Friday Night Live from Bangkok, Thailand

hey everybody I thought I'd just load up a live stream for Friday night here in Bangkok and uh haven't really been doing much this week I don't know I just felt kind of tired and not the most energetic

this week but I've also been doing a lot of planning and uh trying to prepare for my next steps um doing research on accommodation and I'm starting to lean more toward the 90 days in Vietnam um it just

seems like uh it seems like there's a lot more to see there than maybe I initially anticipated and I'm starting to dig in more into some of what like is on offer there and uh yeah it seems to

be like there's a lot more going on there than I would have thought I mean I know it takes more effort to get the visa uh there which can be a detractor for some people looking for just like

an easy uh easy Visa option but you know that being said it seems like it's developing really fast that that's it's going to have a really Dynamic and exciting feeling I'm GNA try to do more of these live

streams too um just because I think a lot of people really enjoy them and I'm able to get through a lot more stuff on these live streams as well uh because it's they can serve as kind of a

Q&A for the audience that you know there's certain interests that they have or certain topics that they want to cover and we can disc discuss those more easily in this format um but yeah feel free to chime in

I know it's Friday night here in Southeast Asia Friday morning oh excuse me Friday morning in the United States Canada what's everybody up to this weekend uh not at the moment you know if I get a job offer

uh th c113 35 asks are you still planning the move to California um you know if I get the right job offer I would go back uh just to you know stack that money but currently no offers I've

had a couple of interviews for company is based in California but they um you know haven't moved forward on those and uh yeah so you know I'm I'm sticking it out over here until something materializes back there I'm

not really in a rush to go back I mean the ideal you know would be going back to make more money and load up on some cryptocurrency and also some uh some dividend stocks gross stocks that kind of

thing but if uh you know if I don't get that opportunity the only reason for me to be in America is to make money um other than making money and catching up with friends I don't like living in

America at all I don't like the culture I don't like the um the stress I don't like the nasty attitudes uh and some of those issues are really pronounced in California in California it's such a fast-paced place and

people are stressed out about bills and making money and they put you know their financial goals or their status goals above all else I think California was probably Paradise like maybe 60 years ago 70 years ago maybe even

40 or 50 years ago but now it's just uh you know it's just an awful I mean it's like I said it's good for the money because you can live semi Che and you know I I saved about

70% of my 70% of my income in California but it's a terrible quality of life you know you're living around sketch balls like everybody in California is either very poor or very wealthy not much in between and you

see that you know you see that when you go out and you're I remember coming out of a Michelin restaurant in Francisco and there were like homeless people partying in the base of the stairwell this is in Japan

toown San Francisco I'll go ahead and pull that up because that's that's a decent starting point here maps and we can just go ahead and load that up yeah so I was at this restaurant in San Francisco really

really nice place fantastic and I think I think they have stars it's up there in terms of quality either way um I think the meal was around $300 I used a bunch of credit card points I saved up

and I paid around 80 bucks um but you know as soon as I come out of here this is for my birthday last year or no two years ago this was for my birthday two years ago and yeah

so like I come out of here and like right around here there's like several homeless people just hanging out and partying um and uh yeah it was just uh let me know hosia if it goes away or uh

you know if it remains a black screen but yeah it was just a stark contrast I mean you see that all over San Francisco and it's it's not a good feeling so um have you ever thought about visiting

Vermont or Maine I've heard some of the problems that plag the rest of the states are prevalent there that I never visited that region no I never have you know I think part of it the challenge with Vermont

and Maine is a few things uh one the small population means that there's a really high tax burden so if you live in Vermont termain you're going to pay a large uh you've got a large tax burden and

that's because the population being small they've got to maintain a lot of stuff based on the output of that small group of people they're also some of the oldest states in the country you've got tons of retired people

up there um and they also there also tends to not be a lot of job opportunity up there I think a lot of the de-industrialization hit those cities hard and really benefited cities like Boston and New York City

because the economy in America is swap Dred in well really since NAFTA passed from a manufacturing economy over to a financial economy so there's all these Financial Service businesses that have popped out part of that was through deregulation

of the credit industry by Jimmy Carter and uh so you know those places have been hit I mean you look at Main Street Maine or Main Street Vermont it's quite nice but you go off Main Street and they

tend to be not too different from the rural South a lot of substance issues a lot of poverty there's just not a lot of opportunity up there unfortunately I know that they are uh relatively safer from what I've

heard but expensive limited job opportunities um and those two alone would do it for me just because you know if I'm in the states I want to go wherever I can maximize my income part of me is even

thought you know like if I and when I go back moving to place like North Dakota working in oil and gas and uh just doing something that's really well compensated because you know at this point I don't really

care how I spend my time in the states as long as I'm maximizing my income to save and invest and then take that currency somewhere else where it goes a lot farther and I enjoy living because you know

I thought that uh living in California would make me happy I'd always dreamed a living California and then when I lived out there I realized California has its own set of problems and the social life there is not

so great because people work so long so many hours then people just don't have the free time to socialize as much um and it also attracts a lot of superficial people a lot of shallow people um beautiful the

nature is beautiful in California and there's a lot of great OPP work opportunities but it's yeah I mean it sucks like not California sucks but just it sucks that you know it's not what it used to be but

um yeah van life you know that's a possibility like I'm not opposed to doing that it's uh it's certainly it's certainly a possibility but at the same time it's like you know there's I guess the challenge of Van

life for me is if I'm working on a computer you know how do I Power the laptop um the the internet consistency would be fixable through like starlink right so if I got like starlink or something maybe you

know I could get solar panels but it seems like it would get quite complex to um you know to to do it that way rather than living in a junky apartment um and you know San Francisco is good

in that way as far as opportunities there's still jobs out there not as much in Tech right now but so many people have left the state that uh there's still demand for certain industries but yeah definitely not OPP

poos to living in Van I'd have to do a lot of research to figure out how I could best make work but I think it's taking off and more and more people are doing that I think parking could

be an issue uh just because there's a homelessness epidemic in California uh THC 11335 says can you target remote us-based jobs and stay living in Thailand yeah so that would be the ideal um there's a few challenges there

and uh it's not to say you know it's not doable but one uh everybody wants to do that right so a lot of people at this point have figured out hey Living in America sucks great place to make

money terrible place to live and so a lot of people want to live abroad I even brought it up at my last employer hey could I just like leave and they were like oh no no you can't do

that because in my specific case with my team my manager just didn't want that um some other divisions they were like look you can do you know you can live three months abroad uh and you know stay here

nine months because of tax reasons yeah so it's uh exactly dream thread it says in my experience most remote jobs are domestic it's harder to find International remote and that's because of tax liability so a lot of these

companies especially publicly traded companies they don't want you to live outside the US because then it opens up them it opens them up to tax obligations and they don't want to be dealing with trying to figure out how

to do uh try to handle these tax obligations and so they would rather just stay in the US um it's disappointing right but yeah International remote typically from my observation comes with a major reduction in compensation so if

you were comfortable working like at a local rate which would be much much less than it's doable but for me it's like you're kind of spinning the wheels like yeah you get to live abroad but you're spending all

your time at work and you're not getting compensated for the same skill set you'd be much more heavily compensated for back in the States so that's a kind of trade off there not to say it's not doable but

it's one of those things that everybody wants to do and companies have I think more and more companies are realizing people don't like living in the United the United States and um I mean that's why you know that's

why they have to convince these people from really rough countries to come up there places like Venezuela uh because it's harder and harder to convince people to move to the United States from um Europe or East Asia or

other Western democracies there's some but there's not as many as you'd think and I think that's why there's this border crisis is that you really have to and you have to make the offer to people who are really

hard up um what are your thoughts on life in Europe do you think it has similar issues as living in the US yeah and I think the challenge with Europe is that it's uh you know it's kind of

similar to other countries outside the states for and I specify for Tech right because I worked in Tech back in the States but uh you don't make as much money and your cost of living while it is less

it's not that much less so let's say I can make 100K a year in California and spend 30k a year Well in London I might make 50k a year and still and spend like 30k a year so the

Delta between your income versus your expenses is um is Optimum in the US like I think the quality of life on over overall is better in Europe like you don't have to have a car in much of Europe

you've got Public Health Services you've got got resources you've got in some cases better weather like southern Europe has wonderful weather but um I notice a lot of European digital Nomad types as well and I think it's just

an issue throughout the Western world including Australia including UK including the United States and incl especially including Canada I mean I've heard Canada has just gone in the toilet and a lot of Canadian people want to leave and

it's um it's not what it used to be so yeah I I think you know the Western World in general is going through a rough time and that we'll see more and more in the future people that can

afford to leave they will uh they will pick up and leave not everybody but it's going to be more and more popular um because I think people are starting to realize you kind of have to just save yourself

like I moved to California U seven years ago because the compensation is so much higher or for tech jobs and well at the time now it's going through a little bit of a rough spot California is kind of

a boom and a bust economy but yeah it's just uh yeah I mean Europe you know if if you were financially independent I think Europe would be great right if you could live in a country like Italy or

Spain like I really really like Spain have you ever visited China no I've had layovers in Shaman and Shenzhen I've done business with people in China I used to sell a lot online and I'd procure my products from

Chinese manufacturers but um the visa for China back then it was like you had to buy a 10year Visa for $300 and I was like do I really want to spend $300 to go to China for a week

you know it just doesn't seem like that create a value proposition um and back then I didn't know as much about China as I do now back then I had a lot more fearmongering in my life and ooh

don't go there oo it's spooky you know that that kind of attitude you have in the US that uh PE people are programmed to believe all this crap from the media I'd be happy to go in the future

I definitely foresee myself going to China at some point in my life it's not an immediate priority um but yeah I mean part of me is thought about trying to get into English teaching but I've heard English teaching

in China has gone down like it's just not as uh viable these days I've heard of people doing well over there though and like you know working hard and then saving up money and doing trips to um to

Southeast Asia like hey I work in engl I work in China teach English and 11 months a year and then one month a year I go down to Thailand or Philippines or Vietnam or Cambodia um I think there's

less of that right now but you know it may come back it may be something that's temporary and it may be possible that China offers great opportunity I know sabatical he lived in Shanghai for I think a few

years and but that was you know that was a while back I think that it's it's different right now I need to do more research you know it can always change things can always change and opportunities can improve

um yeah I'm not opposed to going to China dream threat are you thinking about moving back to us so I'm not not unless I get a job back in the States like I've got a decent Runway as far

as money I could live here in Southeast Asia without even sweating for probably several more years um but the more time I spend here spending my money down that tax on time to the back end that I'll have

to go and work and build my money back up so it's like I want the shortest the shortest path toward living um living in Southeast Asia long term as possible so uh now of course the time that I

have now on one end it's higher quality time that I'll have in five or six years right or 10 years or 20 years because I'm at Peak condition or whatever being 31 um but on the other and and

but on the other hand going back and investing now gives me more time for that money to compound and grow and so that's the trade-off I'm looking at the only reason I'd go back before you know a few

years time span is just to make money if I got some kind of opportunity like if I interviewed and got an offer for 100k or so which is what I was off uh the offer was that I was

talking to like last week I didn't get that opportunity I went on the second round I don't think I passed the second round but that was for around 100K a year in California and uh you know working that

job for a year would have really helped to push me further along toward Financial Independence um that was with the real estate technology company in the sales department but uh yeah main reason to go back to America is

a good job opportunity other than a good job opportunity I don't really want to go back because I just don't feel that I have much there I do have some good friends there um but besides my good friends

you know I don't have any family there and uh I don't it's just such a stressful and kind of rundown place now I mean you've probably seen videos of the big cities in America they're dangerous they're crimer ridden

the people are just really frustrated because they were sold a bill of goods and yeah it's just the country and decline I mean is it going to collapse I don't think it's going to collapse like in my lifetime

I think it's just going to go backwards to where it's not really remarkable right uh you see that you know social Mobility is a lot lower so like I just think the American dream doesn't exist anymore and the

only reason to go there is if you're in a desperate situation and need to make money or if you're already there and you have an established career you know one thing I would consider going back for is if

I got like a full ride to law school or something and uh you know became a lawyer and helped expats like I actually talked to Dr Le about that because I got my undergrad in pre-law and I asked

him about it I was like he's an American lawyer he lives in D but he's got a firm back in Nashville my hometown I was like hey you know what do you think about the idea of somebody going

to law school and then uh doing remote legal work right like you're not going to make what you'd make back in the States but that's one of those things where you have the credential the license you have some

protections now I think AI will has the potential to impact the legal industry now lawyers are a sneaky bunch and or can be a sneaky bunch and they I doubt that they will give up that Guild based system

very U very easily I I think that they like them out of control that they have on society as a group and they're not going to just give it up to AI very easily I mean they build tons

of money I me you look at big law firms they're building $11,200 an hour uh and that amount of money is you know that's a lot of money to to give up to technology or to Software um I

think lawyers will be Amplified by software I think some of the sharp lawyers will figure out a way to use AI to streamline their process or to make it more efficient but um yeah that's a thought because I

think you know the reason I mentioned the legal field is one I did my undergrad and pre-law but too I think you're you're going to see more and more guys wanting to marry women overseas and there's going to

be legal work associated with that right many will want to bring their significant other to the states others will uh some may unfortunately may not work out they may need to get a divorce but I think you're going

to just see more and more need for lawyers with International Focus to help all these guys who want to marry a woman overseas because it's becoming more and more common place well like two-thirds of the guys in the

US are are young men in the US are single and I don't think a lot of these guys are going to want to be single for the rest of their lives um that just seems like a lonely proposition

and you know most guys that's the reason they work is they want to uh you know they want to be able to support a family they want to be able to um provide for a significant other they they

want to build a life they don't want to just make money just for the sake of making money and so I think that's where the need for attorneys that understand right like lawyers that they understand what these guys

are going through they understand why these guys are going overseas um they have a vested interest in making it happen because I mean I've had great experiences dating overseas and I know a lot of other men um a

lot of other men have had positive experiences dating overseas as well and it's just going to become more and more common place I mean my grandfather you know he married a woman from Japan this was 70 years ago

and what was looked at is like I don't know I don't know what the how you describe it like kind of maybe not r whisky is a word but like outside of the boundaries of the norm or whatever

is now looked at as like totally normal if you know you're young American man and you're like I want to marry a woman from this other country like people aren't going to be shocked you may get some judgment

from some bitter resentful angry people but a large chunk of people are like sounds good to me so yeah that's going to be a big part of it is that there's there's just more and more acceptance of people

living different kinds of Lifestyles and those people a lot of those people need support so uh Visa is $140 to China now that's very reasonable um and you know it's definitely worth considering um like I said not an

immediate priority I think next step for me is going to be Vietnam and after that I'm looking at the Philippines but certainly China is a beautiful country I have friends from China and I I've definitely met some interesting

people from China online um but I got to prioritize one country at a time that's a downside of being a traveler is that you can only be in one place at one time and you'd like to be everywhere

at once but you have to pick and choose according to top priorities and um the Phil the Vietnam is a place I've never been before so you know that'll be a new country I can add to uh the

list and also some plac that I've been interested in for a while like my grandfather served in Vietnam more um I've had a number of friends that have been to Vietnam that loved it told me hey man you

gotta go like my buddy that introduced me to Thailand loves Vietnam he's like I don't you know he's told me like he doesn't feel pressure to go back to Thailand he lived here for a year and got a

lot out of his experience but he was like no man you got to go to Vietnam like if you like Thailand you're going to enjoy Vietnam uh how much your monthly expenses in US dollars in Thailand has there

been inflation there since Co so I would say I spend around 1,200 per month here in Thailand uh including visas including like oneoff cost including stuff for my channel um I undershot it so I came over here with

the expectation to spend, 1500 per month I haven't felt like I needed to spend, 1500 per month um some months or less some months or more like months in Bangkok tend to be more expensive months in the smaller

cities tend to be less expensive my rent tends to be more here in Bangkok and my food tends to be more expensive and my Transportation tends to be more expensive here in Bangkok uh does that mean everybody could

live here on 1200 I don't think so I'm a fairly minimalistic guy I don't do a lot of shopping I don't um eat at a lot of fancy restaurants I don't need to take cabs because I know the

city really well and I'm comfortable a with the public transportation I also have some Thai friends here in Bangkok that help me to moderate expenses because they can speak Thai so if we go out they can help negotiate

Transportation like if we're getting a Tuk Tuk or uh you know they know some good restaurants to suggests that are reasonably priced and it it helps to have TI friends for sure um could I live on less yeah

I think I could live on if I had to be bare minimum about it if I wanted to go below the 1200 Mark I know some uh places on the outskirts of Bangkok wow yeah so I I know

some places on the outskirts of Bangkok I could rent an apartment a studio apartment for a hundred bucks a month equivalent and I could pay I could spend maybe three or 400 on food and maybe one or 200

on Transportation so I could get it down a lot lower but that would be making some sacrifices in terms of location it would also be a much more Spartan lifestyle I'd also uh you know I might I'd have

to be more diligent about it I'd have to be like very specific about the way I operate and I'm comfortable at that point I mean there was there was months in changai where I spent s800 um but I

just don't like having to limit myself to that point like right um I can do it but at the same time I don't have have to um you know if we if I go on for and I don't

find another job in the states for like two years maybe I drop my expenses down a bit more but uh I don't I don't anticipate it taking that long I think what's going to happen is by early next

year I suspect this isn't financial advice this isn't investing advice I suspect they will start to drop interest rates because there's already so much damage to the US economy you're seeing like rapid increase in homelessness you're seeing a

consumer credit debt like through the roof you're seeing people def defaulting on their credit card debt um and you know that damage is cumulative right so if somebody loses their house and then they lose their job it's like

you can't just go back to the way it was a year prior and uh yeah I think that's going to continue to be an issue until they start to drop the interest rates and businesses feel comfortable investing the

technology sector is not worried about profitability as much they can spend a little bit more on recruiting people I know of a number of companies that have gotten rid of California staff and hired in cheaper countries or hired

in cheaper parts of the US and um yeah it's unfortunate it's it's unfortunate but um yeah I don't I don't expect it getting to that point and yeah I just don't expect to get to that point and I

don't have uh well and one thing that might help me as well is I have a small amount of student loan debt around 4K and I think Biden's talking about forgiving it so that's why I haven't paid it

off I know some people will be triggered by that but if he's gonna pay it off like I'm not gonna pay it off like I'm gonna let somebody else pay it off um but uh yeah I spend more

than that on food alone here in the US yeah I know that feeling I mean I've spent a grand a month on food in California just to eat healthy eat salads eat high quality meat um you know so

I totally get it like my rent in California was was uh more than what I can spend here so it's and part of that too is just not having to drive around like in the US you have to

have a car I think the majority of Americans have cars and they expect they're going to pay for oil changes tire rotations um gasoline of course they're they've got a lot of Maintenance and upkeep costs it's not what

gets you what gets me in the US is not only the cost of purchase but also the cost of ownership what does it cost to own and maintain this thing um yeah 2,000 a month yeah I mean I

could live on 2,000 here like I you know I me I know I mentioned living on 1,200 2000 is totally doable if I was looking at a 2,000 per month budget which if I was more optimistic about the

state of the economy like if I assumed I was GNA go back and get that 100K your job um next month you know I or or let's say two or three months from now 2K a month what I

would do in in Bangkok instead of renting this modest uh studio and a great location I'd rent probably a nicer newer studio and a maybe a closer to public transportation here I'm like 10 minute walk from BT or

eight eight minute walk from MRT BTS not MRT but the BTS system and I would probably eat like at nicer restaurants a little bit nicer restaurants I'd probably I'd probably take more cabs but I just don't feel like

I have to um part of that is because I'm in a research phase where I'm trying to research my next destination and so I could be going out every day right now in Bangkok and having fun and doing

stuff um even on that lower budget because I can have fun with very small amounts of money but uh I don't like I feel like I'm my time right now is better off spent researching my next destination and

then occasionally doing some applying for new roles but yeah it's just you know it's just the insane cost of living in the US great place to make money terrible place to um moderate your expenses Lex Vex any advice

for those looking for remote work in the tech field is the next best stable job in tech only AI related you know ironically I think well I think the AI field of course is getting a lot of investment

you're seeing a lot of capital flow into the artificial intelligence field of course Nvidia stock I made some money off of that that has performed really well some other companies that are using AI or AI Focus Amazon Google

Facebook all have substantial investments in AI I'm sure Netflix does as well although it's not as readily apparent with Netflix um but there there are there are companies that are not as impact by the recession that still need

tech folks um I would say like banks have been doing really well like setting aside the banks that have had issues the big banks are doing well there's other types of companies that they need t uh talent that

before they couldn't compete with the tech companies for the top talent because those tech companies are throwing massive compensation packages at people um but some of those employers are still doing well and still looking to hire talented people

um you you want a baseline skill set right like you want some kind of skill set that is TR you want to learn you want to get skills that are transferable from company to company so you want to

build with each role on your previous skill set and get better and better um I'm not as worried about AI like taking all the jobs this is kind of a dark line of thinking but if AI replaces a

ton of people's jobs you're going to have a lot of social unrest and wealthy people tend to like a stable Society because it's much easier to make money in a stable Society so if you have tons and tons

of unemployed people that are going hungry I mean that's going to make it really hard for people to predictably make money so they're going to have to do something to integrate AI technology in such a way that also

creates new opportunities for people and I point out too like if you look at it uh there electricity with the Advent of electricity that eliminated a bunch of jobs there used to be a job where people would go

and knock on Windows to wake people up you also had guys that would drive people around on carriages um so those have jobs have been replaced there's new jobs that have replaced those jobs like taxi drivers or alarm

clocks uh people who make alarm clocks um alarm clocks is not a good analogy by the way that just went in Reverse of what I the point I was trying to make but um yeah I I think that

there's just going to be a necessity to create opportunities for people such that they can um they can feed themselves right I mean you don't want a ton of hungry people like with too much time on their hands

but AI is a good start you know AI is not a bad start at all I've applied to some AI sales jobs selling AI software of course right now with the industry recession like those are going to be

um in demand a lot of talented people have been laid off and you know those the people with the strongest resumés are the most likely to get picked up dream thread says my rent in San Francisco's 2 first

Studio that's not a bad dream threat of course I guess it depends on um the size of the studio and and if it's um you know if it's convenient to your office but uh yeah that's not bad at

all I've definitely seen some crazy prices in San Francisco for rentals for Real Estate um yeah definitely seen a lot of crazy stuff some people have also suggested applying to city jobs like jobs with the city in San

Francisco I don't know how viable those are I know they're super in demand I know everybody wants a city job in SF uh that you know once you get in most people don't leave because it's you know you

got a pension and you got um you've got what's the word reasonable hours compared to working in Private Industry you've got job security like you're probably not going to lose your job once you get it but uh yeah

I mean I I still think there's there's opportunity for money to be made um definitely and and you know when the interest rates start to drop that's when we'll start to see industry pick up I'm hoping I can

pick up a role before then but uh that should be when these these companies start to um pick up hiring again I know I spoke with a recruiter a few nights ago and she said that there's a lot

of startups that are hiring right now like I someon I sure many in the AI space I'm not quite at like a director or BP level of experience so um you know so I'm I'm looking more for the

like lower level roles that are more competitive that do have more potential candidates but yeah Lex says I gotcha I asked because I'm thinking of going into Cloud engineering but with all the recent layoffs in Tech and AI

blowing up I'm not sure if Cloud engineering is the best route that's a great question um you know I don't know as much about Cloud engineering I know the last company I worked for is cloud-based um you know

if you if it's something that's interested interesting to you and it's really intriguing to you and you feel like it's something that you enjoy doing I think it's you will learn transferable skills because like a lot of companies

would prefer to hire somebody else to host their data so that's really the advantage of the cloud technology industry is that a lot of these companies they don't want to be responsible for all the hosting and the storage

and the distribution Cloud engineering almost could be think could be thought about or conceptualized is like the data distribution business so you think about like oil companies oil companies are not always necessarily the same companies that are in

the pipeline business or in the gas station business I think Chevron is and Exxon are the two big ones that are vertically integrated right where they pull the oil out of the ground they send they distribute it to

the gas stations um so that's kind of the way to think about Cloud engineering but yeah the layoffs are disappointing it is unfortunate that these companies are doing that I really feel bad for the people with with families

uh the people that are trying to support a family I've seen it in a lot of sales groups online because that's I was on the sales side and a lot of sales reps are struggling that they've got a

mortgage payment they've got car payments it's very easy to live above your means during the good Economic Times and when the times are not so good um to really be struggling because you made all these commitments financially that

you can no longer keep up because the economy is not as good so that's part of why I lived minimalistic in the Bay Area is I figure I know this is a boom in a bus town and that

I may be making six figures right now but next year a few years from now I might not be and I'd rather stack this cash and invest as much as I can max out my 401k max out my

IR and because it might be lean times for a while and I was right they as soon as they raised the interest rates and Silicon Valley Bank collapsed I was on my way out the door a few months

later sleeping elephant sales Marketing in HR first to go in Tech yeah absolutely I mean a lot of the companies are product driven right so they're most concerned about delivering a good product and some of those roles can

be Consolidated and you know I have seen a number of companies that are overstaffed I mean uh I'm not going to specify which company but I've definitely seen where there was just too many people in these roles relative

to um relative to what was needed I mean you saw this with Twitter right like I'm not a Twitter user but Elon Musk came in and got rid of tons and tons of people and uh I have mixed

feelings about Elon Musk I'm not here to congratulate him or to put him down but we see that Twitter is still functioning on like a skeleton crew yeah Nvidia is doing really well like he Jensen hang the CEO

he went all in on AI he invested really big in it and it turned out to be a huge huge payoff it's uh hey uh hey how are you doing yeah Nvidia is doing really well right now I

made some money and then I sold out stupidly because I was like ah what goes Up's got to come down I should have held I made a lot of bad investing decisions but I've learned a lot from my

mistakes um I you know I think that they're they're really revolutionary and they're you know they're providing another stage of growth in the economy and uh well thanks so much I really appreciate your subscription light skin Ting um

but yeah it's oh wow oh you sold okay well that makes me feel better sleeping elephant because sometimes I kicked myself I got in around $100 a share and I got out around um six or 700 so it

I had at least another 50% % or so uh over over the price point that I sold at where it's at now uh but even so it's you know I think there's still opportunity moving forward I think people

will eventually pull Capital out of Nvidia and put it into other AI bets I think also in the Venture Capital space some of that Nvidia money will flow into AI startups and companies that want to utilize idious technology

to build more nuanced technology I think you're going to see a lot of Chang changes in customer service because it's as it stands it's frustrating on both ends I just had to deal with Amazon customer service yesterday and

they spent an hour of my time telling me things I already knew and giving me information I already had uh so if there's a company that figures out customer service they're going to do really well because it's not

a good experience on the customer end and it's not a good experience on the the representative end because people just trat them Terri don't respect them um I have a family member that they uh they you know they

take out their frustration on customer service reps and there these some of these people deserve to just like shou and frustration at AI because AI doesn't care I mean you can be as as rude as you want to

AI it's just figuring out like you know it's just going to figure out that people are frustrated with it but like doesn't it doesn't have the emotions that a customer service rep has um Plus customer service is one

of those things that doesn't scale so for every hour you put into customer service you get an hour out this is different from programming this is different from sales with programming and with sales the inputs are not tied

to the output so if you sell a really big deal then it's a huge result if you program a piece of technology that is super efficient like you make some fintech app like cash app for example that serves

ton millions and millions of people um you put in X and the results were really big well customer service it's not like that it's one to one for every hour in you get an hour out um uh I

have a buddy living in Bangkok right now he's looking to return to the States was wondering how often do you see this he's been there for two years I think it's common because uh one a lot of younger

guys they just run low oned funds you know they come over with x amount of dollars and they spend that money down over the course of their trip and they you know they're not going to many are not

going to have the capability to earn what they'd earn back in the States uh and so they'll I think financial reasons for young guys the biggest reason guys go back after spending an extended period southeast Asia uh it's

also somewhat of a risk if you push it too long if you're not fin independent so let's say you stay in Southeast Asia for two or three years which may be me you're going back and your experience is

not necessarily relevant right like my job experience won't be super up to date um I'd say also health issues can factor into that like some people may have some kind of health issue maybe they um The food doesn't

agree with them maybe the weather doesn't agree with them so yeah I think it's common and it's nothing to be ashamed about it's nothing to feel bad about it's just part of the experience and I'm sure they learned

a lot um yeah yeah I mean if you're teaching English teaching English is not a it's not a long-term strategy in terms of viability it's uh it's I think it's great for a short time like you need to

make money for six months or a year or something like that but you're not going to make a career out of it there are some guys that try but they what's the issue with that well they get to

an age where they can't really learn something new maybe they teach English for say 20 years and um you know they end up they're 50 years old their skill set is not relevant to back home um back home

unless you have like a bachelor's in English or a MERS in English then you're probably not going to be teaching uh English and you know they get frustrated because they may want to go back home they may just

miss back home miss their friends and family but uh they don't have relevant experience they don't have much savings because you can't really Save A Lot on an English teacher salary most English teachers aren't able to save any

money um and they're just they're just kind of living paycheck to paycheck month-to month it's uh it's not really I I don't see it as a viable career is it a hustle is a way to make some money

in the shortterm sure but living in Bangkok on 875 a month uh is just just not a great lifestyle and Thailand is is probably the least optimal for teaching English because everybody wants to live in Thailand and so

they don't have to pay um what some other countries might pay and it's also not the cheapest country in Southeast Asia so you're dealing with a place where there's tons of demand to work there and schools can have

take their pick of potential workers but also that it's fairly developed especially in Bangkok Bangkok is very developed such that like there's a price that comes with living in a really developed City there's a price that comes with

having access to public transportation access to healthy clean food um yeah yeah I I think it's you know I think it's an in between thing I think it's something if you're in your 20s um maybe you're in your

early to mid 30s and you want to uh go try living overseas then I think teaching English can be great I just think for most people it's not going to be viable is a long-term career and I think

it's one of those spaces where AI is going to make Headway right um you know that's that's another area similar to customer service where there's a lot of opportunity for disruption and certainly robots can be programmed with u

the English language and it will be more cost effective you know people will pay x amount for a monthly subscription Fe to some kind of AI bot teacher and then they'll get as much English as they want as

opposed to an English teacher where you know maybe they have to pay for pay by the hour and U yeah the wages for English teaching have been stagnant as well like I heard even in like place like Saudi

Arabia which is uh considered along with China to be two of the top places to go and make money as an English teacher I've heard the wages for English teachers in Saudi have come down and that Saudi has

become a more expensive country than it used to be so um the viability of it I think is just not there in the long term I think that something with tech you know Tech will come back it's not

a permanent thing that it's in a rough spot and yeah um there's also the trades I mean it's trades are not something you can do in Southeast Asia but for some they're going to be in a position where

they can make so much money in trades back in the states that they take that money and they invest it and then they come over here to enjoy the fruits of that and some would say won't those be

automated I think those will actually be later to be automate those won't be the first to be automated because it's not as cost effective um the the opportunities that are most on the I think in my opinion are

closer to be on the chopping block are one the ones where it's a one to one right customer service where you put an hour in you get an hour out um two opportunities where you know like accounting is

going to be one where you can program rules into it I think the ones that'll be harder will be CPAs right if you're a certified public accountant a lot of these guild-based jobs are going to make are going

to legislate they're going to hire lawyers and make it harder for people to use AI to eliminate those roles because yeah just they don't want to give up their business uh what country do you plan on going to

next I would like to go to Vietnam Next so Vietnam we can pull this up yeah so I'd like to go to Vietnam Next and I'm trying I'm debating on if I want to go for 30 days or

90 there's two different visas that they have and uh the 30-day Visa is like 25 bucks the 90day Visa is 50 bucks and it's supposed to be awesome like it's uh it's not as far along in terms of

development as Thailand so code is one of my subscribers I was talking to last night he said you know it's not as developed as um as Thailand but there's still a lot to enjoy there there's a lot to

see there's a lot of Beauty in it I remember being in penom pen about four or five years ago ago and it was definitely in a rapid stage of development and growth it is now but it was then

as well and it was exciting it's like vibrant you go you drive around the city or you walk around the city there's new buildings going up everywhere a lot of companies a lot of yeah a lot of companies

have built manufacturing facilities in Vietnam there's a big textile industry there uh these were actually made in Vietnam these airpods there's uh I don't know if you can see it it's probably hard to make out but um it

says Made in Vietnam made assembled in Vietnam uh so these are actually a product of Vietnam and that'll be kind of funny to take them back to where where they were born but um Lex Vex Vietnam videoos coming

soon so I think that that's going to be let's see seven weeks out so I'll I'm shooting for Mid July to go to Vietnam and um so it'll probably be like Late July when Vietnam videos start coming out

I need to do more stuff here in Bangkok I just felt I don't know kind of tired run down the last week I don't know if I've had covid um friend of mine tested positive she's been kind of

ill feeling this week so I think Co might be going around Bangkok right now but uh yeah I need to get back out there and start making more videos it's been it's been a little bit challenging for me

to find some quiet Corners in the city to film um you know it may be something where I need to just go out and record and then do the audio here in my apartment and then edit the audio

over the video that I'm showing I want to do some some stuff here in Bangkok like um you know like a $10 challenge like let's see what $10 buys me here in Bangkok like try to see if I

could do a $10 day which is very very doable I could do a $10 day no problem um that wouldn't be an issue at all like it's a simple day uh but there's just so much value for money

here in Thailand like to me $10 day I could already tell you $2 on lunch $3 on dinner uh maybe $3 on public transportation and like $2 on dessert and like a smoothie or something like that that's a

$10 day I'd be perfectly happy with that day um that's not the day I'd want to live every day and it's not realistic to to live that way every day but certainly it's it's a very it can be

a very budget friendly City okay yeah thank you Lex I'm gonna make a note of that $10 just because I think it would shock people like they're so used to in the US paying through the nose for everything

and they're not accustomed to being able to go out and enjoy themselves for 10 bucks I mean what can you get in the US for 10 bucks there's I'm trying to think like in San Francisco you can't even

get really a burrito for that anymore you probably spent about $12 for a burrito and transportation of course is very expensive in the US so yeah I think a lot of people would get a lot of out of

that because they'd see wow that's a decent meal for two bucks not the fanciest meal right not a Michelin experience not um a steak or anything like that but certainly like chicken on rice or like some kind of

like maybe shrimp or seafood on Rice um you know mango smoothie like there's so many things because basically like the way I look at it is in the US a lot of the products are priced at an international

rate uh so anytime you're buying anything in the US not anything but a fair amount of products are priced the way they are because people from around the world can bid on those products whereas in Thailand Thailand produces

a ton of food domestically that's that the Thai market gets first dibs on and unlike the US right the US allows anybody to go sell stuff there that's part of how the financial system works is that these other

countries buy American debt and in turn it they have the opportunity to sell their goods at an exch at a favorable exchange rate to Americans um but like in Thailand I looked at buying um I looked at import

importing some shirts because I really like these shirts that I buy in America and the uh the duties to import clothes to Thailand are like 100% so the shirts were going to be like 40 bucks and the import

duties were going to be 40 bucks well America does doesn't have that so um so yeah that's part of what makes food so cheap here relative to the United States I should say economical is that they don't allow

everybody to just come in and buy up all the food before the local people have a chance to buy the food and and that's you know um that's wonderful right they're looking out for their people like that's what

I love about Thailand is is Thailand they just look out for their people and um they their people you know they're not they're not struggling in the same ways that American people were struggling with broadly speaking but um

yeah feel free to chime in with any questions or thoughts just uh enjoying my Friday night here in Bangkok kind of wondering if my laptop was made in Vietnam as well um I think Apple's doing a lot of

manufacturing in Vietnam and they're I think it's great like they're giving a lot of great opportunities providing a lot of great opportunities for people to get uh get good quality jobs and you know there's just enthusiasm like I've

talked to some people in Vietnam recently and there's just this optimism about the future of Industry there and the opportunities there I even recently spoke with a um a Japanese lawyer living in hoodi men City and he said

oh yeah Japan's doing good business in Vietnam and so I'm here to help out with the uh efforts of my company and yeah it just seems like a place on the up and up like a place it's the

economy is growing and people are optimistic and there's going to be more and more opportunity there actually Vietnam for English teaching seems to have the best pay to expense ratio right now or one of the best pay pay

to expense ratios where you can make okay money but your costs are are modest there uh Lex says I'm from Chicago burrito and a drink can run 10 to 15 depending on where you go so yeah you'd be

hard pressed to find that that you know the burrito and the drink at that $10 included in that $10 price point and definitely if you're taking like um the MTA like public transit or you're getting your car and

driving down there that pushes your cost up where I don't have a car here in Southeast Asia so that really moderates my expenses because I'm able to take public transit or occasionally if I need to go like I

needed to go to the hospital last um last fall not an emergency but I was kind of stressed out about it even though it wasn't an emergency and so I hired a cab to to go over there uh

but that accumulative is much cheaper than owning a car um even flights within country or or some shorter crossb flights are more affordable for me to fly to Vietnam is going to cost like 60 bucks one way where

for me to fly to Mexico from the United States is easily $200 maybe more because the peso is doing so well right now but it's just so expensive to travel because you it's harder to distribute the cost uh

among your fellow Travelers where if you're riding on a bus like there's the UN the non-air conditioned bus here in Bangkok is like 25 cents for oneway ride where uh in San Francisco the bus was like $2 maybe

$225 for a oneway ride and if you have a transfer because the systems are kind of mish mashed you might have to pay double that um I know for me to go from the East Bay to parts of

San Francisco I can spend $12 just for one way because I'll take the train I'll take one train system from the East Bay and I can pull it up here I'll takey over here where I lived uh downtown

and then I'll get on the mun system I'll have to transfer a different system to take it out to uh Ocean Beach for example so like here we can show you um it should tell me a oh so

if you take that doesn't make any sense though because Bart doesn't go that doesn't make any sense because you can't anyway um I could just be not putting in right but even at eight bucks you know if you're

on a $10 budget that your budget most of your $10 budget you're not really getting a lot out of that 10 bucks uh where here in Bangkok I mean you know $10 is by no means a luxury budget

you can certainly make a day out of it um but we'll go back to pulling up Vietnam here so I've been in Thailand for about a year I got to Thailand uh last summer I came to Bangkok um

11 months ago well 11 months and one week ago I came came here to 10 months and three weeks ago I came here to Bangkok I stayed in Victory Monument so I stayed here not at the monument but

at a building U very close to here stayed there for a month then I went down to this is actually a great opportunity to share my experience in Thailand went down to Paia I stayed in Patia for about

a month and found that patio wasn't really for me um Bangkok like last summer it was kind of overwhelming because when I was here last time I was here four years ago and this was at the start of

covid and so the city emptied out and Bangkok was empty you could get around easily there was no crowds you could just walk around like no issues at all um still many of the restaurants were open so it

was like the perfect time to be in Bangkok uh as a tourist um but yeah so spent the first month in Bangkok came down to patio spent a month here in jum Tien I was right off um this

road uh where I'm not seeing yeah terset so I was like I'm not seeing the condo building that I or the apartment building I stayed in but stayed here for about a month and then I was just sorting

out my Visa to stay here for a year and then I came out up to my favorite city in the world changmai and I was in changai for six months so I got to changai in September of last

year and stayed until early March and by early March the burning season was in full effect and uh changai was great I I stayed at the trio building I'm not here anymore but um the trio building and you

have access to this like changmai University the uh enko Reservoir beautiful place to go walking I used to come here and go walking a lot oh yeah it's a well this was rainy day but um yeah beautiful Park

here like really nice space especially when it cools off in the afternoon perfect place to enjoy Sunset they also have the H kale Reservoir or the waterfall here really a beautiful place and what else um you know if

I wanted to go to the old city i' just hop on a I started off a lot of mornings uh I'd go to mayam mall and I'd get a coffee and then I'd come here to Gold's Gym where

is it gym Hillside um here we go and i' come and work out here and just show you all the gem this was running about because I I paid for six months about $27 a month um those are

the older prices and you can see they've got like nice weights they've got some cardio machines over there and then I'd go back to my apartment and just like read watch videos um work on making videos trying to

learn how to get this channel up and going uh sometimes you know i' meet my friend like I have some friends that work around n man so I'd come down here we'd have lunch it's a nice city as

far as walkability goes like maybe in some areas even more so than Bangkok because Bangkok does have a fair amount of walkable are it's ALS it also traffic can be pretty busy even compared to changai but like the

old city like you've got a ton of places that are walkable got there's a fruit market this is a club I I went to When I Was Here six years ago Zoe and yellow it's a popular night club

um quite a few beautiful temples in changai as well like this is one of my favorites it's got the black and white motif such a be also is it down here there was like a flower festival that I

enjoyed um you've got over here there's like a fruit I think this is the fruit market maybe not um this is changai Chinatown um might have been Onan Market here I get a little a little bit mixed up

because there's so many markets I do want to go back over to the area that I was showing you before so there's this like across the street from changai University there's the cadnam mo market and I would come

here for dinner every night um they have all these different like stalls set up and the food is really good there's like dozens of them here you've got uh there's like a kebab spot there's some Japanese restaurants there's

some Thai restaurants there's a smoothie vendor um I don't see a photo of him but there's a smoothie vendor I'd always come to here I get a smoothie every single day um really nice Market be oh uh what

is your community experience so that's a good question you know I prefer to hang out with locals mostly like I try to find english- speaking locals and those are the people I get along with best because um they

have their local culture but then they can also communicate well with me with xats like I don't know they're just kind of a mixed bag and some of them can be really not very good like okay so as

an example this was in February I was at Gold's Gym so I was where is it it's not popping up for me um I think we're further up here here we go so I was here and I was

working out I was doing my workout it was literally like in this room that you're looking at and this older xad and I'm not picking on him of his age just describing what happened uh this younger xat comes

and sits and starts using a piece of equipment this older xat had been using previously well this older xat starts cursing him out and screaming um elf you and this and that and you're so this and you're so

that and um you know ended up going and getting the staff ah it's the end of the world he's using this piece of equip and so you see these guys that just act like nuts and uh I don't

know like from what I could tell he was making a big deal out of nothing like the gym equipment is fine if it takes you an extra five minutes to work out who cares like you're supposed to be

retired he was definitely the guy making the scene was definitely a retirement age so I mostly only go for xats that I know through the internet so if I've done some taken some time to vet them through online

like seeing their online presence and I can gauge like uh what kind of um you know what kind of attitude they have if because to me some expats are over here just to save money it's only a cost

of living Factor as to why they are in Southeast Asia and otherwise they wouldn't be here and to me it's not that at all all like uh the cost of living is an advantage it's not the only thing

that I like about over here to me it's the icing on the cake like Lex was saying Temple architecture in Thailand is insane yeah it's gorgeous I mean you're talking about like some of the most beautiful buildings in

the world um some of the most beautiful architecture in the world some of the strongest culture in the world like when you in Thailand you know you're in Thailand you're constantly reminded that this is Thailand and the culture

is extremely important to these people and they deserve a lot of respect for avoiding uh being able to avoid colonization not to say that people who were colonized don't deserve respect um but that like that's they've been able

to preserve this culture over a really long time and maintain this tourism industry like wat pra toat doap one of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen in the world just like CL um the way that it shines

like the amount of people that it attracts like tens and tens of thousands of people come here every single month and you can see the city below from up here I tried to hike up to it and then

I just uh gave up and and caught a a song to so I just hopped on a red truck and rode the rest of the way up because uh last time I came up to de tap when I

was in changmai six years ago I rode a motorbike so I actually rented a motorbike and followed my friend up the mountain and it's a beautiful Temple it's just so like I think the history here is seven or

800 years old something like that and so you get this Timeless feeling like it it was here far before I came about and it will be here far after my time up and it's a it's a humbling experience

for sure I've never been up here at night so I don't um I mean ah just it's so beautiful like it looks like it's made out of gold uh can can you hear me uh can everybody okay okay

great to see you Lex um that's a mistake my friend made he didn't put any effort to make any friends locals and didn't try to learn beginners Tai which I've heard can get you ahead of many expats yeah

I think learning some basic Thai can really help you out a lot to connect with people I've got a few I've got I can kind of understand some of what they're talking about when it basic conversation but um

it's a it's a difficult language you know to be fair to a lot of expats Tai is very very different from any languages it's uh it's a tonal language so in West in typically in like English for example

changing your tone it doesn't change the meaning whereas in Thai it does change the meaning so you could say the same thing for different things um but yeah the local very very friendly they're um it's not necessarily easy

to make friends with local people [Music] um like in this in the sense that well it depends the types of local people you want to meet like if you're the type of expat that's here just to party like

meeting local friends through the party scene may not net you the like I don't know I don't how to explain it like I struggled to make friends and ptia for example because a lot of the local people they're

there to work in the tourism industry not so much to make friends I did connect with some of the older taii people that came to Patia to work from other parts of the country and not just in the

the industry that pattia is notorious for but also adjacent like people come to paa from the north to work in restaurants to work in normal massage shops um there's a lot of different economic opportunities in patio I met

my friends through actually some of my Western friends that were living in Thailand six years ago and then I Branch out from there so I asked those friends hey can you introduce me to some of your friends in

Bangkok and so they introduced me to their friends in Bangkok I become friends with those people they introduce me to their friends and it spiders out from there and so I think the hard part is making that first

step where you meet somebody and you get to know somebody and then um asking them like politely like hey do you have any friends you could introduce me to and now like some of the times when I go

out in bang clock I go out with um a couple of ladies so definitely makes me look like a ladies man we're just platonic friends never been anything more more than that with those two ladies but they're sweet

and they're fun and they're actually interested in me sharing my experiences and I feel that I have a lot to learn about Thailand from them one thing that can be helpful and as an English teacher I could see

why an English teacher wouldn't want to do this but a lot of typ people want to practice their English so if you can sort of make the offer to them hey let's hang out and I want to know

I want you to teach me about Thailand and in turn I can help you practice some of your English I can help you with your pronunciation I can help you with uh talking about what life in the United

States is like I try to be neutral although you know of course just by nature of my channel and lifestyle it's obvious I'm not the most um positive on America I don't I try not to be totally negative

either but some of my Tha friends like they're not necessarily as positive on America because they're seeing the news they're hearing about the crime and there's no Tai person that I've met um that's like a Pro crime kind

of person or whatever um yeah Lex that that expad didn't blow up over nothing and you see some people that are just carrying this frustration from their past experiences in life and they're they bottled it up and they

feel like coming over here was supposed to fix all of their problems and it doesn't can it be helpful yeah I think where you live is the most important decision a person can make but it's not a chur

all like if you're unhappy person like happiness is a skill that people have to practice and they need to practice it ideally before they come here um because then the experience here will be that much better if they're

happy coming into a place where people are happy uh they're going to be that much better off I admit I wasn't super happy when I came to Thailand last summer I was stressed out and burned out from my

life in the US from working in the tech industry I was in a Hur hry all the time I walked really fast because at work you're constantly getting told to hurry up and do it perfect and hurry up

and do it perfect and so you're bouncing back and forth but trying to do things right and trying to do things fast and you don't have that here like you know people are more tolerant and more warm and

it took me some time to come around to that uh but I am much happier here especially after a year over here just dealing with um Tai people has a way of has had a way of mellowing me

out I film very mellow compared to a year ago I just uh just enjoy the place so much and and I like it that you know some of the times when you smile at people here if they're not

thinking about something else they'll smile back at you and if you greet people they'll greet you back and I have that experience even in Bangkok a lot where I make eye contact with somebody and they can be a

little bit shy about their English but then I'll you know I'll crack a small joke or I if I see some Ty people laughing I'll start laughing too I'll even pretend like I know what they're laughing about but

I'm just in such a good mood that I'll laugh spontaneously with them and they start laughing and like we're sharing this this we're having this shared experience and it's a life affirming experience for me because in the west

I feel like unless you're doing something for somebody or unless you can do something for somebody you're invisible like it's just kind of turned into a transactional culture or society and you don't have that experience here in Thailand

at least I don't have that perception like like people are hustling they are trying to work hard you are going to have people like hey man you need a ride hey you want to check out my restaurant but

it's not over the top it's not aggressive a lot of the times when I take him up on it I'm happy I'm like oh man it's so hot I'm thrilled just you know be in some air conditioning or

uh man you know I really to be honest I was getting hungry I think I am G to try that your restaurant like even though I wasn't thinking about it now that I smell your food um I think

I'm going to have some of that that smells really good that looks really tasty and there's I have those experiences all the time in Thailand especially when I'm out exploring because it's one of those countries where you could

just go out exploring and you meet people and you have these encounters and situations um but yeah like I I think it's just such a wonderful place and I'll never get tired of it I want to do something

different uh in part because I'm so comfortable here I'm just so very comfortable in Thailand that I need to mix it up and introduce some healthy stress into my life and uh yeah but I'm I'm always going to

be happy to return in the future I don't think this is do but it's a beautiful Temple anyway uh have you seen uh cases like the one of my friend in your St after one or two years he

had an English teaching contract for two years and just said that was it yeah I mean my buddy Jesse uh he's back in Washington state back in Seattle area where he's from great guy he's the one that convinced

me to come to Thailand he stayed in Thailand for a year teaching English online uh and then he uh then he went back and and I talked to him at the end of his close to the end of

his year and he's like I'm Thailand it out like I've seen everything I wanted to see in Thailand I've done everything I wanted to do in Thailand and uh enough for me so yeah certainly some people will come

over here and feel like hey a year is enough I don't need to experience more of it I got to see everything I wanted to see I got to do everything I wanted to do and uh happy with

it loved it but I missed my home country in his case his parents are still his folks are still around and so part of it is like hey he's like I want to go spend time with my folks

back in Washington um and I can't do that if I'm in Thailand right it's a lot longer it's a long flight it's timec consuming it's expensive it's you know of course international travel is always stressful so there's plenty

of people that this is like a gap year for them or maybe a gap two years for them they're going to do it for because they're at an in between space in their life they have some time they

want to do something different but they want to go back in my case the only reason to go back uh is to maximize earnings because I don't really have family like my mom passed away when I was eight

my my dad passed away when I was 10 years old I'm not close to any of my other family and so there's no real reason for me to go back other than to make money and to see friends

I do miss and care about my friends and I prioritize seeing them when I'm back in the States uh visiting with them but friends don't equal family in my opinion like friends are wonderful friends can function as family

for you but people are living their own lives right like I don't like the idea of hey you know what I would go travel the world but friends like I like my friends I love my friends and they

can they can travel with me to some extent right one they can go with me two they can go to the places that I like to go uh three they can join on these streams or they can you

know watch my videos that I put up on YouTube and so um yeah good stuff yeah that's understandable from his point of view my friend thought he'd be living there forever he actually tried to convince me to go

there I'm more interested in Vietnam um I'm curious uh lightskin Ting um what sticks out to you more about Vietnam over Thailand can you share a bit more about what you've heard or uh seen about Vietnam that is

interesting to you by the way I think all these countries are wonderful I don't think there is this one is best this one is not they're to me they're different flavors of the same thing like they have some

similar cultural similarities of course the weather is similar um they have beaches they have mountains they have friendly people you've got a lot of variety in country it's you know the whole region is awesome I I've also been

to Cambodia loved Cambodia I feel like Cambodia is underrated it's someplace I'd like to go back in the future and if I been there and wasn't prioritizing Vietnam I would definitely going back to Cambodia I hope to go

back there in the future I think one of my friends that was living there for a while I think he may have moved on he was there for about five years uh working in a bank there but yeah

I think it's just a career thing I think for a lot of people one they don't have here or if they have a work permit it's attached to their job so they can't easily just switch jobs and so

it becomes like a a career opportunity thing like it can be fairly limiting if you try to stay here long term in your working years because one the wages are not as high as the wages in the United

States or Australia Canada UK um but two you know if you don't speak the local language like in the case of Thailand that's also going to limit how far up you can go it's there's just there's kind of

limited opportunities uh compared to your home country because of things like work permits because the governments in these countries prioritize their own people so basically some of the rules this isn't legal advice by the way for anybody but

one of the rules is that the jobs are reserved for local people only if the skill is hard to find in the local population is it something that they're going to be welcoming for foreigners to come in and

do but like they just uh I think they arrested somebody from Jordan that was working as a barber in um pull it up I think he was in pukat or pukat pukat know why I'm brain isn't to participate

today puket okay so yeah he was working as like a barber and puket and they were like they arrested him they were like no only Tai people can be Barbers here um so that's the other side of is

they're trying to protect these opportunities for their own people which I totally respect good stuff yeah that's under uh but yeah um lightskinn Ting feel free to share just more about Vietnam because it's I'm still learning a lot

about it I'm still researching a lot about it I've just begun to really dig into it I've watched some videos over the course of the last year but nothing not as substantial as what I'm looking at now and

that's something I'm going to get on after this stream is I need to just uh go ahead and grind through the Bea application the visa application is a little bit long and it's very detailed you have to let

them know the Port of Entry the port of exit you have to make a determination of the amount of time that you want to stay there do I want 30 days or 90 days days I need to find

out if I choose the 30-day Visa can I extend to 90 days if I decide to stay longer because I've never been there so I don't know how much I'll enjoy it or not enjoy it and so I

don't know it's like I want to dip my toes in the water but if I like it I also don't want to be on a hurry out uh so that's kind of where I'm at with Vietnam right now

uh it is less chaotic although the traffic seems more chaotic I'm not much of a party guy and the EXP P Community I hear locals are more keen on making friends yeah I've heard that too and I actually

had some Vietnamese friends back in the States um and got along well with them enjoyed their company and thought they were just really interesting and warm people so I could see that because in Thailand you have mass tourism

and you have so many foreigners coming through that it's not it's really not that exciting for a local person to encounter a foreigner especially uh in Bangkok or Paia or Chen my you milons of foreigners that come through

every year so how do they differentiate between you and any other Foreigner I had some of the most interesting interactions of and Hai so Hai is probably the least visited by Western tourists in Thailand it's down here near

the Malaysia border near Lan kawi and it's a cool City like it's a beautiful city but it's just not as well known among the Western tourists so as far as like dating goes it was you know it was

definitely a lot of fun um yeah I'm not I'm not much of a party either uh and I think that's part of the interest of Vietnam for me is there are towns or cities in Thailand Pia comes to

mind parts of Bangkok come to mind that they're totally oriented around partying and make giving people the time of their lives right having like the absolute mind-blowing part with like great drinks and beautiful women and I fully support

that like I think people need to come here and let loose and have a good time de-stress relax but that that's not for everybody all the time right and it's not necessarily something people everybody wants to do for

a long time either like a lot of people come on holiday here they come here they enjoy it they live it up for a few weeks maybe a month and then they go back to their home country and

uh kind of resume their normal day-to-day but Vietnam you know it not having that as much like certainly that could be intriguing and I'm looking forward to it I'm I'm really looking forward to it a lot I'm hearing

the government wants to push English since the return rate to Vietnam is very low uh yeah I think it's like a 5% return rate where Thailand I think it's more like 60% most the people that visit Thailand like

a majority of the people that visit Thailand love it so much that they want to come back again and again just the people are so friendly the uh the weather is really nice like the architecture is gorgeous this

is hot y you got this floating Market here I didn't make it up to this one because I heard it was pretty touristic it's also kind of in a far north corner of the city oh neat goes but

hot ya was a great decision I went down to hot ya because of the Burning Season so I flew from changmai to hot yai at the beginning of March it was a great decision like it just it's got

a lot of influence from Chinese immigrants um so you've got that you've also got a large Muslim population so uh it definitely has Malaysia Vibes definitely has Malaysia Vibes which is cool because I love Malaysia I'd like to

go back there if I haven't hadn't been there already oh this is where I so I lived across the street from Prince of saclaw University and here to this track and like go walking I should have done more

running but it's a really nice University campus City I've completed my teal course I lean more toward Vietnam because of teaching English yeah I think that could be a great opportunity for you I think you'd enjoy it about

it if things line up for you like skting please you know check let me know hey I've made it over to Vietnam because if we're there at the same time you know it's a great opportunity to meet up

and you know hear some story is maybe I don't know if you're open ever to doing an interview but anybody watching this like if you want to meet up and chat I think it'd be interesting opportunity totally understand

no big deal but um always happy to connect with subscribers um pushing English to help retain and attract tourism would help them a ton yeah I think that's something that I struggled with when I came to changai six

years ago is I remember going up to uh I think I was a woman in a coffee shop and I tried to talk to her in English because I you know I this is my first time in Southeast

Asia I was in I had been in Thailand for like a week and I just go full force talking to her in English and she's after a few sentences she's like I'm sorry just can't understand you it was

so funny I was so embarrassed I'm like of course like I'm in Thailand right now of course she can't understand me she speaks Thai but Thai but English keeps improving year over-year in Thailand so I've been coming to

Thailand like every other year now for six years and every year I notice it just gets better and better especially in Bangkok and changai more and more people have English their friends are learning English I even have a

thae friend that teaches English in changai so he's ethnically tied grew up in Bangkok but he's been exposed so much to Western culture his girlfriend is from United States that you know he speaks great English like we can

communicate and talk about anything and I think that's just going to improve in time but Vietnam I think he's taking a tip from Thailand and like oh wow if we have more English um there's a lot of people

that are curious about it about Vietnam but they just don't know how to get around right so I had that experience um in some more remote parts of Thailand where I walk in a restaurant and I have no

idea what they're serving it looks and smells great but I just don't know what they're serving and that's changed but I think in Vietnam you're G to have the same thing where people are like that looks really cool

this place looks really cool but uh I just don't you know I don't know how to communicate in Vietnamese Vietnamese is considered a very difficult language to learn uh and so having that will really open up the doors

for uh not only return people but also new tourists and um they won't have to rely on the translate app as much uh sleeping elephant when did Burning Season end heard it lasted longer than normal yeah I think

it lasted until like um the it seems like maybe 10 days ago like it seemed like it lasted until like miday and that was that's I don't know that was a little bit disappointing because I wanted to fly

back up to changai to finish out my trip up there like I said it's one of my favorite cities if not my favorite city in the world but uh I I tested Burning Season out a little bit like

I was there until like maybe M March 7th and I I just didn't feel it like I you know I was coughing feel not feeling very good the visibility was poor I remember going on top of my roof

and looking out over the city and it was hazy and uh yeah Burning Season was not for me some people doesn't bother them they live there through the burning season and it's a non-issue for them but for me

personally you know if I were to live in changmai longterm assuming I had the proper Visa then I'd be leaving every probably last week of February maybe even mid-February and then come back uh two or three months later

like early to mid May because it's just not something that it's just not something that's for me it's not something that I uh comfortable with now that I've given it a shot I'm GNA grab some water now that

I've given it a shot I recognized that it's uh The Burning Season is just not not something that I'm open to uh in your opinion how much does the trade in Thailand have to do with the 50 to

60% return rate you know there's no way to tell like it's not something I participated in here in Thailand when I went down to Patia uh it definitely is very apparent in Patia we can pull out Patia here

it's very much a parent in patio um but there's you know it's I think part of it is that it's I have a few feelings about this and maybe you could call it apologetics but uh one you know

it's not as stigmatized in eastern cultures like it is in the west um you know there's there's certain what's the word there's certain observations of Christianity or certain uh um denominations of Christianity that look down upon enjoying that

at all and in Buddhist culture they seem to be more tolerant and more open-minded about it so people don't like I'm not saying it's it's like I'm not pro that but just kind of explaining that it's not something

that people I I personally don't think people should feel about it bad about it assuming it's all consensual you know there's so much harshness in the world that like you know love is not the worst thing that that

could happen there's also like here in Paia a lot of families like I noticed when I was in juman uh a lot of families there's like a a water park here for example there's um where is the water

park it's somewhere down here no that's another hotel there's a ton of Russian families um here in patio or here in Jen there's uh I mean it's the most visited country in the world and to me Thailand has

everything so like for a lot of people it's a combination of things I definitely think that can be one thing like if you see if you go to patio you'll see there's a lot of people that are in

Patia Express but there's also you know you also have like shopping malls you've got terminal 21 you've got some great outlet malls in patio like so great discount shopping uh some of the best prices for shoes I've seen

in the country um you got sanctuary of Truth you've got um you got like well this one channel I'll throw the name down in the description greeny travels I don't get the impression that's what brought greeny here I

could be wrong about that but he's a a channel that I'm a fan of I don't get that vibe from him but uh you know in Patti you're like two hours away from Bangkok so like you can hop

on a bus and be in Bangkok in two hours they also have like just North Patia here they have some Japanese businesses in this city called um where is it it's uh C Racha so we'll pull that up

this is also I think this is where the famous sauce comes from so this is an industrial city some of the best Japanese food in the country can be found and I I didn't make it up here because

it's hard to get to here unless you're riding a motorbike it's just difficult to get to seea but uh yeah beautiful like place for me the combination that I'm after in Thailand is the people I love the people

they're so much fun they're so warm they're so kind uh to the culture the culture is interesting it's very deep there's a lot to learn and observe there uh and then three the food like tii food is some

of my favorite and Thailand you can't beat the Tha food in Thailand right like it's some of the best food in the world you have uh all kinds of different price points so if economical Ty food you can

get that like street food have fine dining you've got that here as well um you know it's also very modern I find Thailand to be more advanced than the United States and are safer in a lot of ways

it's uh you know the social um what's the word I'm looking for the Social Scene is better like people are smiling and laughing a lot more it's uh yeah it's a special country I think I think there's a

lot of different reasons and I also say it depends like it you're where you go in Thailand will heavily impact your experience so like that will be very much in your face very much obvious uh if you go

to um you know another spot that that will be fairly obvious if you go to Nana let's see where's [Music] Nana pull up Nana very much you know what these uh districts are about but you go to uh

other places then you have no idea about that stuff right so like I'm uh I'm in saton this neighborhood uh in the south of saton there's like uh mostly like once again combination of Muslim neighborhoods and Chinese neighborhoods

toward the north of saton you've got these BTS stations St Louis BTS chongon C uh there's also surasak and safon Toxin and there's like shopping malls like Robinson what else there's over on this side of well we're getting

into C but um there's a lini so you're at the edge of lini Park largest park uh in Bangkok you have let's see if I'm curious if they have any of the monitor any pictures of monitor lizards the

monitor lizards there we go you have these guys that are kind of they're not aggressive um but they don't like to be M you with their tail and I've heard they can even bite they definitely have sign to

not mess with the monitor lizards you know they're they're part of the park I I saw them I did see like a couple of Western tourists come up and try to like it you know shuffled away and jumped

in the water they look formidable than they are in my experience course I don't want to mess with them just because I just try to respect the the wildlife here in Thailand the monkeys that I ran to in

s claw those were not nice um let's pull up S CLA so the far other end of the country I was I came down here because I was in hot Y and I wanted to see what this was

about there's I don't know if yeah so here this should show the monkeys where are the monkeys because when I was here they not have pictures of the monkeys there are tons of monkeys that like run between the

beach and this park and they take your stuff and they demand fruit in return but they're not friendly like they did not like me or any of the other people they like show you their teeth and um this

was it chalot I think it was tat toop Beach I'm still wondering they don't have I'm looking for the monkeys I'm not seeing the monkeys oh here we go that looks like one right there H is it no

that's just a rock okay I thought that might be a monkey that's crazy they managed to omit the monkeys somehow maybe they're only there for part of the day or something but it's a very Thai area like I

don't think I saw any Western tourists in s CLA and what else um is it tangan Hill maybe this still not seeing the monkeys well if I uh if I find some photos well I guess you can see

the signage there kind of shows them but if uh if I oh here we go this is what I'm talking about so they make me kind of nervous because they just like they're aggressive like they're definitely not tame

they're definitely not pets I did see some taii people feeding them bananas and like there's a fruit vendor there's several fruit vendor set up you could buy fruit from the fruit vendors and then give them the monkeys but

if you don't want to do that sometimes the monkeys will like take your glasses and they'll make you give them fruit to get your glasses back but they uh they are neat to look at of course you wouldn't

see anything like this outside of the setting of a zoo where they're kept in captivity so it's kind of cool to see them just like more free roam or free range XYZ says loving these weekly streams making work

bearable well thank you so much I really appreciate that XYZ media that really uh really makes me feel great and like I appreciate you uh enjoying these streams and and that they're providing value for you and uh I

hope your workday goes by fast and it's not too bad um the monkeys are wild over there yeah the monkeys are just like they are they are wild they are so wild let's look at these yeah like you

think they would be friendly because they look kind of cuddly from their soft fur and they got the long tails but no they're they are definitely wild animals but it was it was underrated you know it's this part

of Thailand just didn't not see any tourists it was about a 45 minute ride from hot so I was here in hot rode up here got to explore around boang and um the old town and then we when

I rode back down you drive by there's like shrimp Farms over here that makes sense Seafood wholesaler so this may be part of where uh some of the shrimp in Thailand is is produced this is a lake uh

Co or s claw Lake and there's actually like a treehouse on coyo that I wanted to stay in but I didn't make it make it up there but uh might be something to do next time there's just so

much to see and so many cool experiences to have here oh wow but there is like there is kind of this like between the uh between the big bodies of water feeling here because you see like the peninsula

here is right on the edge of the Gulf of Thailand right you have the gulf on the right and then you have this big lake on the left and it's just an interesting effect there this is a must

be a temple very beautiful they've got deer they look like the Nar now there are uh some safety concerns in this part of Thailand if you do come down to hot Yi I recommend keeping it to hot and

s claw like up here I've heard there's some challenges in patani and and naati wat and yala so not necessarily a place you want to just go out and explore down here there's just some some challenges I will

say down there my road from hot Yi to Krabby so I took a bus from hot y to Krabby um there were several military personnel on the bus made me feel safer but it's certainly you know something to

think about then I was in Krabby for about a month and that was is okay you know Krabby is probably the most touristic part of Thailand I've been to it's uh we can load up Krabby here it's very

popular among foreign tourists like um my roommate was this guy who moved to Thailand from Japan he uh came on a business Visa so he's got some business interest there and uh really interesting guy but yeah Krabby very

touristic um trying to get my sense about where no so I was over here so that I think that's Krabby town so I was more down here you've got Aang which is like uh this beach I enjoyed this

night market it's huge night market and uh beautiful beautiful decorations beautiful ladies they really go all out on these decorations it's just such a lively atmosphere and the positive of being in such a tourist typey area is you've

got a lot of English right anywhere you've got a lot of tourists in Thailand people definitely have more English and they're um solid at communicating they got the Mochi I'm a fan of the Mochi for sure Krabby is

uh well known for this well there's a few things but I I'll show you the uh Buddha temple this is like one of the most epic Buddha temples I've seen in Thailand and I wish they'd give a zoomed

out picture but yeah you see that in the distance right um so it's epic there's like a dragon it's got an amazing view from the top it's definitely a trek to go up high there but the view from

it is really intense it's just a it's a dramatic landscape even by Thailand standards there we go that's so you can get the full sense of it from the ground level all the way up to the top I

don't know how many stairs there are but it was a workout it was definitely a workout to go up there and this is free like this you know going to seeing a temple like this totally free like there's

the dragon so this is the dragon that uh they have up there and there you get a sense of the the mountains and it's just so gorgeous it's so green and land here like uh they have Riley Beach

so Riley Beach is uh very popular for tourists it's like uh you take like a 10 15 maybe 20 minute boat ride from Aang and they have uh these longtail boats that you ride and it's just so beautiful

you know I didn't see the monkeys on Riley when I was there these monkeys look tired they've had probably a lot of fruit a lot of fruit to eat that market we can go back to that market the

Market's super nice oh look at the monkey but yeah you probably have seen pictures like if you ever looked out photos of Thailand this is one of the most I think popular uh places that people show off with

the uh mangroves yeah we can go back up here the night Market's really nice um really convenient location it's open like every night from 4 to 11 so it opens pretty late like uh i' a lot of markets

I've been to in Thailand close around 10 M so 11 is yeah really convenient a lot of variety too like they have Muslim vendors they have uh Chinese vendors they have all kinds of variety there H they have

some they don't have Indian food vendors there too much like they have a couple but they do have Indian a lot of Indian restaurants in Aang I did miss out on this pories restaurant I wish I would have

gone to it there's a Portuguese restaurant uh somewhere around here I can't think of the name but I was just in Portugal last year and had such a great time and was kind of wanting to have um a

throwback to that and then they've got these beaches this is a national park I did a stream here but I think my signal was a little bit rough but uh just kind of vieing this island yeah it's it's

just such a beautiful place but what is everybody getting into this weekend any any weekend plans I gonna be going out I may even go out after the stream if I if I um depends on how quick I

get through that Vietnam visa application but uh I may go out and just like do some wandering because my sleep schedule's been a little bit off I haven't been able to work out as much as I would have

liked and when I don't work out as much as I'd like in Thailand I tend to stay awake later and later I've read online it's something that happens in hot and humid places where I'll start going to sleep

I won't be able to sleep until like 3 or 4: am and then I'll wake up at like noon and that really throws off my schedule it makes it a little bit hard to do some things in the

mornings I'd like to join uh Philippines Antics tomorrow morning I'll throw their name of their Channel Down Below I'd like to uh be part of their stream in the morning but if I wake up too late I may

miss it I've been a guest on their channel in the past and enjoyed it a lot but it is they are early risers over there plus I think they're I think they're an hour ahead so if they start

at 8:30 a.m. that means they're getting started at 7:30 a. here so they are quite early there but yeah Krabby you know very touristic but also very beautiful up here to Bangkok short flight I want to say it

was like an hour 15 minutes hour and a half to fly to savan pum and then I hopped on the MRT and rode into town that's a reminder I need to get over to the West Side more so

I want to spend some more time exploring tombur I did get over last week to Icon CM that's where I uh film my video on narcissistic expats this uh one of the newest and nicest shopping malls in Thailand

it's just gorgeous like so artistic and I I don't know how they do it like I still have no idea how they do it but it's an incredible site to behold uh they have a nice little Japanese grocery

store in the bottom too which I thought was a neat touch and a great view of the river I didn't see the r the river views last time I was at ion CM but this time made it a

point and you get such a cool view of the skyline you can see here the CR uh the king power M mahanan building right here tallest building in Bangkok looks kind of like a Jenga look to it um

and then you can see the leua estate Tower here and they don't have this picture but there's the saton ghost Tower which was modeled after the Leo EST estate Tower it must be like I don't know if it's

behind it or if it's off to the right over here but there's a great view of the skyline from ionm hey good to see you Isaac welcome to the Stream cookouts for you first one of the year I

Ah that's something I miss so much about the US is one of my favorite things that I do with my friends is get together and do cookouts and um like campfires and cooking different things like um sausages and

different kinds of vegetables and that's something I'll have to do depending on the time of year like when I go back to the States I'm not sure what time it will be what time of the year it will

be but if it's one of the warmer months maybe like any from April to October uh I'm I'm jealous of you Lex I'm jealous of you Lex I think you're GNA have a great time doing a cookout and

yeah they have they do have barbecues like uh here in Thailand that's something I haven't done as much um typically when I get together with my Tha friends it seems like we're more often uh you know we're going

to a restaurant which is which can be a great experience too but there's something special about cooking your own food and like there's something almost like primal about getting together with friends around a campfire maybe it's because it

just doesn't get as cold here the appeal of a campfire is not as much as back home but uh that's just a really special feeling I hope you have a wonderful time cooking out but uh what are you

up to Isaac feel free to to chime in we've got a half dozen folks here like anything you guys want to talk about I'm I'm definitely open to discussing I'm just uh showing some stuff from ion I don't

think they have a movie theater here I think that's the one thing icon CM doesn't have they have like H&M big you know big department store looks like the H&M is three stories I don't know what this building

is I've been Wonder because I see this building all the time and I've been wondering what it is it might be a hotel but I'm not about that and this is a view of the cha pra River uh

looking I think looking North Club I think this one is looking nor okay so here we go so this is the saton ghost Tower is it's the tallest building in the world and my apartment is about a 30

minute walk from here and uh it's off limits they destroyed the first two levels of stairs it's definitely not allowed it's definitely not encouraged used to you'd be able to pay the guards at the gate and they'd let

you in it's uh it's definitely a trap but it I don't know there's just something like there's something super dystopian about it that's the best way for me to put it is it's always got these gigantic iPhone ads

on on it for whatever reason I guess Apple you know is one to overlook the historical significance of this building it is kind of a sad site it's a hold over from the a the Asian financial crisis so

it went bankrupt after they got like I think they covered 80% of the construction costs uh with deposits but then it went bankrupt they couldn't get financing for it and it got stuck in legal limbo and it's been

in legal limbo for almost 30 years now and there's no signs of it coming out of legal limbo it's uh you know it's a sore spot I think for a lot of people it's really unfortunate circumstance it was

supposed to look very similar to this so this this building right here is called the leoa estate Tower probably the nicest hotel in Bangkok or one of the nicest hotels in Bangkok they also have a a two star

Michelin restaurant here in here called mesaluna right about 8,000 bot for a dinner there so really a Primo space and I think the saton ghost Tower was supposed to be complimentary but uh yeah it's just such a dichotomy

right because you see here the nicest Tower uh potentially the nicest hotel in the city and it's like you know a kilometer away from this Relic it's uh I think the original name was the saton unique Tower but

a lot of people call it the ghost Tower because it's supposed to be haunted there have been some tragedies there unfortunately um but you know you you have this beautiful river access you can that's something I need to

do probably tomorrow probably tomorrow I'll hop uh I'm GNA hop on one of these River uh Canal boats I I guess it's not a canal boat it's just a river boat and ride it just to see where it

takes me that's something that if you're not sure what to do in Bangkok you have some time just like hopping on public transportation and just going with the flow and seeing where it takes you like you know have

some money for a cab to get back if you're struggling a little bit with how to retrace your steps but there's just so much to see in this city it's uh it's a living and breathing City and it's

such a vibrant place and it's still got that magical feeling for me like I've spent a lot of time here probably a total of six months now and it just I don't know it doesn't get old to me

there are days where I need to take a breather because it overwhelming and I just hang out at the hotel or at my condo but just it's such a magical place these are more shots of Icon CM I

didn't know they did the market at the ground level that might might be worth checking out I might walk over there one night I thought it was all up here and in the building but that's nice what else

can I pull up that would be [Music] interesting I kind of want to go back to Chinatown at some point Chinatown is touristic but they've got a lot of cool architecture and a lot of interesting little soy I

lived near Chinatown at the start of the pandemic and uh it was it was really cool like it was really cool to experience it with very few people because it's normally packed with tourists like totally packed with tourists

they celebrate Chinese New Year very cool dim sound these look like some dim suum pots could be wrong about that because that looks like some grill marks or like a grill grate or something like at the bottom but

yeah it's got you know reminds me a bit of what I've seen in Singapore like some parts of the uh Singapore like old school Singapore that they haven't really changed much um yeah it's so much fun Isaac the

outdoor markets like being able to like live outside is something that I love about over here and at first that was something that I I mentioned I missed well not first came but this trip when I started this

trip off in Thailand um this is neat this is Market we can take a look at this one where I was saying you know what I missed from the West is being able to go to one place and

get everything but I didn't realize that was at the expense of having all these interesting individual vendors and this can really provide a more unique and warm experience right because you're interacting with the small business owner as opposed

to like a faceless Big Box store all these clothes clothing vendors uh have you tried any of the odd Street Foods the Scorpion looks interesting no so I saw a scorpion on the ground in um in hot Yi

so we can pull up hot Yi again real because I want to show you so this was not in a market I so I lived over here uh okay that's not it okay so I lived right here so

this is the building I stayed in um across the street [Music] from the University and there's a market trying to get it to pull up I can't think of the name of it it's not wan to pull up

there's like a market here and I saw a black scorpion on the ground like just walking along and it looks creepy I haven't tried that stuff because I'm I'm not as Adventure I'm a little bit uh what's the

word a little bit nervous about that kind of stuff uh so yeah not not for me but no judgment you know that's something that you're interested in Lex or maybe have some friends that are a bit more adventurous

I think it's neat I mean not for me but I think it kind of d stigmatizes uh some of the the maybe scared feelings that we have about atypical Foods because you'd never see that in the west at

all i' never seen anything like that being served in in the United States I wish they um let me pull up a photo because the prince of s CLA University is really a beautiful campus so here we could

see the signage like that sign just it's such a cool artistic this is a good picture of the University but yeah surrounded by these beautiful Hills and then the the lake there just so like future um know if

the word's retro futuristic but there's also like a cornfield here I I filmed some videos in and I don't think it's going to pop up but uh the agriculture Department here has like a corn field that they maintain

so I guess this is like uh when they're planting and so this is pre pre corn uh but yeah this is where they plant all this corn for I guess for the students to [Music] study yeah I it's

just not for me you know it's not super appetizing I also worry about my stomach having some kind of ill effect and they're also not necessarily like cheap like I I know that you that's probably not the first

thing that comes to mind when people look at bugs for sale for food but uh you know that's just not something I necessarily value a lot I'd rather have like pork or um some kind of like a chicken

dish or maybe some beef or some Veggie Dish as well and we can go from here because I'd like to show a bit more of hot y just because I don't I don't think it's as covered as much

there's the well this spot we could start off with a dim suum fantastic this is like probably the most popular dim suum spot it's confusing because you order the dim suum across the street it's a it's a kind

of a strange feeling you basically you order the dimsum over here you tell them what you want and then you go across the street and you sit down in their Lobby you sit down in here and then they

bring it across the street after they've cooked it and they bring it to your table their Aon is awesome this place was ice cold Frosty super comfortable um super comfortable like dining area and uh that's kind of where

I started off but you can come over here to like this area this is like I guess the fanciest hotel they have in hot ya or one of them Lee Gardens Plaza probably the tallest building in hot or

one of the tallest buildings in hot but um yeah I like the way that they all kind of like it it almost has like a dome shape with the buildings as they gradually get higher and I love that

they lit up the building this way like that's just so cool that's so cool I didn't go inside so that's something I might need to do next time they've got the train station here which is neat to look

at it's a pretty big train station I think you can ride it uh ride the train from hot y to Bangkok and then Bangkok to changai so this is like one of the this is probably the southernmost big

city in Thailand and changai is the northernmost big city in Thailand so it's kind of this almost anti- changai feel in a way it's quite different if changai feels more like Myanmar or La then Hai feels more like

Malaysia and what else what else can we show here there's a clock tower you know the clock tower is really a beautiful spot I like the way it kind of as a North star you can use it to

figure out where you're at in this part of hot like the city city center of hot oh and I didn't show uh Central so Central is the biggest mall in hot ya massive Central like centrals tend to be

pretty big anyway but really nice spot you can tell popular in the town for people to go and uh they've got uh they've got a nice movie the lobby for the movie theater super nice I didn't see anything

I wanted to as far as on the Reel but also great restaurants I went and had some Ramen here they in the basement they've got like uh McDonald's they've got a bunch of Halal stalls too if you're a

person who eats Halal St then it's uh yeah great course they got the ice cream shop and it's you know it's nice air conditioned environment for during the day because hot y it I I was joking around they

should change the name to hot Yi hot T Yi just because it was really hot but um yeah convenient place now I was looking around at some camera equipment they didn't quite here at the East Center they didn't

yet have the osmo pocket 3 so that's something that hopefully Thailand will get more of in the coming months it was maybe four or five months ago they're easy to get a hold of in the for some reason

here they've just been not quite so easy to get U Get hey Tony good to see you welcome to the stream how are you doing today Tony how's your day going I'm just showing off Central Mall in h

but yeah what else can we show there's a nice gym I worked at um worked out at let's see if we can find it it's uh should be on punon road well I you know I can't find but

I will share this Reservoir I went to check it out and it's a beautiful Reservoir but there was nobody there when I went very different from the reservoir by Prince of sonla University and uh I don't know if

he was a groundskeeper but he like he had like five dogs with him and all of a sudden one by one the dogs come running out they all surround me and they're barking at me and he comes and

gets them that was a stressful moment they definitely did not like me and I didn't have immediate access to like pick up a rock to kind of scare him away but that's something to be cautious about is some

areas you do have some aggressive dogs that you should be mindful of I think Bangkok Pat got bit in like a random soy in a less well traveled corner of Bangkok uh some months back and had to get

like a tetanus shot um so something to be aware of but um yeah just part of uh yeah part of it I think this might be might have been one of them but it's a nice place to work

out you know it's a nice wow that looks beautiful when I went I didn't see the fog maybe this was like this looks like more it was taken in the morning um what a beautiful view and when I

was walking from here back to uh oh that's so kind Tony I appreciate that as my late grandmother would say with an Italian accent that Alex he is such a nice boy that's really kind Tony I really appreciate

you saying that that's very uh very nice Lex Vex says happy Friday yeah happy Friday happy Friday it's a good Friday it's uh I feel very well rested I uh I've been definitely getting better sleep and feeling more

more energetic and I've taken some time off this week to just kind of chill out because I was going hard in bangk I mean I was out recording every day and trying to um you know make more videos

and stuff and get a lot of recording to be able to go back and cover some topics after I I leave Thailand I'm also trying to stock up um footage in in the case that if I get a

job back home at some point that I can still record some content and discuss my experiences even when I'm not over here just because the editing is the most timec consuming part for me um so recording doesn't seem

to take that long um coming up with ideas is super fast for me but editing is really the time consuming thing for me and so if I'm back home and I don't have much to do after work or

on the weekends then knocking out some content to help all of you you know that would be wonderful kohong City but yeah that's Kone Ren Reservoir and what else can I share from oh yeah I can show you

something else from hot um and after that I'll get to your question Tony there's the Municipal Park so this is like this is probably one of the big highlights of there's uh there's like a golf course there's a

golf course down here so you walk by the a golf driving range and you pass by that and you get up here to the Municipal Park and there's a lot of different Trails you can walk around here I

tried to go to this restaurant but uh it was closed whenever I walked by it I was like ah it's perfect but uh you got a beautiful view of the city they used to have a cable car well

they have the cable car but it's closed right now and wouldn't that be so epic to be able to take the cable car to the top like and just the beautiful views of the city from there incredible but

for whatever reason right now it's closed I think it closed during covid but then you get to the top so I walked all the way to the top and you have this you have the Brahma Shrine but there's

another there's a Buddha up there I'm trying to find the uh there's a huge Buddha up here this might be this is well this is one of the uh one of the spots but yeah it's um looking for

the big Buddha the let's see here one sec I'm GNA just pull up big so I can think of the name okay this is this is the tallest Buddha in southern Thailand that's that's not it um okay we'll

come back here um H Municipal Park because this is it brought me to patio that's strange I'm not seeing it pop up for me here okay here we go this Buddha oh it's so so gorgeous this is the

tallest Buddha in southern Thailand and it is a sight to behold and you have a ton of um it's super nice I guess that's the cable so this is the cable car if it's hopefully they get it working

if some of you make it to hot Y at some point in the future they get it working for your visit and the dragon that you go you like start the walk up the hill through the mouth of

the dragon and so it's just like a really interesting visual effect to be like you know walking around the tongue of the dragon and uh then it gets into this winding kind of path up and you see the

gorgeous Buddha at the top and then the view over the city and really a beautiful view you can see the mountains in the distance and you can see like you can spot a lot of the big buildings in

hot as well you can spot the university really a nice experience uh Tony asks how is your journey to fire going um so it's going uh okay Tony you know I'm I'm Treading Water maybe going a little bit

back backwards by being over here but I also look at it like you know who knows what the future beholds for me um it was a situation where you know being laid off last summer I wanted to just

jump on this opportunity to come to Thailand and uh yeah it's um I'm glad I came you know it might set me back a year as far as putting money away but uh there you know with the tech

industry being the way it is I didn't have tons of opportunities to make money and it being so expensive in the states I was thinking well you know the money I have is going to go a lot further

over here and I'll be able to uh see and do a lot of things that I've wanted to see and do in Thailand for a while but you know in the past I've only been able to come to

Thailand for like a month or two at a time and this way I'll be able to really dig in deep and uh explore the country and see some stuff I never had time to see like this uh this

temple in hot really incredible but you know hot is not super popular like or maybe not as well known among uh Western tourists so like when I was there it was just me and some Thai folks and you

also can see the mosque from there so that was a neat experience to be able to see the mosque uh from the the temple like I didn't check out the mosque just cuz I think you have to be

Muslim to be able to visit the mosque but really A stunning building as well and a lot of the something I noticed a lot of the hot yai Fried Chicken vendors or Muslim ladies and that's something or more

Muslim men that's something you have to have if you're a meat eater when you come to hot ya is the fried chicken and hot ya is fantastic and they serve it with fried garlic and they also serve it

with rice and so it's an interesting alternative from K FC yeah just stunning like just stunning background uh Tony says I thought the job market was good for tech jobs so it was really good A couple of years

ago um so what hap what's happened Tony is that in the um in the US they've raised the interest rate it's up to I think it's at 5 a half% right now maybe 6% and the result of that

is that uh it's become much more expensive to borrow money and so U you know as the interest rate goes up the interest rate on loans goes up and a lot of these tech companies they rely on being

able to borrow money for cheap to uh rapidly accelerate growth and when you had the artificially low interest rates in 2021 0% then they could borrow like there is no tomorrow and uh there wasn't a worry about in

the world about profitability they were just totally focused on growth and so they hired and hired and hired uh but now that the interest rates up then they have a lot of pressure from investors hey uh you need

to reach profitability because if you're not profitable you're not going to be able to borrow the money to grow to profitability and so that's where a lot of the valuations were hit hard um for the non-profitable tech companies

the tech companies are already profitable have been doing well like Facebook their stock has been doing well I own some Amazon and some Google stock they've been doing well because theyve been profitable for a while um but companies

that I like the company I worked for I won't name them out of respect um no ill well toward them just you know don't want to disrespect them but they're not profitable um and so they had to do

a bunch of layoffs uh and a lot of companies that are not profitable like startups and uh smaller companies have had to lay off people so there's tons of people looking for work in the tech industry right now

like I'm when I'm applying to jobs I'm seeing well over a hundred applicants very quickly um do you have any interest in tutoring English abroad if the it Market dries up that might be a backup plan well you

know that is an option it does it can be kind of a what's the word am I in my thought process a little bit like spinning the wheels on one hand I think English teaching will be impacted by

AI uh you know there's this this English teaching platform camp and there are already offering AI uh English lessons but on top of that uh you know you can't save a lot of money now it would stop me

from spending as much right like if I earned enough from teaching English to cover my expenses or the majority of my expenses that would stop my burn rate but it wouldn't necessarily push me further toward fire uh so

it's you know it's been on my mind it might be something that I look into in Vietnam uh you know might be something to do for three to six months or something like that the challenge is just you

know in Thailand everybody wants to live in Thailand and and the cost is not as cheap as some other places so uh it's pretty competitive I would have the advantage because I have a bachelor's that would help but

uh it's not something I feel confident in doing long term uh and and so I feel I feel more comfortable about doing YouTube and trying to grow my YouTube channel now of course I'm I'm not making much from

my YouTube channel it's still in its infancy uh but there's a higher ceiling when it comes to YouTube um and I enjoy YouTube so much that even if I never made a dime from it I'd still do it

anyway because I like connecting with people and uh to me it's more fun in a hobby with English teaching I've done it in the past a little bit and what can be rewarding it just it can be a

bit more repetitive like with YouTube I Can Go in all kinds of different directions cover different topics we have wonderful subscribers like you Tony that introduce new ideas and new subjects to discuss but with teaching English you know

you're often kind of having like rep I would say somewhat repetitive discussions at times like what's your name you know what's your job what's your uh you know what are you studying that kind of thing over and over

again and it can just be uh a little bit too repetitive for my style like nothing no judgment against it I'm not definitely not above doing it but I don't know if it's uh it's something I could do

for the long term where uh with YouTube or with tech sales like you know I feel confident that I could do them for a long time until I hit that Financial Independence number um so yeah that's just like

my thoughts on it not opposed to doing it not necessarily convinced that it's something I could do uh in the long term what else in hot Yi is there anything else that comes to mind in hot Yi see

we could go I think that's most of what I wanted to cover in H there's uh you know I mention [Music] kbby um see what else I guess we could come back to Bangkok and talk a bit more

about Bangkok I haven't made it down I wanted to do this uh this week but it just the time flew by this week I really want to check this park out it's just such a beautiful Park you can

rent a bike here and ride it around over these beautiful paths and bridges I did try durian and I got an overly ripe durian and that was a strong a strong smell I want to check out I could

pull up this restaurant I want to try in Bangkok lamia so it's like I think it's attached or down the street from um Bangkok Hospital but it's this Portuguese restaurant so it's a Thai lady and she does uh

she does Portuguese food so really interesting like I I know I've been talking a lot about Portuguese a lot uh from from um and then what else uh because I've been My Thai friends to go check it out

with me I may be going to a cafe with them instead but uh I did check out samyan Midtown so this is pronounced Midtown um I checked this out last week I think and U really another nice modern

shopping mall they've got a lot of nice places to eat here the design of course is really cool to look at um what else what else um there's in nbk there's like a uh there's a quite places to

go that's where I got my battery replaced on my phone uh I want to check out the Jim Thompson house I've even with all the trips I've done to Bangkok I don't think I've been to the Jim Thompson

House who is this like uh he built like the largest silk business in the re uh region and um uh let's see it's uh kind of like old school Bangkok like he built this beautiful house and then he

just disappeared um and I don't you know nobody knows what happens happened to him but his house was turned into Museum you can see these beautiful KO fish that they have there really well maintained like they really put

a lot of effort into maintaining this beautiful home I remember your interview with a fellow living in Portugal I thought it was good or it was good I can't recall who that was uh Tony if you could remind

me um I can't remember I can't remember who that was you got all these like artifacts you know that Jim thle Ed and have has on display here it's um it's definitely one of those old school Bangkok um

spots and to be fair it ain't going anywhere like I could you know I see this house as being very historically significant in Thailand and I think they'll maintain it they've done a great job of maintaining a lot

of historical historically significant spaces in Thailand and this is among the most famous I've got to get over there at some point it's just easy to miss like I know that sounds strange at being in the city center

and being near the sayam area s area but like there's it's so it can be kind of overload being in this area this C area the pum MAA because you've got Mall you're surrounded by malls and skyscrapers and

delicious food and BTS stations um s Sam Square One have I I've been I've been in this one um I just haven't been there in a while I mostly in my recent mall trips in Bangkok I focused on

MBK um both in the same room Maybe I'm Wrong how many people have you interviewed you know I've interviewed maybe a half dozen people so I'll um I'll go back and check uh because Portugal is really interesting to

me and it's uh you may be thinking of another interviewer but very very wonderful country I'm happy to pull up in fact why don't we just pull up Portugal because I've definitely covered the malls quite a bit I

know some folks are probably getting tired of talking about the malls in Bangkok um so I went to Portugal last spring and I landed here in farro and I liked it a lot now the Algarve is bistic like

in terms of Portugal like I I still enjoyed it I went in winter so it was kind of slow but it's so peaceful like if you're looking for a peaceful destination I think a Portugal as being the uh

the most peaceful country I've ever been to like so quiet I mean so so quiet even in this touristic area um very popular among tourists you've got just low population density not a lot of um big buildings sounds

like it's raining maybe uh maybe a late night rainstorm here in Bangkok you've got this Marina there I wish I could find it um we'll zoom in a bit here this I don't know if that's it there's pull

up them you know I don't think I saw this either I'm trying to remember where I stayed maybe it was up here uh I rented a Airbnb room in an apartment so this is the farro Marina and the

Beautiful sign and uh yeah this this was in my video of uh far that I threw together I recorded the video but just never got around editing it but the tile work here is just stunning it's it can

be a little bit slippery in some areas so it's so well worn because far is such a popular place for tourist you can see you do want to be careful um it's a Mediterranean climate and so it's not

going to get a lot of rain but I imagine there's like a rainy time of year you'll want to be uh cautious about but the architecture is stunning it's just just such a beautiful place I'm I'm trying to

if I think of it I'll mention it to you in the next stream please remind me because I'll go back through my videos and uh try to uh find that because that that's really got me thinking because Portugal

is I was surprised I didn't really have much expect my first exposure to Portugal was I met this math Professor he uh he's Portuguese he moved to uh funny enough he moved to Huntsville Alabama uh Isaac mentioned he

he's in Huntsville it's reigning in Huntsville so this Portuguese guy moved with his mom to Alabama from Portugal got his math degree then one got his math PhD and now he's teaching in Japan guy named Artur uh really

into like techn music but uh I met him and I asked him like oh where are you from not like in the a rude way but we were just talking about like our backgrounds he's like oh I'm from

this country called Portugal and I'm like I've never heard of Portugal at this point like where is Portugal like what is that and uh he told me about Portugal being this small country like uh on the Iberian Peninsula

next to uh next door to Spain and it feels like an island in a weird way Portugal even though it's not an island it feels like an island to some extent it's definitely not Spain uh but but you

know on two sides you've got water right so you've got water on the west coast you've got water to the South and then on on you know the North and to the east you've got Spain so it uh

it's very distinct it feels much more distinct than I thought it would and when I crossed into Spain I'm like okay yeah this is very different now I was in The Algarve so I focused down here I did

not make it up to Lisbon or to Porto so next time go to Portugal I want to go to Porto really bad like I it's super high on my list because I love the Algarve and I think Porto

will be B Tad less touristy than the Algarve still touristic because Portugal is super popular but it's more of a City Vibe we can take a look at um some of these photos of Porto Porto is not as

popular as Lisbon because I think in the winter it's colder it's Rainier it's not quite as large of a city if you're familiar with Port twine then it's um this is you know kind of the home of port

wine these I'm trying to find some of these so you see these buildings apparently in the sellers they have a lot of Sellers and big barrels of this port wine it's a sweet wine it's like kind of dessert

wine something you'd have uh after dinner but uh you know I'm not a big wine guy but when I was in Spain like I didn't have few glasses because I'm like okay what am I getting a chance to

try you know the wine at the source and uh so it was a nice exception it's it's just um so stunning like Porto is known for this bridge and for uh the I don't know you wouldn't really call

it terrist but an elevation there in the I think it's called the dowo valley but yeah so funny enough Isaac I'm actually from Nashville so I've definitely driven through Huntsville uh and um my one of my long-term ex-girlfriends

she was from a town a suburb of Huntsville I'll say and never you know like uh you know always drove through there just because I feel like back in the US we're always in such a rush but it

seems like a nice like a nice small town and and it's got like a nice vibe there and then from what I'm hearing like it's popular uh a lot of people like to come to m z m i

struggle a little bit with Portuguese pronunciation but uh this this is like a I don't know if you call the first ring suburb of Porto but you've got the beach and you've got um like this I don't if

we call that a castle or a fort but it's a really interesting Vibe and I didn't realize they had cruise ships up here but yeah I guess they get cruise ships here and um love the I guess this

would be a cave looks like a kind of a cave maybe that's just the way that the Flora is sculpted but yeah Portugal is beautiful country it's just got the challenge of um a lot of you know they

a lot of Portuguese go abroad just because the wages are uh Limited in in Portugal compared to like Spain or um you know places like it's popular for Portuguese to work in France or to work in the UK

or work in Germany from what I'm hearing in ourour he works in Japan uh so yeah it's it's tough like it's some of the best places to live or some of the more challenging places to make money and

then the uh I think it's via Nova DEA I don't know exactly where it is in relation to oh here so it's South so this would be South Porto basically you've got the the barrels these are the barrels

I was talking about and then you got the Dow here I guess that's how they transport them up and down the river maybe um maybe some of the wine is produced uh in the hills and then they transport

it down the river on these boats yeah the colors and the landscape and it's an art like it's a super artistic place too more so than maybe I imagine like but yeah we'll probably wind down the next 1015

minutes or so as my voice is starting to go a bit I really enjoy everybody joining today and everybody that's participated in the Stream and it wouldn't be possible without all of you feel free to uh chime in

with any thoughts or questions or anything you want me to cover talk about we're getting close to midnight here in Bangkok so it's it's definitely getting late in the evening yeah Portugal is high on the list to go

back to um I will say Greece over Portugal Greece and Italy because I have places and I've been wanting to go to both for a while now and Greece is supposed to be one of the top places in

the world for people to go like right behind Thailand a lot of people seem to really enjoy Greece I know Walters World recently put out a video on Athens that I watched when I was uh strolling through Bangkok

I actually have a buddy who lived in Greece for a while so he's Greek American uh but he I just wanted to break from America and so he went over there and lived there for maybe a year or

two and he really enjoyed it and think he ended up coming back to America to work uh but it's yeah like really really a beautiful city supposed to be super underrated and I think JP and Amelia went to

Greece as well on their trip of this part of Europe they ended up in um Albania uh spending time in tyan and dures they also visited at some point though I do want to do like maybe I don't

know if it'll be this time because I you know I'm focusing on southeast Asia on this trip but at some point I want to do a trip and do Greece Albania North Macedonia bugaria and turkey like these five

uh in one trip so that might be an extended trip like it'll probably take me a few months to do it but I think that would be really interesting but yeah feel free guys to to toss up any

last thoughts or uh questions or um comments you know anything you guys want to talk about or cover before I wrap up just cuz my voice is definitely starting to go and um could use a some rest my

cooworker went to Istanbul last year and he enjoyed it a lot I think he went with his wife for a couple of weeks he was mostly an Istanbul can look at some photos of able I think this is

the Blue Mosque uh what else we just the so this is the Grand Mosque oh and on the water like that too is just incredible I happen to love Turkish food as well as you can tell I'm a

guy who travels for food and that's something that I want to try out for sure but um yeah you know if that uh you know I'm sure a lot of you guys are tired and you got have you

guys have um some weekend plans to enjoy thank you so much everybody for joining I think we're going to wrap it up here but uh yeah always great to see and interact with all of you I greatly appreciate

your support and your time and uh hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we'll see you soon