at least mention province you were visiting since people behavior is really different depend if how close the place to usual tourist routes. I spent just 3 months in Vietnam and didn't traveled that much, but there is huge difference in people reaction to foreigners.

In the South as soon as I moved away to the places that tourists rarely visit I always get attention from all sort of people because you can literally be the only European guy who was around in past week. Also I was surprised how many kids of school age have a good English skills.

In same time in SGN nobody ever spent time on me with no reason.

My very limited experience is that girls in Vietnam are mostly interested in a relationship. I remember talking to one 19 year old couple that seemed taken aback that I had had a few girlfriends and never been married...

From my still limited knowledge they take marriage very seriously and divorce is pretty much like death. There are all kind of people of course, but society they live in enforce it on everyone.

As always it's depend on urbanization since people who move to work in big cities away from their family are less concerned with traditions.

Spent just a week in Hong Kong when I was 22/23 and got stopped for pictures 3/4 times. It felt like a real novelty at the time, but I imagine I'd tire of it eventually.

>Very rarely to never one dares to mention girls there as a reason

Because you'd be stating the obvious. If you're a heterosexual man, then women are "the reason" for everything (perhaps excluding making your parents proud, but even that one could say is related). It's biology. It's the reason you'd move anywhere. It's the reason we do anything. It's the reason you brush your teeth. The reason you get our of bed for Pete's sake :) And if you're a heterosexual woman, then men fill the same reason. So what, if anything does Thailand have to do with this?

Yes, love the girls over there and it is a nice perk! But not the ones you're thinking of.

I've spent about 5 months in Thailand and there are a lot of western girls over there in holiday mode. American, French, Polish, German... and I guess a whole bunch of other countries too. Personally, as a kiwi, I love the American girls - and always hope to run into some. And if friend's and I meet some girls we are ready to reply "you're from America?! The greatest country in the world?!" With a look of astonishment on our face haha :D

Upvoted.

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