To be on a budget - part IV

So far, where are you right now? You’ve got your visa, you arrived in Thailand and you found a nice flat to stay at. Basically you have already accomplished more than most of the people who are still sitting in front of their laptops, dreaming about training in Thailand but found a good reason to skip the session at their home gym today.

It´s time to talk about what the title of this series indicates: Staying in Thailand on a budget and saving as much money as possible. In today´s episode I will give a general overview of the monthly costs for living and training in Chiang Mai (!) as a farang (!). Why exclamation marks? The first one exclamation is in reference to Chiang Mai: a very cheap city compared to the capital and the south. The second one exclamation emphasizes the high chance that you look as foreign as I do, which makes many things more expensive for you here.

Many Thais believe that foreigners are rich in general. This assumption is kind of right most of the time. Nonetheless, especially for those who stay long term or work here, the assumption doesn´t really fit. Sure, my living standard is still far away from the one of a factory worker but the budget I´m living on (excluded are the costs for training) is, according to worldsalaries.org, the same as the avarage salary of an auxiliary nurse. When I was here the first time on a four weeks vacation I spent more than twice as much in this time than I do now.

When I have to buy something I don´t convert the price to Euro, as I did last year, and think "Oh, wow! These shorts are just 10€". Instead, I think that "well, 400 Baht... let´s hope the quality is good." What I mean to say is, if you want to stay long term, you have to stop thinking like a rich Westerner and start to adapt a Thai-style middle class life. (At least, this works best for me).

The costs of living

1. The flat – 3150 Baht including electricity, water, Wi-Fi and a rented fridge. For more information check out my last post here

2. The training – depending on how long you stay and/or how long you are willing to commit yourself to one location, this may vary. I pay 8000 Baht.

3. Food and other requirements – This includes basically all the other costs - everything you need to live here. Food of course but also things like a new toothbrush, new flip flops, drugs, deodorant, a pair of kneepads for training etc. Also included are going out sometimes, having sushi for 300 Baht or going to the cinema for around 350 Baht. You may say "I just want to concentrate on training! I don´t need this shit!" Believe me, you do. Even including those expenses the budget is still tight, but it is enough to have a good life and be able to buy a few things "for fun".

So how much is it? 11.000 Baht.

As you can see, training in Thailand is expensive compared to the other costs – even for western standards. The prices for training are quite the same all over Thailand, it is always around 7000 – 10.000 Baht with discounts if you stay long term. But for what you get it´s totally worth it.

All in all – my monthly expenses

~ 22.150 Baht per month

More details on how to save money will follow in the next episodes.

24/7

My opponent is right in front of me and only a few inches out of my range. But I cannot see him clearly; just blurred. Maybe it is not even an opponent but a trainings partner – Yes: The location we are at is quite bright and the ring has white canvas, as the one at Team Quest. But I cannot spot anymore details. Suddenly he hits me with two jabs. I duck under his jab, make a step forward and throw a left hook with a lot of power, right to his face.

I breathe out quick and blink. My hand is somewhere over my belly... and I did not punch. I am not in a ring. I am lying in my bed. Grinning quietly to myself I place my hand back onto the mattress. This is happening quite often to me in the last weeks– no matter if I am falling asleep at night or I am going to have just a small nap. I have always tended to flutter my legs or arms while falling asleep, but these uncontrolled actions where barely connected with dreams.

Always when this happens (and it happens nearly daily) I dream that I am boxing. But why do I have these dreams suddenly?

Maybe it is because I have been only training boxing since more than two weeks now. Two classes per day with a lot of work at the focus mitts and many, many rounds of sparring. If this were my job, doctors would tell me that I am overworked since I’ve lost the ability to relax and forget the work for a few hours.

If I think about this, they could be right... somehow. But it is not like that I cannot think about anything else than the sport the whole day. I have a few "projects" that I concentrate on in my free time. Like learning Thai (changed to American University Alumni recently, where I attend classes every day now), looking after my bicycle I really have grown fond of (learned to wrap handle bar wraps like a pro) or bringing my nutrition to the next level and learning more about nutrition theories and science.

It seems more as if the sport has reached my sub-consciousness.

I feel like I breathe this sport instead of air. The last training was just a few hours ago and I am already excited for the afternoon session. How can I improve my game? What will I do better this time than this morning? I do not have to motivate myself to go to the classes. For me it has been routine. This whole process of training so much feels natural. It feels right. It feels great.

Furthermore I do not think this training-even-when-I-sleep-thing is something bad. I interpret it as a sign that my body and mind are united and both completely focused on the sport and my performance. I am taken in what I do – I love the exhaustion, love to reach my limits, love to see the improvements.

And that is why the next fight is already scheduled. After an injury caused a short competition break it is time to step into the ring again. 1^st of December, Muay Thai at Loikroh.
Finally! I feel like I haven’t fought in ages!

A little bit of holidays

One, two, three – I bend my knees a bit to have more power, swing my arms back to build up momentum and jump. It seems as if my stomach moves up inside my body, closer to the heart while I am falling. Just a two seconds adrenaline kick and then my feet hit the water. Completely surrounded by water I immediately feel refreshed from the burning heat of the sun. It is absolutely quite, there are no legs of other people swimming and there are no children diving here. When I look downwards I cannot spot the white tiles covering the floor of the pool – I just see an endless blue.

I come up again and swim closer to the coastline, where the others are standing and sitting in the shallow stretch of water. We are ten or fifteen travelers from different parts of the world who just met here by accident. No one else is here. When someone randomly asked, "Where are you from?" the answer was "Citizens of the world." It would have been just too complicated to figure out who is travelling with whom, who met whom where and where we are originally from.

We chat about our travel experiences and dozens of other things while cooling down in the refreshing, but not too cold, water. After a while I climb up the stony shore, find a nice, big, flat stone to sit on and have a sunbath again.

And again I marvel at the location: Crystal-clear, turquoise water that is amazingly warm, palm trees whose leafs move in the slight breeze and the sun is shining from a cloudless, blue sky. Red cliffs rise up from the water and with heights up to 20 meters they offer the chance for a little bit of adventure: For the leisure time cliff jumper and risk takers.

We are not somewhere at the ocean or somewhere far away from the city. Chiang Mai is a beautiful city with tons of sights and beautiful nature but it lacks something. It is missing a tropical beach and the sea. But being at the Red Mud Quarry makes you forget that. This old, flooded quarry is just a 30 minutes bike or red car (Chiang Mai´s taxis) ride away from the city. 

 

It is a perfect place to relax from a week of exhausting training at Team Quest for me. Peace, a sunbath, a refreshing swim and a small adrenaline boost when jumping from the cliffs. 

I will definitely return to this beautiful place!

To be on a budget - part III

Once you have made it to Thailand you need an acommodation. It is no surpise that the tourist quarters of cities are the most expensive ones. So try to avoid these when you are looking for a hotel. You don´t have to get far, far away from the city center either. If you avoid for example in Bangkok the hotels right at the Kao San Road (the backpacker quarter) you can already save a few bucks.
Even when it says in the Lonely Planet that it is really cheap around the Kao San, my experience is the opposite. For the same price we stayed at a, instead of shitty, small hostel in this area, an awesome, nearly luxury hotel a 10 minute taxi ride away.

You will stay long term and want to rent a flat? Before I came here I found a few websites in English which offer flats for rent – unfortunately just a few flats were as cheap as the one I have now. Especially if you don´t speak Thai, I recommend getting the help from a local if you want to rent a flat (you don´t know anyone? No problem – just do couchsurfing: You´ll meet new people and finding a flat is quite easy here, so it is not much work.).

Most of the housekeepers don´t speak English and I didn´t even recognize most of the apartments that have flats to rent out, because they are just advertised in Thai. But Joel from Team Quest knows all the places around here so he just took me from one to another and it didn´t even take more than 20 minutes until I had my first own flat. It´s not as complicated as in Germany.

Just getting there, having a look at the flat - bed, cupboard, chair; everything is already in there – asking for the price and signing a contract I can´t read.

Where I live, you pay your rent in cash every month and I had to deposit 2000 Baht. If I want to leave I just have to tell the owner one month before.

So what does it cost to rent a flat in Chiang Mai? (Be aware! The north is cheap! Bangkok is more expensive and the Islands are waaayyy more expensive!). I live on 15m² with a small balcony and my own bathroom. Included in the monthly rent is a queen size bed (brand new matress), a fan, a chair, a wardrobe, a small cupboard and – really important if you are a male fighter -- a make-up table. Because you want to look handsome when you step in the ring.

Basic Rent: 2200 Baht
Fridge: 250 Baht
Wi-Fi: 250 Baht
additional costs: ~ 450 Baht

All in all: ~ 3150 Baht/month

Too small for you? You can get houses a 10 minutes bike ride away from the city from 7000 Baht a month.

Here are some pictures of my flat: It´s really nice, clean and extremely close to the gym.

See you in Chiang Mai soon!

Outside the city

Colorful lights are stretched right and left of the narrow street, dozens of naked bulbs dangling over the various foods offered by the small stands. Hundreds of people , mainly Thais, slander between balloon sellers, grills on wheels and game booths. A brutal bass from the oversized sound system near a big dance floor travels across the festival area. The stairs to the dancefloor are guarded by three important -looking policemen with "MP" armbands and helmets.

It's Wednesday evening and we are a group of about 20 Team Quest members who have travelled about a half hour outside of Chiang Mai to a village festival. The village festival is not a cozy, small and quiet one. Rather, it is one of the larger ones and a few thousand people are here .

Piak , the 17 year old Muay Thai fighter will have his most important fight later tonight – he will fight for the Northern Thailand championship -50kg.

We pass our time with exploring the festival area: While having ice-cold coconut juice we try to pop balloons with small arrows at one booth or shoot with plastic bullets on cuddly toys at another one – I am far from being successful in doing this.

Adrien, who fought at Lumphini Stadium several times seems to be well known in the Muay Thai scene here. He shakes hands here and there... but maybe it is just because of the Angry Birds balloon he tied to his wrist which is floating over his head all the time.

I am still not sure.

When the fights finally start you can barely hear the traditional music played because the loudspeakers at the ring are nothing compared to the huge sound system at the dancefloor. But this is trivial because already the first fight is a really good one – from round to round the reactions of the few hundred people surrounding the ring become more emotional and extreme. It is very even fight - until it is ended by a surprising knockout.

The second fight is as thrilling as the first one and every hit is followed by a loud "OOOIIII!" of the crowd. Hands are raised quickly to show how much you want to bet and people are hectically looking for a bookmaker to accept their bet.

Then the third fight is on. Piak´s chance to win the title. Many of the Team Quest guys join the gamblers and we provoke a hustle and bustle when both bookmakers ("500! Wanna bet?") and gamblers ("Is he good? Is he good?") try to find out why the few farang are all betting on this one guy.

We are all nervous: It is not only a friend who fights, but it is a title fight – that it is also about money is just the cherry on top of the cake. These three things together are the most thrilling combination to enjoy a fight (right after stepping in the ring yourself.)
Already in round one Piak and his opponent go hard. With the bell for the first break, the Team Quest fighter even gets hit by a brutal shot which nearly knocks him out.

But Piak does not surrender and fights five rounds straight, trading punches, kicks and dozens of knees while clinching – It is neck and neck. The crowd goes nuts.
An absolutely awesome fight, it is really really hard to say who is better.

When the judges call the fight, my hands are sweaty.

Unfortunately, Piak loses by a split decision. But a lost fight means not he lost the war: I am not the only one who thinks the fight was great. The promoter already scheduled a re-match for the end of December.

Then, the belt will be Team Quest!

Watch the fight – it is worth it!

A flourishing street

The Soi Chomjan is just one of the dozens of small side streets of the highway 108 in Chiang Mai. It is the street I live at, just a 2 minutes bicycle ride from the Team Quest gym. Here are no sports stadiums, no cinemas, no big markets or schools. There are no office buildings or a trainstations. Mainly it is a typical Thai style residential area with the biggest mall of the city, the Airport Plaza, several food markets and the huge Tesco Lotus supermarket within the reach of a 10 – 15 minutes walk.

You can get everything you need within a range of one kilometer – but never the less, the Soi Chomjan has developed a life of its own during the last years. Locals told me that 2 – 3 years ago there was not much on this street. Now, you can get nearly everything you need, at least for your daily life.

I described my neighbourhood in an earlier post, right after my arrival, and was especially happy about the big choice of restaurants I have here. Since I have arrived, now two months ago, this street is still growing: On two construction sites, houses are built that have flats on the second and third floor while the first one is built for small businesses to open up there. Nearly weekly new stores open up along the street: Two are specialised on selling animal food, two new pharmacies and a new milkshake and coffee place are just some of those that started their business since my arrival.

When I walk along the street after the evening training, the tempting smell of rotees, some kind of pancakes, typically sold by members of the Thai muslim community, work up my appetite – even if I had dinner in one of the many small restaurants already. Right next to it a stand offers waffels in chocolate sauce and on the other side of the street a man sells spicy meatballs, right from the grill. There are more stands, offering dried fish and seafood, fancy meatball soup, sizzling barbecue or slightly sweet, deep fried dough.

All these opened up just a few weeks ago and the people appreciate it: Especially in the evenings the street is busy ( but not crowded like the city centre or the saturday walking street), the small parking lot in front of the 7/11 supermarket is filled with a couple of motorbike and everyone is buying things. The people are having dinner in the restaurants together or sitting in the outside areas and having a few beers, cheering and laughing. The Soi Chomjan is flourishing – my favourite restaurant even opened up a second branch even closer to my flat – YES!


You can really get everything you need here. In addition to the 7/11, there are two more "private" supermarkets, 2 hairdressers, 1 massage salon, 1 butcher, maybe 15 restaurants and 15 food stands, 7 places you can get coffee at, 1 bar, 2 pharmacies, 1 shop where you can buy everything from umbrellas to forks, 2 motorbike repair shops, 3 laundry mats, 2 shops for clothes, 1 mobile phone seller and many more I cannot remember.

It is great to live in a lively neighbourhood and not in a boring multi-storey. The best? The gym is in this area as well. Just Perfect!

10 weeks

Waking up from a Saturday midday nap, I feel a flash of inspiration: Writing is known to make you think about things and get a new perspective; a view from "outside". I know that I’ve been having a goddamn awesome time here; but I want to think about in in detail and review my stay so far.

For me it is not only the first time of my life to be so far away from home for so long but I also started to live on my own here: Own flat, own budget, own responsibility. Well... I did not have to do a tax return or so but basically I do not feel like this whole "you stand on your own feet now"-thing is so much different from living with my parents. It is nice that I can do whatever I want to and that I am independent but it is not really difficult. Some people (around the same age as I) overestimate this.

I arrived ten weeks ago and since then I have seen many awesome places in and around Chiang Mai: Temples, student cafés, coffee shops etc. But the most astonishing thing has been, and still is, the nature here in the north of the country. The hills of Doi Suthep are a few-minute bike ride away from the city center and you can explore breath-taking waterfalls there, enjoy a broad view to the end of the horizon and find silent places hidden in the jungle. It does not matter in which direction I leave the city, I always find silence and exclusive, relaxing locations. Absolutely awesome!

But I have not only seen things, I’ve met dozens of new people – people from all over the world. Most of them have a comparable story: They quit their jobs to come here and are having the time of their life now. Not only the fighters at the gym, but also "ordinary" people who now teach English to earn additional money to their savings to stay as long as possible.

It is great to meet so many young people in such a short time. Everyone is interested in making new friends. Everyone wants to enjoy his travelling and everyone is eager to hear stories from other countries, lifestyles and cultures. I love this and wish more people at home would have this easy-going attitude as well.

“What about the sport?”, you may ask. The main reason why I came here is to train. I train two to three times a day at Team Quest Thailand, six times a week and not once was I not motivated to train. All the technique classes, all the sparring sessions, all the rolls, all the bag-work, all the conditioning – everything pays off already. I can name the techniques I have clearly improved, I can tell which specific punch is harder, faster and more precise now. I see how my game in sparring improves, how much more stable I am while doing takedowns and how my positioning has gotten much better in these situations.

There is a team spirit. You can get brutal all-out sparring or a relaxed technical round – whatever you want. Just talking to the teammates and everything is good.

I fought two times and gained a lot of experience from both fights. I learned and performed my first wai kru. Kicked some ass and then got mine kicked.

There are so many other things I enjoy here. Examples being the polite behavior of the people, the weather (I have seen some pictures from Germany right now – I really do not miss the winter), the food, learning about the Thai lifestyle every day and much more.

What is my impression of the last ten weeks?

I love it – and recommend it to everybody!

So, gosh damn it! Why are you still sitting in front of your computer? Book a flight, pack your things and come here!


Felix – still as in love with Thailand as on the first day

My knee and my bicycle

As I wake up from the ringing of the alarm clock in the morning, I feel that something is wrong. There is something that was not there the evening before. Something I was not aware of. My knee feels stiff – carefully I move and stretch it. Oh - That hurts.
Gloomily, I reach for the small pot of tiger balm on the table: Placed there for cases like this. I need it too often as to put it away.

I put a lot of the miracle working balm on my knee; right there where the lateral ligament is. A strong smell of menthol fills the room. Thankfully my senses are not fully roused so I do not have to enjoy the strong smell. That would be a bit too much for an early morning, even though I am already used to the distinct smell of natural herb salves in my room.

Since I trained six times a week in Germany too I am used to being hurt all the time or suffering a little complaint. You do not only learn how to handle this but also to listen to your body and furthermore how to cure several kinds of injuries – from bruises, to sprains, to strains and black eyes. You see and learn a lot. Unfortunately, most of the time, you are your own experimental rat for your "medical tests". At least you know what works and what does not afterwards.

I sit up in my bed and get my legs out of the bed: It feels ok. No throbbing or pounding in the knee. With new determination I stand up and walk a few steps. Damn it! That hurts! I cannot stretch the leg completely nor can I bend it completely. Limping through my flat, I think about how this could have happened. I did not have any problems during the Muay Thai sparring or during the takedown grappling class afterwards.
Maybe a low-kick hit me right on the knee and the high impact while shooting for takedowns afterwards was too much for it.

When you are doing two to three training sessions per day, the "being-hurt"-factor reaches a completely different level. Now, I really have to be careful in every single session not to make any injury worse. Even if it is nothing bad, like just a bruise in your foot from a fight two weeks ago or a sprained finger – you have to take care of everything and adapt your training, so you can still work hard (I concentrate on boxing now, since my knee is still not fully recovered).

Sports are not really “good for you” when it starts to take its turn into being a competitive sport. No matter if it is triathlon training, shot put or swimming (but STILL a thousand times healthier than hanging on a couch and having chips with coke!). Additionally, the problem with combat sports is that you cannot only hurt yourself also get hurt by others; this is due to you letting others kick, punch and throw you every day. Sounds a bit sick and might not be that intelligent but it makes me really happy.

Because I cannot train with my injury I decide to do a bike tour with my new racing bike. Just getting out of the city and cycling along the Ping River, the biggest river in Chiang Mai, is absolutely awesome. Beautiful nature and silence along the riverside. Furthermore it does not only help the knee to recover but I found a new sport I really like. I never had a racing bike before and realize only now how fast you can go with it.

 a great new hobby

If you are in Chiang Mai, do a bicycle tour! The nature is great and it is extremely relaxing and a welcoming change from the MMA training. It burdens your body differently than MMA training.

I will keep you informed about the recovery process – when the knee is healed, I think I can face the next fight. Hopefully it will be soon.

To be on a budget - part II: The visa

Applying for a Visa

I will not write about all the visas that exist for Thailand but only about those concerning those of you who want travel to Thailand. This is just an overview over the options; the exact regulations are different from country to country and from embassy to embassy.

1. The easiest way: Just entering the country by plane gives you a 30 day tourist-visa. You don´t have to apply for anything or call the embassy. But you have to prove before departing to Thailand that you have a ticket indicating that you’re leaving Thailand in the next 30 days. Entering the country with a one-way ticket is illegal. This is why the airline will not even let you enter their plane in your home country. You can extend this visa by crossing the border which entitles you to 15 more days.

2. The comfortable way: Applying for a 60 day tourist-visa in your home country. With this visa you can extend your trip for another 30 days by doing a visa-run if you have a re-entry permit (if it says "single entry" you just have 60 days, but you can still get 15 days more by crossing the border). This visa costs around 50€. 

UPDATE: It seems as if there are also long-term tourist visas with up to 180 days - so you have to do a visa-run every 2 months.
I never had a tourist-visa so I am not sure.

UPDATE 2: "BANGKOK: -- Royal Thai Immigration Bureau has confirmed to Thaivisa.com that holders of passports of UK, USA, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Italy are since November 1, 2013 given 30 days at land borders instead of previously only 15 days." - www.thaivisa.com

3. The awesome way: Applying for a one year visa. To get this kind of visa you need a good reason and someone who is a guarantor for you in Thailand. The most common ways are Business and Education visas depending on whether you get a working permission or you start studying something here. The Education-visa may be the easiest one: There are several language schools which offer the opportunity to get an ED visa if you start studying Thai there.

I got a Muay Thai education-visa. On some websites of the Thai government it said already before I left that it is not possible to get them anymore but I guess it just depends on how cool the embassy in your country is. I recommend applying for visas at one of the honorary consulates instead of an embassy, because the chance is higher that they simply sell the visas, because they want to earn money, and are not that strict.

The German honorary consulate in Essen is pretty lenient with the regulations concerning the visa. I just needed a printed email from Joel, one of the Team Quest Chiang Mai owners, in which he confirmed that I will stay for training here for one year. I arrived in Essen, Germany, showed them the email, paid 140€ and walked away with a non-immigrant ED multiple entry visa.

Make sure to call the consulate in your country early enough to ask what kind of visa they offer, when you have to apply and what you need. Basically it depends to 90% on the mood of the employee of the consulate if you get an awesome visa or just a tourist one – so make sure to be nice. Picking up a friendly chat is a good idea. That is the way how I found out that they can give me the ED visa for Muay Thai also, even if it is not common anymore.

Re-entry permits and visa-runs

Whatever visa you received, you have to leave the country after, at the latest, three months to extend your visa. Even if you just cross the border to Burma, turn around and get back to Thailand, you will get another stamp in your passport, which allows you (depending on your visa) to stay another 15, 30 or 90 days until your next visa-run.

It is important to know how many re-entry permits you have since with every visa-run you lose one permit. So if you leave Thailand with a non-immigrant visa (= 1 year visa) at the 01.01.2014 you will get another 90 days into your passport, which allows you to stay until the 01.04.2014. If you leave on the 11.01.2014 again you will lose another re-entry permit, but will again just get 90 days, which means you are allowed to stay until the 11.04.2014.

So be careful and plan your trips as close as possible to the expiration of your 90-days to stay in Thailand as long as possible... unless you have as much luck as I had and get a Multiple Entry Permit. This permit allows you to leave the country whenever and how often you want to and you will always get 90 more days.

The expiration date of your visa

If your non-immigrant visa expires on the 10.01.2014, it does not mean that you have to leave the country. Instead, it marks the last day on which you can get 90 extra days through a visa run. So you can leave Thailand on the 9^th and get another 90 days.
So it is possible to stay in Thailand for a total of 15 months with a 1 year visa that at least allows 4 visa runs.

Overstay and more re-entry permits

Don´t stay longer than the stamp in your passport says! The Thai government is serious about overstays. They will charge you 500 Baht per additional day you stayed in Thailand without a valid visa. Furthermore you can lose your visa - even if you could have stayed another 9 months or so in Thailand. And if you make them really angry you can also be prohibited to enter the country for a whole entire year.
So mark the day for the visa-run in red in your calendar.

If you have a visa for one year but not enough re-entry permits you can apply for more at the Office of Immigration. I don´t know how they decide if you get one, but I know that it costs a few thousand Baht.

Furthermore you can also buy the permit to stay another 30 days, but I am not sure how this works and everyone told me that the easiest way is to just do visa-runs.

The visa stuff is quite confusing and every country deals with it differently, so make sure to contact your consulate / embassy early. I hope I could give you a brief overview on the most interesting options for you. If there are questions, post them in the comments. This way everyone can see the answer.

Final advice: Try to get a multiple entry permit! You still have to leave the country every 90 days, but it makes you rather independent as to when to travel abroad and you can´t lose days by leaving earlier.

I hope this helps!
Felix