First week is already over. Hard to believe. I feel as it was much longer! So many things happened, so much is still happening. We are sitting at the Club for Change, a local co-working space where social entrepreneurs can work together, share ideas, find answers to their questions. All thanks to Gift, the girl which we met a few days ago. She allowed us not only to work here, but also stay for the night. Amazing girl, full of energy, believe, but also an entrepreneurial mindset that allows her to convert dreams into action. More about her in a future issue of GoodNewsLetter.
Meanwhile, continuing writing down thoughts about Bangkok, I want to share with you a variety of financial issues, to give some idea of how much it costs to live in the capital city of Thailand and how we’re doing with our idea of exchange.
As part of the introduction: Thailand currency is the bath. 1 euro is about 40 bath.
For the clarity, I put our spending in few categories:
1. Accommodation
We haven’t spent nothing for accommodation so far. The first two nights was provided by Thai Amnesty International which booked a place for us at a hotel near their headquarters. The next five nights we spent with three different couchsurfers: Pablo, the Spanish guy which is described in one of our history; Golf, thanks to which we saw how the real Thai family house look like and Yu Lee from Taiwan, with whom we talked for hours about many interesting topics. Today and over the next few days we will sleep at the Club for Change, slowly implementing our idea of exchange.
On a more general information: prices of places in hotels seem to start from 250-300 bath (based on our observations, we haven’t really researched carefully that topic). When it comes to the price of renting an apartment, we have learned that the monthly cost of renting a small two-room flat in a new, protected building, with free access to the swimming pool and the gym is 14,000 bath. However, we should take into account that salary in Bangkok is usually about 20,000 bath.
2. Food
So far we have failed to implement the idea of exchange in this field. So we buy food ourselves, which is a challenge, given that I don’t eat meat and I’m not used to spicy food. Plus, of course, we try not to spend more money than is need. The meal which you can buy on the street cost about 40-50 bath. In restaurants and bars it is at least twice as expensive. There is also the option to buy food at the supermarket and warm it up there (we often use this option as it’s fast, cheap and you can see before what you’ll eat, which in case of buying food on the street is not so obvious). On average, we spend 250-300 bath a day on food for the two of us.
3. Transport
Transportation in Bangkok is divided in two groups, expensive one: train and metro, and cheap one: buses and boats. Then there are three types of taxis: car, motorbike and tuk tuk (similar to rickshaw). Metro and train don’t stand in traffic jams. Ticket price depends on the number of stops, but usually costs at least almost as much as dinner. The bus will cost from 6 to 15 bath, several times cheaper than the metro, but the bus will certainly stuck in traffic. It is difficult to say for how long. Tickets you buy inside the bus. There are also free buses, but we were not able yet to discover where are they and how they work. Boat (at least those moving by channel) costs 10 bath, and ride can give you quite a lot of excitement. With the taxi it is also not so easy. The cheapest are cars – they have taximeters, so the price is fixed. In the case of tuk tuk, designed mainly for tourists, price depends on what the driver tells you. Motorbike taxis theoretically have a fixed prices, but they may change during rush hours – motorbike is the only means of transport that doesn’t stuck in traffic.
On average, we spend on the transport around 200 bath a day (for both of us). All the places we want to visit are spread all over the city and we often spend long hours trying to get from one place to another.
4. Other
Other expenses includes the SIM card (149 bath), some medicines, postcards, notebook, etc. Usually, everything is much cheaper than in Europe.
That’s all about finances and thought related to them.
Talk to you soon!