Rainy Day in Bangkok

okay please let me know how the audio is I'm hoping that this is an improvement um please let me know how the AIO please let me know how the audio sounds I'm hoping that this is an improvement uh

I do apologize for the audio issues this may be a situation where I need to buy an external microphone um that's this may be a situation where I need to go ahead and pick up an external mic which

I'm happy to do I can check some out on Lazada uh just because I don't want anybody have to suffer through bad audio and I know a lot of people have better things to do than uh listening to

not very good audio okay great thank you Mich I'm wondering if it's my airpods um I have normally used these and I'm wondering if just uh for whatever reason due to age they're a couple years old that they're

just uh you know they're good for listening but they're not good for doing streams um so yeah it may be a case where the MacBook the internal mic is actually good quality and it's the airpods that are giving

that bad quality that just doesn't sound sound very good but I really appreciate you letting me know just because I know everybody wants to have good audio but uh what other what are some other apps that I think

are helpful um of course your your standard banking apps are great I have my Chase app I also have my MX app um what else messenger like for for Facebook messenger Facebook app is useless but the messenger tool

is great just to stay in touch with some folks um but that's something you should already have so that's that's probably not as relevant um Airbnb I don't know if you're booking an Airbnb or you'll be booking airbnbs

uh Justin but the Airbnb app can be helpful there um probably another one you already have um yeah you know that's most of them that I can think of grab really covers a lot to be honest um depends

on which oh by the way depends on which internet service that you want to use I use AIS in Thailand and so it might be helpful to download I'll just throw it in the chat here my AIS AIS

is the kind of Primo uh service not expensive by American Standards um I use mine as a hotspot and I use mine as a um and for my phone data and I spend like $35 equivalent for you know

unlimited usage basically per month and I found that to be uh maybe it's $38 it's pretty reasonable usually the first payments like eight bucks and then I pay 10 bucks per week because I usually use that first allotment

in a week and then I go back and and do it three more times um but yeah my AIS can be helpful there's also true and TR is fine too I use AIS just because there's some things that

I do that like streaming where I'm really concerned about the quality and uh they've they haven't let me down at all but how's the weather in the Philippines today Michael are you guys getting rain today I think the

Philippines has oh yeah it looks like um just pull this up here oh nice no rain that's good to hear I'm really glad to hear that um I've been talking to my buddy in uh he he from Kagan

deoro and why don't we pull that up actually let's see here and share the screen aome yesterday I see so he's from here in Kagan deoro and this is where I started my Philippines journey I mentioned this on

the last stream but he's actually working up here in and just for reference for everybody that's just tuning in or maybe rewatching this this is in mind now and he's actually up here though working in malalai and so

uh he's convincing me like just with that you know Filipino hospitality and kindness like visit you know so we talk probably I'd say every few months he's a busy guy he's you know got a family there in Kagan

deoro and he's got a full-time job but at the end of he kind of like in a respectful way in a warm way wraps up a lot of our conversations by saying you need to come here and whenever

covid happened and I was in Bangkok uh when during March of 2020 he was like man if you need a place to say just like fly to Devout and hop on a bus come to CDI you just crash

here like it's totally fine I didn't end up doing that uh for various reasons but yeah he's like man you need to come up to Malai he want wanted to bring me up here last time because he was

working up here last time with KC I think it's like called it's like short for the election commission so he helps with voter registration and stuff like that um nothing that's that's relevant to me personally I I totally

avoid getting involved in anything like that but just to kind of give some of the background on him and uh so he's in Malai Bai City and this is I don't know how you feel about it Michael I

don't know if you've been to bagio uh but I'm hearing like malib balai might be the next bagio in a way um I personally haven't been to bagio it's high on my list just because the idea of kind

of a cool weather city is super appealing to me to me it's like almost like a secret like you can live in Southeast Asia and you can still have a little bit milder weather and of course like in

a place like dumag Getti I've heard about Valen Valencia having that milder temperature because you're up in the mountains but um yeah it's just a a cool City and you know I'm not a regular Watcher a regular guy

but he uh he came through malite recently and you know signs like that tell me that really the wor is going to get out about this city and people are going to know more and more about it just

with the uh I've only been in a few places in lzone yeah I feel like you can't go wrong in lzone because you have Manila right so you have the Big City Vibe and if you need to do

shopping or you need to fly or whatever it is you need to do you can just go to Manila so like if you're based in Manila uh there's what's the word there's maybe a little bit less reason to

run around the Philippines I some might disagree with that um I personally haven't spent time in lzone I've I've flown through there uh but for me especially uh you know these days uh I you know my first connection

to the Philippines is actually my friend who works here in Malai and and is from CDO and so that's why I was drawn to minda now I know some people are concerned about the safety um there are let's

see here I'll get into that a little bit I did want to share some more photographs but it's just like ah it's so beautiful I need to um uh let me pull up some images of Malai Bai here

so this is showing the city I was hoping for I guess I should be looking for buad non Province huh it's not showing the province as much um why don't I do this why don't we pull up and

I'll uh we could pull up the mountain here you know these photos aren't they aren't necessarily okay so this is a good picture this is cigan I've been to cigan but I'm uh maybe just typing in buad non

work yeah it's it's so gorgeous I'm just uh you've got the fog there and it's just so Lush I turn air con down a little bit feeling warm in here um okay that's not what I'm looking for um

google.com/ fles there we go okay yeah so I think this gives a better sense like you see in the distance with the rice fields those look like rice fields Malai balai uh is like the farming Capital One of

the farming capitals of the Philippines and here we go these are the pineapple plantations my buddy Z was telling me that there's like uh these Dole pineapple plantations here and I was reading online the pineapples are like 20

pesos each or you could get like three for 60 pesos or something like that uh and just the color and the and they look perfect like they look like AI pineapples they might be AI pineapples but uh either

way they're they're just so picturesque and um there's a lot of produce in Malai balai um it's just a really great location for for that farming and I also saw in Malai Bai there's like a mushroom farm and

so they have like a restaurant where they serve up um yeah this is it they serve up their the mushrooms that they grow in this restaurant and what else did oh yeah I guess we could um this tab

instead so some people uh you know might have some some concern about uh safety most of that is like Western minda now um just broadly speaking the western part uh this part of minda Now does not seem to

have a lot of the issues my buddy said it sayfe I did not feel unsafe when I was there last time although it is a risk that I do accept um just by going down there um but there's

there's so much to see here we go yeah that's just stunning of course I'm not that adventurous so I'm not going to be doing this I don't like heights I might do the hike but I I won't be

sitting on the U Edge there let's go back um wow okay this looks this is more in line finally the pictures I'm looking for so you have these beautiful valleys in between the mountains the waterfalls and absolutely I

agree Michael like there are unsafe areas everywhere in the world there is no guarantee of like oh just do this and you'll be fine uh in every country I've been to there's unsafe areas there's also unsafe circumstances there's

also unsafe weather uh there's you know unfortunately we can't control everything right so we do take that risk on by traveling but I think it's a calculated risk and uh it's well worth it to see some of the

stuff like it's beautiful um over pictures but like in person it's just a whole another level like the Philippines beautiful country but actually being in Lon uh seeing the cityscape of Manila uh going to the beaches of Batangas

like uh there's there's nothing like it um the you know there's a lot to see in l zone and I definitely plan to make it up there in the future because there's um from what I've heard and I

could be wrong about this but um well I've heard that they don't get hit by certain weather patterns at least in the eastern part of Blue Zone that that the western side gets hit with like that um like

charow the surfing capital is more prone to some of the inclement weather than um you know the Eastern parts of of lzone and there's a lot of development in uh in in the western parts of lzone I got

those mixed up there's a lot of development in the western part of the Zone I think Manila is actually on the West Side let's back up here yeah so Manila is on the West Side here and is going

to probably get buffered by like these islands and yeah definitely definitely great location but yeah I'm definitely careful and I'm I'm not going into the you know the kind of the hots spot areas I never had issue in

Kagan deoro and I don't foresee Malai having as many um issues he's he said you'll be fine you know don't worry about it he's been working up there too for like five or six years never had any issues

it's like uh the thing I may have to do and I I don't know okay wonderful yeah Westside Westside gets less bad weather uh yeah I agree they're it's so beautiful and I hear a lot of great things

about pangas I was talking to a philipina maybe uh maybe six months ago and her family is from Batangas and she recommended Batanga she said it's really nice and um it's it's supposed to be like uh we can

check that out too after we uh check out a little bit more so what else did I want to share um it's not a big city I want to say it's like maybe like a couple hundred thousand people

maybe like the size of Chattanooga uh you can see it here this is not sure exactly where this is in the city but yeah he said they have lots of fun I love the the Flora as well the

plants are just so beautiful with the fog and the uh the altitude there yeah that's like something out of a movie where you've got the rolling fog in the valleys and you've got the mountain peaks and the trees

and it uh it looks like you know something out of it reminds me a bit of Colorado uh a bit more tropical but yeah just stunning I love it and of course the jollybee something that everybody has to

be familiar with in the Philippines beautiful church here the one thing that I have heard to be a bit concerned okay sanza okay very cool very cool Happ be it's like a pyramid um yeah let's pull up I

don't to go down to bangis and I can come back down here to looking at minda now a little bit later in the video wow okay I did not realize I never really looked at the pictures of bangas

and they're developing a lot there I could imagine like it's weekend getaway for Manila I think it's like what a couple hours maybe an hour and a half by H by bus from from Manila I did some mapping

it out like what would it look like if I were to go to pangas from just coming from outside the country and I think I'd need to fly into Manila and then hopefully they have like a bus service

from uh Nino aino airport down to bangas but yeah this is just stunning it's like I've never been to Hawaii but it looks just like a lot of the photos I've seen of Hawaii and here's a resort beautiful

Resort the colors too like all the red and green roofs three hours so not too bad a little bit longer than I thought but not too bad and I think if you're south of Manila in tanza then you

should be able to get there even faster than somebody having to like navigate out of place like maati or BGC or uh like the old city Manila definitely I think Manila is one of those mega cities where it's

nicer to be a little bit further out unless you're just like a super City person then uh being on that like a little bit further out you get more peace and quiet you still have those Urban conveniences but

you don't feel like you're dealing with like commuter traffic as much which I know being here in Bangkok it can definitely be a little bit disorienting to see this all these commuters in the city of 18 million so

there's like tons of commuters and the traffic is just crazy here I was riding on a bus um the other night from I was coming from the Platinum Fashion Mall and it's like a 45 minute walk from my

apartment but I'm sitting on the bus for like an hour and a half and still not at my apartment I'm like okay it's going to take another 40 minutes to get closer to my apartment I'm just going to

get out of here and walk it was like maybe one and a half kilometers or something like that and that turned out to be a good decision I think I beat the bus home and I love the boats

these are very similar in design cigan with the uh the kind of I don't know what you'd call those sticking off the sides to help with the the stability but it makes for a more comfortable ride for sure

stunning and with the volcanic sort of rock here too that looks like like volcanic rock anyway the the kind of the gra sound something I want to see and it's gonna sound sketch but oh let's see maybe two

hours for me okay very good Michael depends on traffic time of day and whether going by bus or hire a driver I have a local driver here that I hire great guy and very affordable C catamaran okay yeah

that's great if you have a driver that's like reliable you're not having to wait on calling up a grab which I was listening to George and Heidi Philippines antic stream earlier today and they mentioned depending on the circumstance

you can really end up waiting a long time for a grab like you can wait sometimes a couple hours depending on where you're at in the Philippines I didn't have issues in Kagan deoro but Kagan deoro is a

much much smaller city than Manila where you have so much more need for for drivers and if it's somebody you know to you can have banter and joke around with him and um you make a friend that way

it's just so easy to make friends in the Philippines and being able to connect with the driver and like having somebody to kind of take your mind off just you know sitting in a car for long distances like

are we there yet are we there yet uh that could get a bit old and it's good business for him too right like he's got a consistent customer that he knows uh is going to be able to cover

his wage for that that time allotment and then maybe depending on where you're going or how long you're going to be there maybe he can wait and and then help you hoof it back right get back to your

house or go on to the next destination or wherever you need to go so I think it's a great option to have a driver and yeah hey Tony good to see you just uh enjoying a rainy day here

in Bangkok uh doing a live stream showing some stuff from the Philippines I'm hoping to get over there uh later this year and yeah just chatting with Michael a bit about some of the places that he's excited to

go to bangis is on his mind and I think he's going to really have a great time in bangis and these are called catamarans so these catamarans are just so much fun and like I love I I love

the viewing from it like I've been on a ferry in the Philippines from like Mainland mindo to kagay deoro and I feel like your field of vision I don't know how to explain it like being lower to the

water maybe you feel a bit more connected to nature maybe it's also not having quite as many people like the fairies tend to be quite busy and so you're also trying to navigate okay where am I going to

sit how can I make sure uh people are able to get through whereas if you're on a small boat like this then then you feel closer to Nature course you're closer lower down to the water uh but the

viewing is great for sure it's just like one of those quintessential Philippines experiences to ride on one of these and that's something I really look forward to the next time I'm I'm over there so beautiful and this is

like a Philippine style Resort um they you know what I stated in in kigan looked very similar looks very similar to this they have this like I don't know how you describe it but it's like you've got your

rooms but then the public spaces are bigger than the rooms and so you have all these public spaces when I was staying there I met some interesting people from Sweden actually and it was really um I wasn't expecting

it right I wasn't expecting to uh to see other foreigners like I think it you know being in CDO it you know I came from CDO which is not really a touristic City you don't really see a lot

of foreigners there at least I didn't back then I think there's maybe a bit nowhere now um but it was yeah it was interesting to to see other tourists there and and seeing people enjoy it yeah it's like

something out of a screen saver or a movie uh just watching your newly dropped video on tempering your expectations thank you so much Tony I'm glad you enjoyed it yeah you know coming over this part of the world

my expectations were very low because before I came to this part of the world I'd always been told everything outside of America is Armageddon you shouldn't go there you should stay here and then I came to Thailand and

I was like oh this is amazing like this is like I I don't know why more people don't come here and I'm so glad my buddy Justin has actually made plans he's going to be coming here in a

few months unfortunately by then I think I will be headed out from Thailand I'll likely be uh elsewhere by that point um but yeah and and then you know uh um and I'll get to your your comments in

a moment code um having a good driver and being friends makes it good we're now friends on Facebook so I just message him and ask him if he's available on a certain day yeah that's perfect Michael and that

helps him plan out his schedule too so he can maintain being booked and have that more consistency in his schedule where he's like okay awesome I'm working like this many days this month so I know I'm GNA earn

this much I'll be able to help out my friends and family um yeah people people's I feel like I the motivations are more clear in a country like the Philippines like when I was approached by people wanting to

drive me around for example I'm like you know they they they had their family with them and they're uh you know they're telling you look I want to work just because like you know uh I don't know sometimes

it's always spoken but it's like obvious like hey I want to work cuz like you know I got my family on my motorbike here and working would help me to take care of them I had similar experiences in

Peru meeting a guy named Freddy who I recommend for anybody that goes to Cusco Freddy was a wonderful guide he showed me around some of the ancient sites and taught me about their traditions and told me how uh

he's he and his family are moving back toward those Inca Traditions from the more modern traditions and I thought it was just really really interesting to learn about his perspective about how it seems like in the modern world

some of us are are rediscovering those Traditions that help us feel grounded um hi Tony great advice for traveling and life more generally thank you so much Tony I really appreciate it yeah I wish I could I could

apply that same feeling back home sometimes when I'm back home and I'm paying so much I'm like look I'm I'm paying a lot so like I expect a lot but realistically speaking my expectations should maintain low one of

the things that really sticks out to me a piece of advice that nval talks about is have very low expectations for other people have very high expectations for yourself and I think that's a healthy way to go about

things because then you're not let down and not just for other people but other places like I had low expectations when I went to penom pen because so many people uh that I talked to or read about online

are like ah don't go there there's not much to do there it's uh you know just not as good as some other place and then I went and I loved it at the time of my life I was

like Wow people know have fun in this city like this is it reminded me of New Orleans um Pome pen reminded me so much of New Orleans like down to the French Colonial architecture the walkability by the Riverside

the Rivertown kind of vibe uh of course you know time and you know just uh Charming Charming it it really Charmed me in a lot of ways the only reason I'm not going back on this trip is just

timing it's just I'm already squeezing so much into this trip that I don't know if I can do that again but I'd be happy to go back in the future uh to Pome pen but what's your thought on

up rude Anglo Boomers in Thailand well I think you know just avoid them and I think you know not not all people that are are of that demographic are necessarily epid I i' mostly find all of my friends

through online um so I don't really approach or talk to expats much much outside of the context of people I know online because when I go online it may be helpful for you code as well to like uh

document your experiences and try to connect with other people because I feel like look online I'm able to see how people carry themselves I'm able to see how people conduct themselves and those are the people that I want

to be friends with and plus if somebody likes my channel then I figure they like me as well so it's going to be a better experience we're going to have more in common uh but I don't let let

people people like that bother me I'm having such a good time over here um it's yeah it's just hard to it's hard to ruin it and I don't ever have like I feel like here I just don't have

bad days I might have a bad hour or two or like an experience that didn't you know pan out the way I thought it would but the weather is usually pretty good over here the people are Al friendly

I'm in a much it's hard to really Quant it's hard to put into words but I just feel like I'm in such a good mood here it's harder to bring me down over here as much it is as

it is back home where you feel like Society is like constantly throwing up roadblocks because in an individualist Society individualistic Society you have to have tons of rules because people would just be at each other's throats without them

but in a more collectivist Society where people are more interested in cooperation or getting along uh you know people just don't need as many rules that's just my personal opinion my personal experience here is that people don't really

have to be taught how to behave over here near to the same extent that they have to in the west where uh you know people are going to do whatever it is they want to do unless they're expressly

told it's not allowed by the law uh and even then many people do break the law whereas here it's like I don't I just the behavior just seems to be better overall on average am I going to say

everything's perfect not at all but that's just been my uh experience I have meeing expectations for life is a good practice kind of Buddhist yeah you know Tony I think that's a good point too just like you know

you don't want to have such low expectations that it's condescending or or uh dismissive or uh rude like I think that's that's the other side of having low expect ations is if they're too low then I don't know

maybe it could turn into cynicism a little bit so kind of that Middle Road is is a good way to approach things um you know code with other expats in Thailand Thailand is one of the most visited countries

in the world preco Bangkok was the most visited city in the world and Thailand has an interest in having a healthy tourism industry I think that Thailand will continue to get tons and tons of tourists because it's wonderful

like they want you to come here and have a good time uh part of what I do is I I select where I want to go in Thailand to avoid some of that tourism do I think that there

are wonderful touristic parts of Thailand absolutely but where where I have an issue and some people will um some people will say oh it's it's a hipster attitude to not go to a tourism place I don't feel that

way at all I think there's a lot of really cool touristic parts of Thailand and what I struggle with is where an area has a super transient population so being in certain parts of any country where people are

constantly coming in and out like a yo-yo I struggle with that because you have people that are not as interested in building Community right like if I'm coming for just a week do I really care to get to

know people H you do I really have time to build up being a regular at certain establishments do I have time to get know my neighbors not really I'm coming in to have a good time so I think

these countries will always be popular for short-term visitors it's going to be harder for long-term visitors to afford it until they get to more retirement age so a lot of the subscribers that I have are more like in

their 50s and their 60s uh well it's kind of a split so a lot of the guys living in Southeast Asia are more in their 50s and 60s because they've had that time to build up Investments they've had

lengthy careers they've what I call they put in their time they put in their work and they're enjoying the rewards um so there's a lot of guys that like me that can afford to come vacation here but we're

not at a point where we could live here long term and so it's going to the cost uh over the long term is going to naturally disqualify a lot of people because these countries are getting more expensive there

is some level of inflation and not only that but to actually have an enjoyable life is uh cheap to exist is cheaper than in the west but if you want to like have a driver you can call up

if you want to have a steak occasionally or have a seafood dinner occasionally if you want to uh visit a different part of the island that adds on top of your rent cost your electric cost your your basically

cost of Life uh is not quite the same as your cost of living and I think they're going to be more popular too because it's It's a combination there's push factors and there's pull factors people are getting pushed

out of the West because the civilization is is not doing very good people are also being pulled over here because when they're sitting at home after work trying to like you know figure out like where they want to

go on vacation or uh you know watch some good YouTube like I've done on many occasions after a tiring workday I'm like well I'm in this you know big city in the west like San Francisco area and um

what's it called uh you know I want to I want to see what all is out there and you know you hear about the Philippines of course I I'd be happy to uh share more about it um yeah

Michael I absolutely agree Phil Kos are very nice kind and helpful they've all been uh really nice to me uh in my experience and um you know the hospitality is there the welcoming nature is there I remember my

first Filipino Christmas how I actually became familiar with the Philippines was I was living in San Francisco and I started a business selling online and I knew this guy and he's I think he still lives in the Bay

Area his name is Jeff Hunter I'll throw um I'll throw his name name Jeff uh Jeff J Hunter and he was a project manager at a tech company and then he decided to um he decided to start his

business and so he started this virtual assistant business and he was doing a seminar in San Francisco and talking about his virtual assistance and he's catering more to larger businesses and selling like packages of teams of va help

and a lot of virtual assistant uh they are from the Philippines right because the um just the Dynamics right they have great English of course the wage expectations aren't the same as what they would be for a ba

in the west and I was like well I just need like one right now so I'm going to go in these groups that he's talking about Facebook groups and I'm gonna find a virtual assistant and then uh somebody

recommended so I made a post and somebody recommended my buddy Z I brought Z on board Z's uh based in kagay and deoro and he worked for me and he he was working overnight so like when sales would

come in and sometimes he'd work like overnight in the Philippines and so when I was working on other stuff he would be Fielding sales and like communicating with customers and did a wonderful job and I I asked him

I was like how much money do you want me to pay you just name whatever price you want and we agreed on a price that was uh generous for Philippines standards quite generous and then also agreeable with me

eventually I closed the business for various reasons but I stayed in touch with z and I decided to visit him like right before Co I was like okay Z I want to meet you I know that we're not

uh here in business we're not in business together but I really appreciate the help that you've offered me offer to help me with all the work you've done for me and I want to just meet and like you

know thank you and and hang out and so I hung out with him and his family and kagay and deoro and it was just mindblowing how kind they were like trying to give me the shirt off his back

like offering to pay for this this nice meal that um you know was expensive by Philippine standards and like trying to take me to Starbucks and it just um it was a very humbling experience when I came to

the Philippines uh almost five years ago it was just extremely humbling and it taught me a lot about the quality of character of a lot of Filipino people and it taught me about their motivations like he would show

me every time I would send him a paycheck that he would show me he went and bought Construction Supplies so he bought like the skeleton of his house and Kayan deoro you've probably seen him Michael in the Philippines

and every time I'd send him a check he'd be like okay I went and got concrete or I went and got this or that and he would like build a little bit more on his house on the weekends

or his time off and it was just so so humbling I don't know how else to put it um and then when I got there and then he told me about keman and we had such a fun time

and he invited me to Filipino Christmas which was amazing um it Filipino Christmas was so much fun I'd had so many lonely Christmases in America by myself sitting in an apartment um didn't have anywhere to go didn't know

anybody that I could spend time with and uh it was there was like 30 or 40 people that came through his I think it was his mother-in-law's house that we celebrated at I met some of his cousins people

had flown in from America and it was simple like we didn't have you know there was some basic cakes and like we were drinking red horse but it was just such that this it was such a wonderful close

feeling of connection and joy and family closeness and after we were done it was maybe 10:00 or so uh he gave me a ride back to my hotel and I'll just never forget that I'll never in my entire

life I'll never forget that Christmas probably the best Christmas I've ever had if I'm being honest was with his family in the Philippines 2019 and I had no idea Co was coming around the corner but that really solidified

my love for the country and my love for the people um but I've got to push back code um so a few things I've got a lot a lot to say about why I disagree respectfully uh first off

a lot of Americans have smaller families a lot of Americans don't have kids so a lot of people my age don't have children I don't have children and children are something that does tie people to a place like

I look at the people I went to high school with very few of them have kids very very few of them have kids um even the people that could afford to have kids are like nah I don't really

want to do that and so when you don't have kids you have more free time and you have more flexibility of schedule and you can travel a lot more you can save and invest a lot more you have

this Freedom that you know unfortunately uh especially and more so in the west because in the west it's different than a place like the Philippines we in the Philippines you got your extended family to help out with child

care you got the country the Philippines is much more geared toward people raising families and but in the west it's not like I had a buddy has a bunch of kids in the US he's a rare exception and

he said part of what makes it so difficult is that because so people so few people do this then you don't have economies of scale so diapers are super expensive baby food is super expensive Child Care is astronomically

expensive and so when people don't have those ties like they have that free time to look around I mean I'm not going to name him by name but uh my manager I don't think he'd ever been out of

the country my manager at my last job and me and one other guy on that team like had spent considerable amount of time abroad so my manager then goes down to Colombia for I think he was down there

for a week maybe 10 days or something like that and he was blown away he was like wow I did not know it could be this amazing and this economical and there's tons of people like tons of young

men two-thirds of young men are single in America so when you say like the majority of people have fames like yeah they may have parents parents but you can't you can't expect people to give up like a beautiful

life elsewhere to stay in America where it's depressing like it's just depressing in general and they're discovering and seeing all this content online like oh wow so he was miserable in the United States just like I am and

yet he went over there like you look at some of these videos they've been viewed hundreds of thousands if not millions of times times and so it's like getting like passport bro that's like common culture a lot of

guys are thinking wow um I'm single which like I said two-thirds of men in Western countries are single but I can go to this other country whether it be in Colombia or southeast Asia uh Latin America you know

parts of Eastern Europe and I can have a relationship I can have a meaning relationship meaningful relationship with a woman that may be open to having a family uh is closer to her family she doesn't think her uh

you know she does people are not corrupted by like the greed and the money oriented culture of the United States and I speak as a straight guy that's dating straight women but I imagine a lot of women are

also not exactly satisfied with the Western cultures just the painful cost of living there's probably a fair amount of women out there that are like wow I'd really like to have kids but it's just cost prohibitive for me

um let's see what else yeah congrats code if you've been over here for six years like definitely congrats to you you figured out things way before I did um I've spent maybe like a year and a half total

in this part of the world uh so you know nowhere near six years but I've loved every minute of it America does feel like prison I mean it's it's wage dependency if you lose your job you were very

quickly so uh and so when I got laid off I bought a one-way ticket to Thailand like 12 hours later because I knew like I'm going to start hemorrhaging money like very quickly I'd rather go over there the

industry is not doing too good and that was a great decision I've been so glad with my decision to come over here I SP spent a fraction of the money I would have spent in the US and I'm

far happier yeah Michael so and in code I've got a storage unit I'm strongly thinking about just giving up with all the stuff in it a lot of the stuff in it belongs to uh you know my mom

and uh you know know who passed away when I was eight and my grandfather but it's like you know paying when I'm paying like close to $200 a month just feels like throwing money away and I'm not going

to ever see them again they're gone and I don't know like I'm trying to rent small apartments in America when I'm there and working because uh I don't want a big house I don't want to buy a house

in America ever I don't want a mortgage I don't want to pursue the American dream whatever that means these days and so like I don't really feel like I have much attachment to America um now if I were

to relocate long-term to the Philippines it would be economical to throw all that stuff in ball buyin boxes or get like one of these big storage containers and just put it on a boat that's something I might do

uh depending on how my long-term move goes but yeah I don't want to be paying that when I make my long-term move because that's just chewing up up you know chewing up money wow um oh nice you you

sold all your stuff yeah I need to sell a lot of that junk or throw it away or give a lot of it away because it um let's see yeah if you can't sell something give it to char

that's a good idea IDE Michael um that is a really good idea and plus Michael like if you're happy you know you can always go back manila's like 12-hour flight to the West Coast and then you can fly

a few more hours from there so this idea that you're like on another planet not not the case at all you can definitely go back and um you know anytime you want it's you know I feel like with

with technology you can maintain a lot of those relationships well anyway you can pick them up and call them anytime you want you can um you know you can video chat like you're able to maintain more contact and

also I feel like I'm in a better mood for those relationships um I've been off and on no contact with some of my family it's a different scenario Michael but uh you know if I'm working 40 50 60

hours a week that and I'm sleeping you know 40 50 60 hours a week there's not a lot of time in there to be social right like there's a lot of days where I've worked so much and talked

to so many people in sales I don't really want to have a conversation I'm just not really in the mood to have a conversation if the day you know if I've gotten rejected 30 40 times having conversation on

top of that can just be exhausting um and if you're happy that's what's important life is too short to be unhappy and I think a lot of people are in the west feeling unhappy and um you know I

think it depends code like I yeah yeah okay that's a fair point Latin America Eastern Europe uh yeah I mean this is the thing is as the United States gets worse and a lot of people are saying oh

collapse collapse I don't think it's going to collapse I think it's just going to decline to a point where it's not as appealing um you know you look at certain countries that are not doing as well as maybe

they were in the past like Argentina Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world a hundred years ago uh not the case today and you can survive in Argentina there's plenty of people that are surviving but

the poverty rate went from like 2% around the year 2000 to now it's around like 35% and so there's going to be a lot of people that if they've got resources they're going to be like okay do I

want to stay here where there's all these issues I still have my house can still get food but like uh you know it's not exactly safe to go out at night uh I can't really you know I have

to build a tall G fence in front of my house you know um which you know America is just going through some rough times and it's kind of a slow ship in the sense that it's not going to

be fixed overnight and I think a lot of people feel that way now where it's like hard to deny some of the Dee rooted issues in America uh especially for young to middle-age people like America's in this situation

where a lot of the older people are happy and a lot of the younger people are unhappy and a lot of young people being unhappy like you know a lot of them work really hard a lot of young

people work really hard at their jobs and um yeah yeah uh Michael says and I'd love to comment on this Michael haha same story I got my notice of layoff in July 2023 yeah so I got so I

got my notice mid uh or late May and I was officially laid off end of July and I was on a plane at the end of June so after I got noticed before it was official I was on

an airplane coming over here um had to stick around then until because of severance pay obligations until September 25th okay for sure for sure um yeah that's the thing is like people look at it like uh just salary

versus like material Goods um in America can you live in a nice house and drive a nice car absolutely but you know living in a nice house and driving a nice car don't necessarily make people happy uh having

safe shelter yeah but safe shelter when it that comes to mind I don't assume that means big house when I think of reliable transportation that doesn't necessarily mean owning a nice car right that can mean uh living in

the house that your significant other owns and having a driver that can take you around so one you still have shelter Michael I've seen you know I've seen part of where you live looks like a lovely Place uh

but two you also have transportation so it's like can I really say oh because Michael does not live in the United States and drive a brand new pickup truck every day he's living in this terrible uh you know

terrible condition no not at all I don't think so at all I think you know the big house in the west and the fancy automobile uh loan are handcuffs they're you know and a lot of what people have

in the west are golden handcuffs to where they're kind of tied through these material objects and more specifically living above their means that they can't they don't have any free time right so they have all this stuff but

they don't have time to enjoy any of it um that was what I noticed when I was working full-time in the US is like yeah I'm making money but like I'm so tired on the weekend and I've got

chores to do I don't ever really get to enjoy it um and and also it's also like options right so like if I'm in the United States uh I can't control the weather so if it's winter time in

the United States and it's getting dark at 4 p.m. and it's rainy and cold all the time I can't just turn it into a sunny day uh I can't you know if I'm in the southern us and it's

like 100 degrees plus humidity I can't you know and I've got to go to work I can't just dress in a shorts and a t-shirt like I've still got to dress and and work appropriate attire um if I

feel like crap like yeah I have some sick days but like realistically speaking if I'm being judged based on performance which in sales it you're being judged on performance you can't just take the day off if you feel

bad every single time um yeah no I live out of one backpack so I you know when I started traveling I the first time I came over I brought a suitcase and I brought a back a big backpack

and as I've traveled more and more I'm like okay just standard backpack if there's anything that I need to buy I'll buy it when I get over there clothes are accessible here uh toilet trees are accessible here and

it's just so much easier that way to just live out of one backpack it does get heavy with my electronics with my laptop with my iPad with my DSLR camera that I travel with so it can be a

bit heavy but I'll just usually leave it at my accommodation and just carry what I need to carry and yeah Michael if you've you know moved into the financial stuff like that's you know that's part of the the

freedom plan right is to make your money from the Western economies and and enjoy it in an economy that um doesn't have the the artificial inflation that you have in the western democracies that makes your money disappear as

fast as you can earn it you know I need to get into upward code I would really appreciate it if you share more about upwork because upwork could be like a ticket for me to not have to go

back uh because I don't really want to go back to be honest I'm not at the I I'm in a midpoint where I'm part of the way to where I need to be financially to never go back but

I'm not quite there but that the amount of money I have I would I safely have sales is a big one um I got partway through to computer science degree I got to junior level computer science um education

um yeah yeah and Michael I'm hoping you know I've got one crypto that I'm loaded up on I mentioned algorand not a recommendation to anybody to buy it performance has honestly been terrible I kind of wish I'd spread

it around more into other cryptos I sold a crypto to fund my Latin America trip which was not the ideal but I did it you know um that's that's what happened there but um see yeah okay so when

you came over you just brought a school backpack that's a good call code and you as well Michael okay that's definitely reaffirming because you know sometimes I you know I don't to be honest I don't really miss things

back home as much as I thought there's mer uh there's mainly like you know a couple of things like I wouldn't have mind bringing a better audio setup I have like a nice microphone back home that plugs into

like this interface and that would have been nice for interviews or that kind of thing for you you do copywriting and marketing social media manager work you can earn 15 10 15 20 an hour depending on your skill

set upw clients are looking for value and scrape the bottom of the barrel you know that does make sense just because uh they are on there hunting for a deal and of course we're hunting on there to to

have that geoarbitrage right to be able to do the work but not pay those crazy Western prices um thank you yeah you know I definitely want to learn more um you know about it and you know wouldn't mind

exchanging uh Communications with you at some point just to learn more about what you do I don't I'm not asking to like copy what you do I've got my own skill set that I'd want to apply there but

um yeah I think part of me is just um nervous about it you know right nervous but uh no no American minimum wage is not 17 per hour uh California is trying to get $15 an hour pass I

think they maybe got it ped but um $7 and I think it's 725 in my home state I think in Tennessee minimum wage is like $7 25 per hour if you are a waiter or a waitress then it's

more like I think $225 cents an hour but it's probably going to go up because you can't really live on $725 C an hour maybe if you're like living in your car and like parking behind your you know

parking in a restaurant parking lot or like you know living in a van or something like that maybe you could make it work if you don't move around a lot but you can't really live very well on that

um my friend look into the grayscale trusts ltcn and BC HG for this crypto run they can potentially outperform the underlying coins by a lot due to premium yeah that makes a lot of sense because a lot of

people they're afraid to buy individual crypto they don't know how to store it properly they're concerned about security and so those ETFs give that kind of um give that exposure and without the with potentially a reduction in Risk

perception and so it could be more popular for institutional investors who wouldn't want to be trying to store Bitcoin but like want exposure to it so that's you know that's a decent idea Michael I once again not Financial

advice but that's definitely intriguing to me where I live minimum wage is a dollar per hour so making 15 to 20 an hour is good no so code it's not 725 an hour plus tip so the minimum wage

for waiters and waitresses is 20 225 an hour plus tip now I think that if you're tips don't hit that 725 an hour threshold the restaurant has to make up the difference but I'm not certain on that and

yeah they can make definitely make good money on tip especially with food inflation I mean if it's people are tipping based on a percentage they should be getting 15 to 20% of um you know of the the total

cost of the bill as long as they're doing a good job I was on your Discord but nobody was chatting so I left yeah Discord is kind of slow I haven't really activated in the same way that I

would like to um it's something that you know I think it could become more relevant as the channel grows I started it when I had like maybe like 200 subscribers and so uh we'll see you know it's it's

interesting and I I'm just not exactly how to sure how to utilize it properly um YouTube is a something I'm a lot more familiar with I've been watching YouTube for 17 years now gez I can't believe that I

started watching it in middle school and um you know it's a tool I'm very familiar with where Discord I'm just not as as familiar with it I was playing poker in a casino for a living for five years

I tipped the waiter $5 a day I was paying 50 a month in tip that's a good point because if he had you and maybe you know 20 other customers or something like regulars paying him a similar amount

yeah he can make a decent living back then I mean now of course cost living is higher so the tips are probably higher but yeah that's a you know that's an understated thing it's something that if I can't

get back into Tech maybe I could go into the service industry and just Dash away all my money and get to the point where I've got that monthly income and uh you know help support really you so there

are remote SDR jobs I need to look more into those like my idea would be making Western SDR wages um I don't really want to work overnight though so that's where compromising and being willing to work for the

lower wages getting that at least getting more experience you know it's not a bad idea I'll I'll think about it I think I I kind of want to get out of sales and apply some of my sales skills

to other roles because with sales it may just be like the roles that I've worked but uh yeah so I was in SDR before so I was actually a senior SDR and before that I did sales operations work

I I wouldn't mind getting back into sales operations work because it's more my speed it's more uh you don't have the pressure of quota um or nearly as much quota pressure you get to do more Tech stuff as

opposed to to like cold calling and cold emailing um you know there's some elements of sales that I don't really agree with me as much like it's you know there's there's a propensity to try to get the meeting

or the sale at any cost and with a tech tech set of skills then uh so yeah ideally I'd like to take my my sales skills and pivot um from there yeah okay that's a good point I'll I'll

learn more about it because I wanted to go into that anyway and I would have if I didn't get laid off I was hoping to move into those roles like you know more along the roles of marketing or

something like that um and yeah being a sales manager I mean that you know that you're not beholding to a quota you are you know hold into team performance but you don't have that that quota like hanging over

your neck like um I don't know I just I struggled with a quote I know that's a common like thought process when it comes to sales but um it's it sales can feel like a what have you done

for me lately type of a job which is fair I know the compensation is high so the expectations are high but um yeah uh title is and I guess I could throw my resume up on there too you

know explain like hey I've got this set of skills I've also um you know have some exposure to YouTube uh and you know could always throw um you know throw the offer out on my channel like hey you

know if you who are interested in these skill sets just you know no pressure but I've I've got them on offer uh because that's not something I thought about before Michael says I know you're not asking systems engineer

okay very cool Michael and then this is kind of the long shot but like it's tough because I I don't really want to go back but part of me thought why not instead of finishing the Bachelor's in computer

science you know get a a masters in it which I looked at some programs and then you know maybe try to find like a a totally remote systems engineer job I've heard of some people in the United States

having a process where the company says okay you got to stay here in person for six months you can go fully remote after you show that you're able to handle the responsibilities of the position and you're able to

um you know you're able to stick with it you're able to meet our expectations and we'll Turn You Loose so that's something I've thought about of course that's an expensive investment that's like a couple of years of time

probably 30 40K for tuition but you know that's that sounds like an awesome job Michael like I regret not studying it I actually originally thought I wanted to be a lawyer and then I spent time around lawyers and

realized I don't want to do this and as a lawyer you're you're kind of bound to your home country to some extent I know there's one lawyer that I can think of that breaks that rule uh I can't

think of his name but all of you have probably seen his videos he's in minda now or his wife's from like Deval uh Dr la la or something like that um he's a lawyer but he pivoted to where

he's got like a firm back in Nashville actually of all places he's got his like business in Nashville but uh he he works for mode so he has somebody I think in Nashville another lawyer that does Court appearances

handles like admin work and that kind of thing but uh you know he prefers to live in the Philippines and so he doesn't make as much money as he'd make if he were based back there but what he

does make of course goes way farther in the Philippines has a way better quality of life um yeah I think I think it's a it's definitely the ideal is to make you know if you're not financially independent like

uh like in your case Michael or uh Tony's really close I think Tony's like a few years out from hitting that point then uh if you're you know you're not at that position then making us wages and then

living in the developing world is is a better call um yeah yeah you know American companies they're really concerned about data security and and privacy and especially with like so I worked in financial technology before I left and

the financial technology companies and the banks are super you know there's a lot of pressure on them from a regulatory perspective to lock up that data to control who can access that data uh I need to keep scrolling

to to give you guys something else to look at but um to uh you know to just have that security because there's you know as soon as they make a mistake you know there's going to be a lawyer

going after them hey you you know exposed my client's data or something like that which is fair uh but that's that's partly why is is in the United States they're extremely averse to litigation 95% of the lawsuits in

the world are filed in north and they would have no problem going after uh you know technology professionals businesses uh for for missteps or mistakes yeah bangus looks looks beautiful and I think you're going to have a wonderful

time Michael and I look forward to hearing about it um yeah hearing about your experience I love how the water is not too deep there like you see they're they're maybe maybe a little bit above their knees and

they're just enjoying that Tropical Paradise uh my dating life in Thailand um you know it's been okay um it hasn't been as much of a priority for me uh I've you know I used Tinder like I I've had

some fun here just like you know casual hanging out and stuff like that uh nothing serious because you know I don't I'm not like wanting to rush into getting married and getting married is one of the only ways

you can really stay long-term in Thailand the other ways would be for somebody under retirement age would be the go uh the Elite visa and I'm not really interested in making that kind of commitment now I'd be more

open to it because I've spent a year in Thailand but with the VISA process in Thailand I don't want to be in a situation where like I tie my relationship into my Visa at this point because I'm still

learning a lot I'm still early on I still have been figuring out is this right for me or is it not right for me right because I wasn't sure like hey if this doesn't work out I go back

home go back to work and all that that but if I like it I've got to like I got to have the research like and the understanding in mind to make this a thing in the long term and

so that's um yeah I mean in Thailand I could be in a relationship I was supposed to have a date last night but I didn't sleep well Sunday night so I just cancelled it it's uh the language barrier

is difficult in Thailand so it's fine for having fun like if I want to meet somebody and have fun that's very easy to have meaningful conversation or meaningful connection is a bit more difficult um it's just a bit

more difficult when you you know you can't have that same depth of conversation there I do have some Thai female friends that you know I'm fairly certain would be open to dating me but um you know I just

I don't know like when I went to the Philippines I dated a bit there and I don't know if it's the culture like they're heavily influenced by American culture Philippines is a former American colony I don't know if

it's the language a lot of Filipinos especially in the big cities uh medium to large cities speak great English um but I felt this special kind of connection to them like in Thailand sometimes it feels very carnal if

I like be a bit um Brash about it it feels a bit like more physical oriented like hey I think you're attractive you think I'm attractive let's have fun whereas in the Philippines when I dated it felt like

there was this genuine connection there and um yeah I just connected really well with them yeah I wouldn't want to make a local wage uh in Thailand I mean you need a work permit by the way they bust

people all the time working without permission here um and if you want to start a company here you've got hire for Tha people um it's you know it's not exactly it's not exactly easy to to do that long

term Thailand Elite be says 25k or so kind of brutal I mean it is you know it's it's expensive if you know if you don't speak Tai for example I don't speak Tai you don't necessarily get access to

some of those other layers of Thai Society uh you you can't really connect as deeply as you can a place where where you you have the same language and the similar culture like I talk to Filipinos about basketball

um I don't really get to talk to TI as much about sports like I like Muay Thai but you know Muay Thai is a niche thing here whereas in the Philippines and you do see a lot of gyms

in Thailand but in the Philippines you see basketball courts everywhere you see people wearing basketball jerseys people follow the NBA like it's it's very much part of the culture and uh and mu High it seems more niche underground

like none of my Thai friends are into Muay Thai where all of my Filipino friends have some interest in basketball hey sounds good take care Michael I'll see you later I hope you have a wonderful day and a

very successful fruitful day as well um if you don't mind country hopping you can live three months in Japan three months in South Korea three months in Thailand with that sweet Western passport yeah you know that's a possibility

but like if I'm if I'm interested in pursuing a relationship which I am interested in if I go to the Philippines it makes that kind of cycle harder and if you're if you have a US passport you don't

really have to do that in the Philippines right and currently it may change in the future but currently you can say up to three years on tourist visas you know fly to Bangkok for a day or a weekend

fly to quore and go right back and start that process over again again where if I was in a relationship with a Filipina I don't think it'd be fair to them to be like hey I'm dipping out to

Japan or here or there and uh you know and then they might not want to travel they might not want to be away from their families um I may not want to cover the cost of all that right

because you know it's expensive to travel as a couple or with a family internationally um do they have a passport okay let's get them a passport okay are they going to get stopped at the airport because there's some

issues uh with um there there's some issues that everybody can can be familiar with uh that everybody's familiar with as far as Filipinas not being allowed to leave and for a good reason I I respect all the rules

and the regulations the requirements have no problem with any of that that's what they've determined makes the most sense and I I support that but you know if you're having a relationship it's it's not as friendly to the

travel lifestyle and I do see a fair amount of traveling couples break up because they just have different interests they're going different directions one partner wants to go back home one partner doesn't and uh you know that can

that can throw a wrench in the plans for your next comment I'm not gonna all I'm going to say about that is that was not my experience um you know I I personally have preferred to date more professional

uh women women who are are um not not professional in the bad way professional as in like they are career oriented um yeah and sorry Bob s I'm gonna respond to your earlier comment because I knew you said

something but it like just slipped my mind did I hear you're down to just a carry-on and have been able to stay that way yeah so I just do a carry-on uh there's a few things like if clothes

wear out like I don't this this shirt is a little bit worn out I just go and buy a little bit more throw the old clothes away uh and and keep on rolling I prefer just a backpack because

it's a lot easier for me to move around with a backpack I find when I bring too much stuff I forget stuff so like I'll forget something in a taxi or I'll forget something on the train or I'll

forget something in the airplane and when I have just one backpack it's like okay everything I own is in this thing as long as everything goes in this thing and I keep this thing with me I'm good to

go when I've got two bags okay now do I have my backpack I have this what's in this what's in that um and it just gets to be stressful but it took me a long time to build up

to that Bob Saget uh um it took me a long time to build up to that when I first started traveling I traveled with a lot of stuff I'd go for a week and bring stuff for like like

I was moving there almost and I just found it to be uh timec consuming it's also expensive paying an additional 25 35 50 bucks maybe 60 or more dollars these days for that extra piece of luggage and I

wouldn't use that stuff right I I just felt like it was Overkill but um they don't blame people when they're still getting in the swing of things to overpack it's a natural thing for a lot of people but

it's something that have phased out uh but yeah back to what you said I was saying yeah I prefer to dat women that have some kind of job or career and they tend to be more concerned about that

I think some guys that may be interested in in totally provintial people that that may be a bigger risk I struggled to relate to those totally provential people I'm not here to to dump on them I'm not here

to talk down about them country people can be wonderful but you know as far as shared experience goes I think it's important if you have a relationship to have some amount of shared experience and I found that when

I was dating more career-minded women then we had more shared experience like both of us having gone to college both of us having worked with a lot of English speakers and so we're able to Converse at a higher

Pace uh we're we're exposed to certain jokes that maybe somebody who hasn't grown up in a larger city is not familiar with I found the best connection to be with women living in cities in the Philippines from like

say one to three million people so like kagay and deoro uh SIU um we just have more in common we you know we've been exposed to International uh culture International Cuisine International entertainment uh you know there's a lot

of movie theaters in SIU and so yeah that's just where I would struggle I I don't down the guys that want to date a woman a More Country woman but I feel like I kind of run out of

some stuff to talk about um faster than if I was dating a woman it's has more in common with me not opposed to it either if I meet a a nice woman that's that's lived totally provincial and we

hit it off and things go well you know uh that sounds great too Georgia I've heard about Georgia Georgia is one-year visa for Western passport holders no fee yeah that's definitely appealing um where I struggle with Georgia is

the cold winters like that's something that you know I'd be a little bit put off by uh but I've heard a lot of popular things about it from digital Nomads it's somewhere I'll go eventually in fact depending on

the circumstances whenever I go back to America I'm not sure when will be but depending on the circumstances then um you know I wouldn't mind stopping through Georgia stopped through there for like a week maybe a few weeks

and check it out I'd be looking at tobli I even looked at buying a condo in Batumi uh before the circumstance that happened recently the conflict um I had looked at condos in B me but everybody was saying

they're overbuilt there's too many of them but that turned out I probably should have scooped one up because they were like you could get condos in Batumi for like 20 30k and yeah you can stay in the Philippines

for uh years without a problem I mean it's it's wonderful for Americans who they want to make it their long term they want to visit for a long time and uh you know that's a bit more challenging in

Thailand because in Thailand I have the education I've got to do extensions every three months I didn't do my 90-day reporting last time so there's an extra 60 bucks um it you know you don't have to make the

Visa runs to immigration if you hire an agency so if you hire like jrc is a really popular one all the dumag Getti vloggers talk about a li Li and I don't want to down through suao and Manolo

fortish to kagay and deoro City then I can just hire jrc and I can just stay up here I guess I mail it to him I'm not exactly sure how that works but they do all the work so

they handle it I think you pay them I just talked to JC today they were like thousand pesos and that's our fee and we'll handle the extension for you but you that could be nice because I'm going to

have to sort out when I land here um you know getting the uh immediately extending the Visa because you get 30 days on arrival but if you want to get your extension you have to send in your passport

you have to do some stuff you can do it at the Manila Airport but I'm not sure that I'll land in Manila I may be landing in like SIU or in daa where I don't have that airport service

and so that's where I'll need to do it a little bit differently that would be amazing if I landed in Manila I think it's on the third floor and you can go down there pay I think it's 2,000

pesos like 35 bucks equivalent something like that about $35 and they extend it so now you've got 60 days and that g will give you a bit of a Runway to sort out your next extensions and um you

know getting your I think they I heard they stopped doing six-month extensions so it may be you may have to do it two months at a time but uh that's what I'm looking at after Vietnam and I'm tempted

to like skip Vietnam so I go back and forth on Vietnam because Vietnam is where I'd like to go after Thailand it's a short flight I've never been there before it's one of two countries left in Southeast Asia

that I um I would consider living in long term or staying for a long time that I haven't been to right so I haven't been to Laos but I don't ever really see myself living there haven't been to

Myanmar not a good decision right now haven't been to brunai but it's a very small country that as far as I know doesn't have very many xats so Indonesia and Vietnam are the two that I have left and

uh Vietnam a lot of my friends have recommended it to me a lot of my traveling friends are like you got to go to Vietnam do the ride I'm not doing the ride that's a bit of a big

commitment for me the idea of Landing in away or living in landing in hoian city and taking a motorbike all the way up but uh yeah Vietnam is supposed to be awesome it's in the sinosphere so it's got

a lot more interest um it's got a lot more influence from China and so it's quite different from Thailand it's much more influenced by India Thailand is much more influenced by India uh yeah if you yeah starting a

family in the Philippines maybe even get a second citizenship pH xat prepper uh he's got an interesting Channel and I see him in the chat and some of the channels I follow he's actually getting close to his citizenship

so he's it's been in the twoyear he's like he's he's been going through part of the process for like two years it's just working its way through the courts but he's actually planning on getting Philippines citizenship in the

near future I think he's fluent and to and he's an American and he's just a really interesting guy and uh I think that sounds ideal having a second passport having a second citizenship having that sense of peace and

security that hey Philippines they may get tons they may get so many visitors in the future their goal right now for this year is 10 million they want 10 million tourists this year they may reach a point where

they feel like hey this tourist visa you know it it was something that we needed in the past but now that we've drummed up all this interest maybe it's something that we don't feel as confident in you know

moving forward um yeah carrying a bad huge hiker backpack I think it also makes you stick out you know there's some bad guys throughout the world and when they see somebody with a big hulking backpack on they immediately

know this is a tourist and they might try to Target you they might try to pickpocket you it's also kind of hard to like um navigate with do you feel safe in the Philippines like around SIU yeah I've

never been to Manila so I have not heard the most flattering things about Manila uh code I've flown through there and my experience in the airport um I just just to be honest I walked through the terminal and

there's this food court area and there's this guy mopping and I have to walk through there because where else am I going to get through the terminal and like he gives me a dirt dirty look and a to

to toot or something like D I've got to get through here I don't care that you're cleaning no offense but like you this is one of the busiest airports in the world in a city of 25 million people

one of the most I think the most population Dent city in the world and I got the in I got the sense that Manila is just very very busy and I don't know that it's for me so I

didn't go to Manila at all um you know I have interest in some of the surrounding areas but Manila proper I think that it would be a bit too overwhelming for me uh just based based on the the

population density based on how many people live in Manila it's um I think it would be too much for me do you feel I yeah I feel safe in the Philippines um I'm not super this sounds terrible but

I'm not super worried about my safety to some extent I have a what could be described as a fatalistic attitude about travel this attitude is part of why people in the Philippines are cheerful is if something bad happens

it's like us it's you it's up to it's up to the you know my faith it's up to the Creator and if something bad happens so be it that's kind of how I feel about it like I'm doing

what I love and if it you know if it's the end of me one day so be it like I I know that that may sound crazy or or unfortunate um you know to some people but I I'm

so grateful for the times the time that I've had and the experiences that I've had and if it has to come to an end you know I compare that to how you know family members of mine they came

to an end in the states and they went out very unhappy and uh you know they were just so unhappy with their lives and it's like H like I don't you know I don't want to go out like

sitting in an office chair uh 30 years from now with a big bank account oh look at me I'm the big shot you know sales guy or I'm the big shot you know professional and this and that like

I mean you know when my dad was a kid in India I was researching because I didn't really know him but uh the average life expectancy for a man young man in India at that time was like 30

years old and the average over the course of human history is something like 10 years old so I'm not uh I'm not super worried about my safety I will say I didn't feel super unsafe there I was cautious

right I didn't go to some of the more rough areas I did go one area that was you could perhaps call edgy but I went there with a buddy and he's like look you're fine here with me you

might not want to come down here late at night which is something I don't really do anyway um I'm I'm more of an indoor cat in some ways like I like to live outside but I like to live

outside during the day when I can see well when I can get a sense of the area before I get into it and I'm cautious I try to research and plus a lot of the rough areas from my

experience around the world they don't have a lot of businesses and so if a Nara doesn't really have a lot of businesses then it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to frequent it so I do my

best if something happens something happens but I'm not a drinker and I think that helps a lot like I just you know I'm not in scenarios where I'm around a lot of dangerous people I'm inside after dark um

almost every night in a lot of places um Thailand is an exception but most places I go you know I'm so active during the day lifting weights exercising walking a lot uh yeah and you said I might not

like Vietnam yeah if it's not walkable you know that that's a downer because I like to walk around a lot I like to uh you know get that exercise I like to stretch my legs and and see life

from that angle like oh wow I can stop and look at this beautiful tree or I can stop and examine this building and I've heard that heard that in Vietnam they ride on the sidewalks and so if you

are somebody that you want to walk on the sidewalk you have to be aware that there could be people coming down the sidewalk and uh they have the right away because they got the you know they got the

bigger vehicle than than your legs and I that's the thing so that's one of those things I'm I a bit of a foodie and I love Vietnamese food I used to eat Vietnamese food all the time in America

and I'd like to try it and person like I love banme I love F and having it in person like in the real thing would be amazing um being able to try to be enemy's coffee being I'm not

really a coffee drinker anymore but I'd make an exception in Vietnam at least for a little bit uh so those the the cuisine is a real big appeal to me for Vietnam is being able to try some of

those dishes I've eaten a lot in America but uh yeah and you know I think too um I think too being in a country that is more influenced by China would be interesting just from like a cultural perspective

uh quite different from these countries that are in uh influenced by India and I've heard the English is is more limited there um I you know like I said I've never been there but uh Philippines is least visited

Southeast Asian country by tourist volume yeah I mean I'm you know I'm okay with that I think that part of what makes it there's a few reasons that affects Philippines tourism one top reason I think is cost it's

it's the one of the most expensive countries in Southeast Asia to visit it's not part of the Mainland um you're flying out to the middle of the ocean you have uh the mainland infrastructure right so if you're trying

to get Goods there everything has to be flown in or voted in um you have what's the word you have high population density you have high birth rate right so some of these countries in Southeast Asia have declining

populations which takes pressure off the real estate it's kind of hard to charge a lot for Real Estate when you've got fewer people each year that um you know are putting pressure on it where Philippines tons of people

are having kids you know there's I remember when I was there four or five years ago there's kids everywhere the the cities are designed around it they've got play places they've got family meals they've got all these things

that are very uncommon in the US like it's rare I see a family meal in the United States when it's you know McDonald's a lot of the McDonald's I've driven by in the US have closed down their playground

areas because people just don't use them they're just not the the young people there are to uh you know to utilize those spaces Bob Saget asked you rent motorbikes or rely fully on public transportation bolt taxi so I'm

all in on public transit uh I don't rent motorbikes that may change depending on where I go in the Philippines Thailand is not the place to learn uh in my personal opinion I tried when I came six years

ago but it was just so overwhelming like I started driving on the wrong side of the road I I can't really operate it because I was trying to learn in changai and changai is the second largest city in

Thailand so it's very dense and it's just not a good place to learn whereas in the Philippines I think if you found certain areas that are much less population dense and you're you have a friend with you that

speaks English that can teach you like I'm not saying it's safe because every it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when you wreck but you have more things working in your favor there but I'm still

hesitant to do do it I may do it if I go on an island tour if I get my buddy to give me lessons for like several weeks straight or something like that but it's something I'd want to

ease into but no for the most part I I rely on public transportation walking uh you know taxi private taxi or bolt grab um I just trust the local drivers a lot more um especially in the cities especially

in the cities like in the cities I won't drive at all because it's not patterns that I'm familiar with or are really uh feel comfortable or confident in in operating safely in that kind of environment code it seems

like the xats are old looking to live there yeah I mean I visited there because I I was curious in the you know hiring the virtual assistant and then I saw pictures of it and I was like this

is like the most beautiful country I've ever seen and I still stand by that as far as natural beauty um and what I personally experienced and it may have been an age thing too when I went to the

Philippines I was like 27 and so I was at an age and even now but but especially back then where I could fully feel like I could fully enjoy it um I was shocked like I'll I'll pull up

cigan again but yeah I came to cigan and I and when I visited there I'm like I can't believe this place is real like I I can't believe this is we're on Earth right now it's just so perfect

and there's nobody here and you feel like I don't like you won the lottery you're like that's how I felt when I came to cigan I'm like there's 75,000 people on this big island and it's it's just stunning

like it's just it's just so beautiful and peaceful and to me it reminded me the Far Cry video game series um the people are super friendly too very cheap like back then now it's a little bit harder back

then I was paying like 10 bucks a night for hotels on this island I couldn't believe that I'm like $10 a night like um and they're they're Filipino style Resorts so they're called Resorts they're not exactly what a

West certain person might conceptualize of a resort but yeah it's um it's just so stunning and you ride over here on a cadar and there's you know there's like 10 maybe 15 people but you find your own stretch

of sand you go out in the water and I watched a video where somebody saw a banded crate one of the most dangerous one of the most venomous sea snakes in the world but they won't bite you unless

you really really mess with them I mean it's it's very rare for somebody to get bitten by them but he this guy this Australian guy saw one in these Waters at this island I saw seahorses I also saw

clownish in these Waters I wish I had the proper camera equipment back then which if I go back here I'll bring that stuff with me but it's um it's just totally stunning so oh back to reasons why the

Philippines doesn't get as much visitors so expense right it's more expensive than Thailand more expensive than Vietnam um more expensive than Malaysia like Malaysia can offset some of their costs because they're in the oil and gas business which

brings down Transportation costs um and you know that so that's part of it it's you know you're not connected to the Mainland so if you come to the Philippines you're not going to just get on a bus and

go from Bangkok to pom pen or pom pen to Saigon you're also I would say also like Filipinos like the country hasn't focused as much on tourism as like Thailand where Thailand after the Vietnam War went full on

in tourism like you look at the development in Patia over the last 30 40 years it's incredible like they've transformed into this in many ways a world class destination I feel like in the Philippines they're starting to understand

how much demand there is for a place like that like my buddy said Oh yeah it's beautiful he didn't tell me this is the most beautiful place that you will see in your life like he was humble about

it he's from like he's from not very far from here his mom is from dumag Getti like I'm like you're living in this beautiful place and yet you have so much humility about it not to say other countries

aren't humble as well but the hum humility in the Philippines is especially pronounced the people um they have so much to be proud of but yet they have the sense of humility and I think that's part of it

but now the internet's gotten a hold of the Philippines and people are seeing like world class what I call worldclass beaches and beautiful water that's like perfect temperature it's not cold like California you don't get even in La

I've tried to swim on the beach in La was cold not here and the water is pristine it's clear it's not over touristed uh at least you know where I was at was not over touristed I saw Coral

I uh I felt comfortable navigating in the water uh being able to get a little bit further away from the the beach uh and yet still be within eyesight of it I didn't experience any crazy currents I want

to do more research just to be careful about that but I didn't you know here I didn't I didn't feel in danger God it's so beautiful yeah the Philippines nature is gorgeous and I think that contributes to the

happiness like how can you be unhappy looking at these palm trees looking at the beautiful water looking at the beautifuls there's um something I didn't do that I'd like to do next time is Mount the heok kok volcano

hike you have to be careful from what I've heard about the Philippines Cobra um extremely dangerous snake but I mean look at that it's like volcanic jungle and you see the clouds like hanging around the top the colors

like it's just such a vibrant country like a lot of countries in Southeast Asia have beautiful colors Thailand is gorgeous like it's just this amazing display but um this is also quite beautiful and I also say ease of

navigation like in the Philippines in Thailand there's trains there's buses you can Get Taxi anywhere in the country from anywhere in the country except for the islands the infrastructure is there whereas in the Philippines you can't drive from

like Manila to Deval for example you're G to have to fly um you can't get from Mainland mind now to like I'll show you I had to so to come to cigan I had to take a bus from

here kagay and deoro come all the way up here uh through all these towns was like 3our uh shuttle ride to bingan and then I had to take a fair from Bingo on all the way around here so

it was like just to go from here to here was like a 7h hour journey and if you're coming for a week or something like that I mean seven hours that's like half a day you can fly there

and I recommend that for people to come for a shorter time but it's a it require Philippines requires a bigger time investment but I think it's well worth it I mean it's just it's so gorgeous yeah Philippines it's

it's not you know I think it sometimes gets this reputation for being cheap your rent can be affordable but everything else can be quite expensive and Manila can be uh just you know very expensive and um so that's

part of what people are concerned about is like hey if I'm coming and I'm super budget conscious you know the Philippines can be budget friendly but if I want them the you know the most budget friendly options I

wouldn't call it the most budget friendly place um but I love it I mean I love it and I learned so much from the people there um just about the way they operate and like I said the what

they prioritize what they think about what drives them it's um it's such a beautiful place and there's a lot to discover like it's it's deceptive in that people think like oh it's Islands so it's small but there's 7,000

islands and they're different from each other so like mindo is different from the bayas Bayan region different from lzone up here in the north the weather's different the activities are different you have a lot of variety in the

Philipp like if you want to have a patio like experience you've got parts of Angeles City here um if you want the big city you've got Manila if you want this Tropical Paradise Bol is awesome kigan is awesome

uh if you want a um you know if you want a modern city I've heard Elo Elo is like really they've done a lot with urban planning there and you see here like I mean that's a nice looking

Bridge there that looks like a really nice bridge and I've heard it's quite orderly in Elo Elo these are this a beautiful foot path I'd love to to go walking on that sometime and some of what makes it

expensive is uh is the remittances so like 10% of the Philippines economy is like people send in currency from outside the country and so when you're looking to exchange your currency in country you don't have the same level

of demand for it as you do in a country that doesn't send quite so many people abroad like your exchange is going alongside uh you know niece Josephine who's working in Dubai or nephew Jeffrey who's working in United

States and sending money back whereas in countries like Vietnam you don't have quite so many overseas workers and so that money I think this is part of what contributes to the higher cost there is you've got a lot

of money coming from outside of the country into the country and that's part of what drives up costs is the costs are not directly tied to not many of the costs are not directly tied to local wages another

C another expense is just Transportation like if you want to have uh I remember when I was there five years ago I was in SIU and I wanted I was just curious what does the state cost at this

restaurant I think I was at where was I I may have been there's an IT mall I think it was Robinson cybergate so I was at this mall and there was a stake restaurant in here and it was

like a steak was like $25 equivalent I'm like that's more expensive than what I pay back home and then you find out well they've got to fly this stake from Australia so not only do you have all the

normal costs of making a stake in Australia but now it's also got to be flown over here and so there's things that because so much has to be brought in from elsewhere it also drives up the cost there

because the price of oil factors into all of those things it looks like they've done some updating it was a nice looking Mall back then but it uh looks like they've they've added some more decorations maybe it's just

a Christmas time thing what camera do you have now that have so I'm shooting with a DJI osmo action uh DJI osmo action 4 I'm shooting with the DJI osmo action 4 uh I'd like to it depends on

what my budget money is looking like before I leave Thailand I'd like to get an osmo pocket three I used to have a pocket two but I fried it with water I got wet in my backpack I had

an iced coffee in my backpack just the ice from it melted and it ruined the osmo pocket 3 but it'd be nice to to be able to get that um and then maybe like a plastic case or something

like that to help uh help you B to shoot underwater with it um but yeah I think they are Filipino people are very friendly and the Cambodian people are very friendly too I want to give cambodians uh some

credit here Cambodian people were super friendly to me like I had one woman that was like Hey I'm happy to be your guide show you around penom pen I had another woman that um you know uh came over

and we hung out and had some fun and she was like look I just want you to have fun here I had another woman who uh was telling about her hotel like I went and had chicken soup at

her restaurant her restaurant's like right next to the P penom pen airport and uh she was super friendly we've stayed in touch ever since she's dropped at gorgeous like I have no idea how she's single I mean she

is like there's a lot of beautiful women over here she's gorgeous like but the Philipino people are super friendly um got to fly all the foreign food in the Philippines I like Filipino food so I'm one of those

strange foreigners that uh I really enjoy the food in the Philippines it's you know it's different um I'll say it's it's not it's not what a lot of Western people are used to but um I loved it I

of course I like seafood I'm used to Asian Foods I like rice I like eggs um I like chicken adobo I like like there was a bunch of places I went it was like 200 pesos for all you

can eat chicken wings and there's a place like that in malibal too but you could I mean in California it's $3 for one chicken wing if you buy 12 so I like I looked at what do a dozen

wings in fries cost in s in Bay Area and it's like they want $35 for a dozen wings and fries like that's no chickens aren't that special chicken meat isn't that luxurious um but yeah so let's see you

know is it more developing yeah I think it is Philippines is more developing um especially outside of like Manila bonao Global city than a country like Thailand um but the people's friendliness combined with the English like people in

Thailand are friendly but sometimes you can't really speak to them like I've had a bunch of experiences in Thailand where people are super nice and helpful but we could really communicate um even have plenty of dating experiences in

Thailand where doesn't speak English I don't speak Tha we still had fun but combining that friendliness with the English uh makes for a lot of magical experiences and I I did have a lot of magical experiences in uh

you know in the Philippines I went to Philippines in April 2022 just after covid lift but it was dead but now I look they walk around the Philippines mall and it looks really live and nice yeah you know

I think Co really hit the Philippines hard a lot of people left because they weren't sure what the you know when the restrictions would lift and um yeah and there's also some cool stuff on mton like where did

I go I had the I went to this awesome Tuna Restaurant let see tuna Republic okay yeah let's back here yeah I went to this spot and uh really really nice spot this is oh this is my oh

no that's not my picture okay I had this same dish and they've got the tuna look at how beautiful that tuna looks with the cucumber and the S sauce and the C absolutely delicious like you know Filipino food

people hate on it but like I found great stuff to eat over there um yeah DJI pocket is great uh I I like it they are a little bit sensitive to water but uh you know definitely gets a

great picture take some lift off of your cell phone from having to do a lot of Photography or um oh wow I didn't see this very cool uh and then let's see atarus says Hey I just discovered your

channel love your content how long have you been in Thailand for that's a great question atarus so I actually got here end of June last year so I'm coming up on 11 months in about a week it'll be

it will have been 11 months In tha and it's been wonderful I love Thailand can't say enough good things about my experience here I am moving on soon um but not not du to any negative reason I hope

to come back to Thailand many more times in the future but I'm looking to mix it up and do a little something a little bit different and so I'm looking at going to Vietnam uh next yeah $3 for

a chicken wing it is ridic it's hilarious I mean it's just so painfully expensive um maybe it's $ two dollar in the Southeast so $ two doll instead chicken ain't that special like I love chicken it's delicious it's

not worth paying steak prices for because I know it doesn't cost as much to raise a chicken as it does to raise a cow and it's not it's not like the best chicken you've ever had like it's not

like they're they're getting Heritage breed chickens and uh you know serving it to you on a silver platter in America the chicken in the Philippines I think is better they're smaller uh but I think that's because they're using

less hormones they're using less GMOs they're uh you know somebody pointed out that when they look at the chickens in America they've been artificially blown up uh and that's why they are so XL like that's why they're so

big and the Philippines chickens are more modest but they're more natural and the flavor is better um so yeah I prefer to have the chicken and the and I can reflect those wings in the Philippines were pretty freaking

awesome so and if it's all you can eat you could sit there and eat like two dozen people are nice but yeah that's that's what I'm trying to figure out next is I'm probably gonna land um great to

atarus says great to hear do you have any female expat friends my girl and I are headed to Bangkok to teach English do you know of much of the female expat perspective living in Bangkok I'm a female as

well I'll be honest with you atarus I'm not as familiar with the female perspective um you know in changmai there there's quite a few um I'm more familiar with with their experience in changai when I first came to

changai six years ago there was a group of girls that my buddy was friends with um and they loved it up there like they they loved it up there um they you know they had a great time they

were teaching at different schools and I feel like they had a good experience uh Bangkok you're you're probably what's the word I'm looking for it's not going to be as quite interconnected like chenai in some ways feels like

a small town if you're coming from a really big city because it's like maybe two million people in the Metro so I think the teachers stick together more uh just because it's easier to get around town and the

schools are not as far apart Bangkok you know it being such a large city then you may feel like hey I want to get together with people but it's a 30 45 minute train ride it's maybe it's an

hour bus ride or something like that to the other part of the city um so I I think she's uh she's in a relationship code so I think I think atarus has a girlfriend already and uh won't be

looking to uh date and speaking of that I I don't mean to assume atarus you may uh be uh you know you may be within the LGBT group I think that's very welcomed here in Thailand I don't I'm

not um you know uh I don't have that preference but at the same time I don't see any issue with it I don't think anybody here is going to judge or mistreat you for that I think you'll blend

in there's so many Western people here and Tai culture is very open-minded non-judgmental very Buddhist uh such that I think you and your girlfriend will have a wonderful time here I would say checking out meetup.com could be helpful

like if you and your girlfriend have a certain uh what's the word like a certain activity that you're interested in and maybe you're into coding or uh you are interested in painting or you have some kind of hobby

then you'll want to be more what's the word I'm looking for you'll be you'll want to be more you may need to do a little bit more leg work like in Changi it seems like in some cases the

social SC oh okay okay H you're you're not LGBT okay um oh you're so it may be your your your female friend is is uh uh yes that is what I've heard we are Lebanese no not LGBT but

um C just touched the topic I wanted to speak about yeah you know uh personally I you know I I've heard uh yeah I I've heard that the dating pool is smaller I you know my buddy that talked

me into coming to Thailand six years ago uh he preferred to date other Western people so he was dating uh Western expats in changmai uh he felt like the language error was not going to be an issue a

lot of these women were also from the Seattle area uh so he wanted to meet a woman in changai that he might be able to date back in Seattle like so hey we're here for a year teaching English

when we go back to Seattle I'd like to continue that relationship uh whereas some other guys are thinking more like hey I want to date Thai women because I'm going to stay in Thailand forever I don't want to

go back to America so um yeah you know I think you know there is a smaller dating pull there I think that uh yeah that's quite busy you know five six days a week that that's quite a busy

schedule um and you know you may uh you may just keep an eye out you know it it doesn't hurt to introduce yourself other people although I you know postco it feels a little bit strange to do that

because we all got in the habit of keeping to ourselves a bit for following those covid uh protections yeah Thailand is is fantastic um but and I've heard that too to to to add to what Cod is saying

atarus I've heard similar things or read similar things online uh more specifically on Reddit I think like you know going on Reddit and reading some of the threads um from female expat and I also consider I'm sure on

Facebook now I don't know because I I'm not female but uh you know going on Facebook and and searching female expats Thailand you should be able to find some groups on there uh from of other female expats living

in Thailand that can share more about their experience and help to to inform you of the Dynamics and like what it's like to date as a female expat in Thailand I think you know there's I think there's there's

potential out there I think also like what's the word how do I put into words like some I think some guys may assume that that uh you know if some guy there are some guys that come to Thailand

to date and that's not that's not top of mind for me but there are some guys that might assume oh hey she's Lebanese maybe you know she's from a western country you know uh she you know I I

struggled with dating back home maybe I would struggle dating her as well so you might have guys that are interested in you uh but they feel like well you know a nice gal like her you know wouldn't you

know wouldn't give me your number back in the west so why would she give me her number uh you know here in in Thailand so you also have some people that have Western guys that may have been burned

by negative experiences that may be single and may be attracted to you but maybe a little bit uh you know what's the word once bitten twice shy about approaching you and having interest and there are guys that that

are open to that are interested in that because uh yeah wow exact words yeah that that may you know may be interested they may have had a negative experience with a local lady I mean I know that uh

after I had the end of a relationship last year um you know with the tioman like I was like uh I don't want to date another Tai woman because it just it was very passionate but it did not

it ended in like um heartbreak and so after that I was like H I just I can't do this again like there was so much attraction and I I broke it off with her just for sake of discussion

but like it was just like I don't want to feel that way again like I was so attracted to her and it didn't work out such that like I don't want to repeat that experience and so yeah there's

um there's that too so they decide to date locals yeah and and also for what it's worth I uh I have a friend of mine named Matt Matt's from Bangkok he's Tai and he's dating a western woman I

they've been in a relationship for like gosh like four or five years a long time like they they lived together they seem very happy together uh she's from the United States but she's like I'd rather live in Thailand

and I love Matt and they're very happy together uh there's also Lily uh I don't really closely follow her Channel just cuz there's so many channels and I've also got to work on my own channel but Lily is

married to a Tha man I think they have a child or maybe multiple children so her Channel might be worth looking at I think it's like Lily's life in Thailand or something like that her channel is much bigger

than mine she's probably got over 100k Subs um but she certainly gets a lot of okay so you're familiar yeah so she's the one of the people that comes to mind when I think about a woman from outside

of Thailand a time man um and I did interview my buddy Matt actually but the audio was just not so great I didn't have the mics that I have now I'd like to go back up to changmai at

some point and interview Matt again I'm not sure if I'm gonna swing it before I leave but that would be really interesting because I think there are a fair amount of women from outside of Thailand that are like

hey I uh yeah so I do that's a great comment I do want to comment on that with Matt uh he grew up on Western entertainment and uh in his own words by the way he he's told me

many times I don't come from a rich family so I think a lot of people assume hey if a guy speaks great English he's probably coming from an affl background uh in Matt's own words um he didn't and

so with his girlfriend she's not like oh I'm I'm dating this like High Society guy he's just like a normal guy he teaches English um and he uh what's the word like so yeah so he just learned English

through watching English entertainment and then taught himself and then dated a taii woman or dated an American woman and so there are Thai guys like the level of English is increasing and improving in Thailand and there are going

to be some guys that they're curious about dating a western woman they've uh learned English they I would say your luck increases in cities like Bangkok or changmai where there's a lot of uh a lot more Western tourism

there's a lot more people coming through from um you know from other countries yeah and you know what I'll take a look I'll take a look at my Clips because I may just upload it anyway and just say

like hey you know what audio is not perfect um you know let me know what you think if this audio is crap and you don't want to listen to it I'll pull the video down because I still have

those clips on my hard drive but yeah there's you know there's you I think you'll definitely find their be more um you know more what's the word more more guys in a Bangkok R Chang my and you might

try some of the dating apps as well I know people have mixed feelings about the DAT the dating apps but you might throw in your profile hey I'm interested to meet a Tai a Thai Guy uh we can

you know we can speak in English you may you know uh with Matt like he communicates very very well um he you know I can joke around with him and I enjoy talking with him he's such a calm

person he has just such a relaxed and peaceful demeanor um I feel like a there's there's a lot of depth to that friendship for me anyway I trust Matt really well like we've never argued we never thought about

anything um we don't ever have a difference of opinion like he understands I I love Thailand I think it's one of the best countries in the world I I don't think it as a contest but it's among my

[Music] favorites yeah and I could see why people would leave I mean even I feel lonely at times in Southeast Asia because I'm so far away from the United States where in my home City back home I just

call up a friend and drive over to their house here I don't really have that as much especially in Bangkok um my friends live in different parts of the City one of my friends lives far north of the

city another friend of mine lives probably like 45 minutes away by public transit and she works all the time so you know the bigger the city the the more demands are put on people's schedules making it harder to

socialize from my experience yes so atarus so uh let's just um back up here a little bit so I started off first Southeast Asian country was Thailand I went to Thailand in 2018 for one month I went up

here to changmai still have my home address in shangai um and I stayed for months love with it came back the next year in 2019 started in penom pen so I've been to Cambodia uh after Cambodia I went

to Japan uh up here and then I after no no I went to uh the Philippines so I went to the Philippines after Cambodia and then after the Philippines I went to Japan After Japan I came back to

Thailand after Thailand I went to Malaysia after Malaysia I went to Singapore and then after Singapore I came back to Thailand so the countries I haven't been to yet in Southeast Asia Myanmar Laos um Vietnam and Indonesia uh

and brunai but but brunai is pretty small on there um so most of them um Indonesia I haven't been to for mostly because by the time I wanted to get to it last time they closed the borders this

was around covid and uh and then Vietnam the VIS is a little bit trickier so with Thailand Americans can just show up we get 30 days Vietnam you have to apply apply in advance and it's really tricky if

you don't get approved because a lot of people they book their flight and so then they're they're having to pay for a rush Visa um but Thailand to me is is what I would call one of the easiest

if not the easiest country in the region to visit because English aside there's tons of Tourism infrastructure there's uh you know it's well-worn so anywhere you go in the country anywhere that you're going to want to go in

the country there's going to be you know Transportation going to be easy food's going to be easy accommodation going to be easy it's just so easy um Cambodia took a little bit more effort a little bit more leg

work uh you know Malaysia was awesome Malaysia's like the underrated gem in the region in my opinion because it it's not really a party destination and there's a lot of English there already so teaching English there is not

going to be uh valued in the same way that it'll be valued in Thailand or Vietnam but Malaysia's really developed really uh really nice I don't know any English teachers currently in Thailand and Vietnam um a lot of

my friends that were doing that have started online businesses or gone back to United States just to pursue careers or other opportunities back home or they're in e-commerce or they're uh you know doing some other kind of work

uh it seems to be something like you know I've heard Vietnam has the best wage to cost of living ratio I can't speak to that from personal experience but I've heard they have um higher wages and then lower

cost of living Thailand may not be as lucrative in that way because everybody uh wants to live in Thailand right everybody's familiar with Thailand and so Thailand tends to get a lot of people who come for a lifestyle

as opposed to maximize um earnings to expense ratio Vietnam uh not quite as touristed yet it's it's definitely growing in that regard but um yeah I I I'm not you know I'm not familiar with any I know some

people will do it a little bit online but it's not the same as having like an inperson role and more consistent hours I know there's platforms out there that are popular um but yeah feel free to share code

just like about you know kind of what you're doing in the region will you be doing much more of these lives um yeah it's kind of unpredictable today is a rainy day in Bangkok and uh I decided not

to go out I'll probably order some takeout after this stream um and I don't I don't put them like I don't schedule them in advance because YouTube's interface is a little bit tricky with scheduling them but yeah I'm

happy to do more of these if there's interest um it seems like I catch different people depending on the time I do them it seems like this time of day is the most optimal for my audience because it

captures a lot of uh my subscribers that are here in Asia where they're done working for the day at this hour but it also gives an opportunity for my friends back in the US who want to come over

here um to to be able to hop on because it's their morning um yeah yeah code uh feel free to to share like uh happy to have your perspective you have you know uh more time than I have

in Southeast Asia I'm I'm grateful that you've joined us for a long time tonight and you're willing to share your Insight and your thoughts on life over here it's it's certainly appreciated Now give me a a second too

like if you engage that question to um to to kind of do some more digging I want to check out down here at near Deva I want to check out some all somal is like a 30 minute ferry

ride really close I'm sure there's somebody that swam from from the coast of devau to somal but I've heard it's really beautiful so beautiful oh oh uh input yeah so uh with code um you know he does marketing

and uh social media management and that kind of thing to help uh fund his experience for me personally I got laid off last summer I got a substantial severance package and um I'm just now getting to the end

of those funds after and I really haven't gotten through absolutely all of them I'm getting toward the end of those funds almost one year later um I would say I budgeted around like I'm living on around 1200 per

month now some people will say oh that's super low I couldn't live on that other people will say oh that's frivolous I could live on half that um that's about what I found to be convenient including Visa fees

including flights periodically I'm flying like usually every other month in in the country it's going to cost a bit more to fly out of the country um that also includes uh you know I I'm a meat eater meat

certainly more expensive than vegetables um that also includes doing some attractions and things like that but I also uh I'm a cheap day you like I I have pretty basic interests and I'm here to like participate more than

I am to uh consume necessarily like there's so much to see and do that is are things that I would enjoy more than than doing something that's expensive in my home country like I like going to Buddhist temples

no cost but it's they're stunning there's cultural element there I go there with my Thai friends and I kind of observe how they practice and there's so much to learn from living you know halfway between a local and

a Westerner not having to pay a car payment like a lot of my Tha friends have cars I'm not having to pay for that so but on the other hand a lot of them are not paying what I'm

paying in housing so um yeah that's that's kind of how I approach it uh I have another girlfriend living in bangcock for about a year now and she tells her me her dating life is nonexistent um I was

curious to know if that was just her situation no I mean I think that's that's you know normal I think a lot of uh women from you know the Western democracies will struggle to date uh in in Bangkok

because you know there's the language barrier there's the cultural kind of difference I think also uh the it's it's tough I you know I think it's tough I I like to think I can speak to it but personally

like I don't I don't want to speak about something that if I'm being honest I I can't relate to as much um I haven't struggled to to date here what limits me on dating here is more a matter

of time but I don't think that's going to be your uh your experience here I think you know depends if you have roommates I think 35,000 bot is livable you're gonna probably be in a smaller place um you

may um I'd bring savings on top of that you know if you're working too that's going to take up a lot of the time that you would be take uh that would take if you're working that's going to

take up a lot of the time that you would normally have to be spending money I go a bit above that in Bangkok I feel like because of a few things one when I come to Bangkok there's a

lot of nice restaurants and I like going to International restaurants when I'm here in Bangkok and so uh that uh that will add a bit two I come here for Visa extensions so I'm usually paying like several thousand

bot to extend my Visa um three there's activities like my I usually go out with two Tha women whenever I go out here and uh they want to go do fun or nice stuff like we went up to

this coffee shop that was like a it's like 40 stories up 40 or 45 stories up off suum vet I can't remember the name of it I need to find out but that coffee was like 250 bot so

like $7 for that coffee course you're not paying for the coffee up there you're paying for the view um so that's where Bangkok can add up is it's not so much your Baseline cost C are always expensive is

that there's so many opportunities to spend money I mean just walking down the street you're going to run into vendors you're going to pass by 71s uh you're going to see maybe an art gallery you're going to see

um there's so much so many opportunities to spend money if you like Western food that adds up a lot that's probably what is the bulk of my spending or budget is periodically I like to have Western food I

like to go to Western style restaurants and those can be expensive here also aircon I like to run the aircon a lot and running the airon a lot can add up I've had impatia they I had I was

paying a jacked up electricity price but I paid 4,000 bot one month for my electric now that is very high I paid as little as like 500 bot in the cold season in shangai uh code says your story

a female friend in Bangkok is a good representative of female expats but I'm sure you'll find someone nice atarus even though it might be tougher yeah and you know to like if you're Lebanese atarus like I don't know

how else to say this you may not have the same perception you may not get the same perception as like an Irish woman would have or an English woman would have right if you if you have maybe an

international Vibe like uh you you give off that more well-traveled vibe that like more maybe open-minded or think about things a little bit differently you may have more luck in that regard I think some guys have struggled with

dating um you know women in the west and they have a they just have a negative perception like I know I dated exclusively Western woman until uh well part of it the replay right code like I get taken

out of context all the time um when I was on Tyrus times I said you know dating in the west sucks and people are in the comment immediately this guy is an Inkwell this guy uh you know he's

uh terrible he's uh you know whatso like and it's one of those insults where on one hand it's meaningless because it gets thrown around so much on the other hand you also like feel like I don't know like

it's this indivisible thing and too to me like I don't have to oh yeah so I was on tysh times I think it got published a month ago maybe and uh and I feel like I can express problems

yeah yeah that you know I think the the profile was literally called Karen the profile name was literally Karen code I you can't make this up I got called that by a uh by a literal Karen um and

so and to me too like I don't need to attack to make a point right like I look at it like can I tell the truth without belittling someone um because to me it's like some guys will say

oh it's all women in the United States no no no I look at it like a lot of the dating issues in the United States are like broad um when I think about issues in the United States I

think men and women struggle with the extraordinary cost of living right men and women struggle with having to prioritize work over a relationship men and women are often working full-time maybe working multiple jobs if they're in a in

a uh in a salaried position they're getting bled out for every single hour and so when I say dating sucks in the west I don't mean that Western women suck I dated tons of Western women I had many

girlfriends over the years sometimes I dated multiple women at the same time um you know like it I never had an issue with it the issues that I had became more as a result of the stress more of

a result of and and some some women I did date in the west had a bad attitude um you know I I felt like my my dating issues in the west were not related to not being able to

get any it was not being able to get a relationship I had so many casual experiences in the west like one after another after another after another And yet when I would talk to these casual experiences uh these

women that I had casual experiences with and talk about a relationship oh no like I'm just having fun dude like you know uh I'm they're like I'm just you know I'm just here to have fun with you I

don't really want anything serious I don't want a commitment I did a woman for several years did not meet her parents in a like multi-year relationship some of that is on me I should have moved on but like

I had a lot of experiences where it was like I was like looking for a LTR and they just wanted to have fun and and so that's the opposite um or that's that's not what a lot of guys

that are in that negative category say they say I can't get a woman to talk to me at all that wasn't my issue at all um and and I felt like as I get older I am looking for

for something more serious because it's a time thing for me I dated so many women had so many like short-term relationships um that I was like I'm spending so much time on this like I'm spending tons of time

on this like not even necessarily money just like okay who am I going to date this weekend who am I going to invite over this weekend oh okay her okay she doesn't like have a car she's really attractive

but uh you know she lives in the city so now I'm driving and like and but but then you know she's like after you know after we have fun a few times ah you know I don't really want

to you know do this or uh you know so that was my issue and so that that's why I talk about like when when I complain about dating in the west or talk bad about dating in the west

people immediately think oh that's because you can't get any dude and it's like no like that's the opposite of my problem like but I don't but here's the other problem when I've come out and said that then I

get people and I know people will criticize you no matter what then I get people coming out and say well of course dude you're a player so on one hand I get called an ingwell and on the other

hand I get called a player I've been called both of those things numerous times in my videos trying to be honest so it's like if I tell people I had a lot of fund dating in the west well

I'm just a player and I'm I'm mistreating these women and then if I say I had dating problems in the west oh that's because I can't get any it's like which is it I've also had people tell me

I'm poor and other people in the same conversation tell me I'm rich so that's why I try not to be ugly is I feel like my message um yes yes atarus that's that's been my experience as well um

I have met some women in Southeast Asia that are uh it it almost seems like sometimes in the west I get LED on by the Intrigue of potential relationship that turns into just a hookup in Southeast Asia I'll

have hookups that turn into that have the potential to turn into a relationship where the woman is looking for a relationship and I'm just traveling through and so for me it's like okay I'm not going to lie to

you and tell you that uh I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I'm going to be here for forever like there was a woman I was interested in in kagay and deoro let's just pull

that up Kagan deoro City I went on a date with her we went out to this solid place it was really nice and I was interested in her and then I asked her I was like well you know

uh where do we go let's see the mall did we go to Gano I think we went to SM City there's SM City there's um oh here we go smcd so we went to this mall and uh we

were on the date and I tried to I tried to uh give her a kiss on this escalator and she's like we're not in a relationship and then I asked her I was like so what's your your long-term

uh goal right where do you want to live and she was like well I want to live in Australia I want to move to a Western Country and uh and just work over there and live over there and

I was like well long term I don't want to live in the west at all I want to live in South East Asia my goal is to move over here long term and she was like well I guess

it's not going to work out because you're looking to live here and I want to live there and so um yeah like sounds like what Cod is saying is true is the opposite for females in Thailand yeah I

I think that is the case I think that is the case like it's uh you know it's it's a struggle I think yeah and what Cod said too it's so easy to have fun like that's you have to

you really have to try to not have like romance in Thailand I mean the people are romantic in general in my personal opinion the people are just like they I hear love music all the time I see couples

out on dates um it's just a and Philippines is similar it's just a romantic culture and that's what I prefer to be and I think it just it's more wholesome and um you yeah so so that was the

experience I had in Southeast Asia is women that were willing to have fun with me looking for a relationship but I don't want to be in the position where I'm lying to this poor woman oh yeah I'm gonna

be here forever and then a week later after we've had some fun oh looks like my you know looks like it's time for me to fly to the next country I'll see you later um and and so I'm

honest with them like hey I'm just here for a month or I'm just here for a few months and I think they you know we have fun and they they're thinking well maybe I'll convince him through having fun

and I'm very clear and upfront with them like hey this is how long I'm staying here we have fun anyway because that's just what happens uh but uh yeah this is this is just a man's perspective I can't

speak from the perspective of a woman there are quite a few there are more and more people trying to share the perspectives of tha women and more often Filipinos just because Filipinos tend to speak English but uh yeah

I just prefer to be honest as much as I possibly can and it's uh it does make it tough I mean there's some other women that I've talked to like most of the women I meet don't want to

live in uh the Western democracies but some do um some do but a lot of them a lot of them don't they'd like for me to live over here but I don't want to uh be in a position

where I you know I live over here and I've got let's say I've got five or 10 years worth of money and then I spend my money and I go back and I'm 40 years old with no recent

work history no recent experience penniless and I'm trying to to restart with you know that I'd rather get to the point where financially I can come over here and tell them hey I'm now here for good I'm happy

to date you indefinitely I'm happy to pursue a long-term relationship I might even be open to marriage uh down the line you know um a year or two years from now now if things work out if we're compatible

if we get along well if we enjoy each other's company if we're not having you know pointless squabbles um but I don't want to be the guy that because there's a lot of guys that mistreat these women from

a honesty perspective where they mislead them to have fun and then they move on and then they you know they hurt people they leave a lot of hurt people um in their wake which is wrong like a lot

of these women are gems and they're fun people they uh you know I don't know there's there's some there was one lady on quora I think her name was like Vanita Bloom uh I think that's her name she's

a female expat um married to a Thai man in Bangkok and she's a little bit older uh but you know I would look up here I I'll even do a search here female I'll throw a link in the

group on Facebook you mentioned your you're in your 20s uh Facebook I think of it as more for um old men like me like I'm I'm 31 but um groups groups I'm trying I'm on a different page right

now I don't even think there's a page here that's surprising like I'm looking for female expats Bangkok and I don't I don't see it um yeah I'm just not seeing it women expat Bangkok I'm not oh here we

go okay yeah I'll uh I'll copy this group link and you may check it out uh atarus but yeah this this looks like a female expat group for Bangkok that may be of value to you uh but yeah

um I I try to I try to filter what I say because part of my goal with this channel is to normalize xat life and I feel like you get a lot of strange characters in xat communities that

have a bone to pick and I don't right like when I came to Southeast Asia but I briefly dated a Vietnamese woman when I was in high a Vietnamese like fellow high school student but she's Vietnamese American I

don't know that she's ever been to Vietnam and so dating Asian women was the first time for for coming to Southeast Asia was my first opportunity to date Asian women and I found that there was uh less of

a cultural barrier there that that was one of the issues when I dated American women or European American women of European descent is that there's just this cultural barrier because I come from this Japanese cultural background I was

raised by my grandmother from Japan and a lot of them are coming from a European back uh American European background and so there's this cultural difference where um you know I I'm I think like more Asian culturally and

so when I dated Asian women in Southeast Asia I'm like wow there's so much of these beliefs that like I don't have to explain I don't have to explain respecting older people I don't have to explain eating rice

I don't have to explain um much I mean there's some things but like there's just not really a lot where I feel like I'm having to explain myself or explain why I think the way I think and so

it was really refreshing for me to date over here and that's part of the reason I don't date in the west is it's like there's just so much so many cultural issues there that are not going to or

cultural differences there uh that just are much lower or don't exist in Southeast Asia uh code so since you're multi-racial do you identify yourself with a specific ethnicity so I don't I tell people I'm Indian Japanese like uh

my dad was from India my mom was half Japanese half English Irish but being raised by my grandmother from Japan uh I found that I best relate to other Indian people and then um to a lesser extent other

Japanese people I have a Japanese buddy now I met in Krabby uh but those are the people that like I can kind of identify our best understand their cultures um but it's it's kind of like it's kind of

just like a broad like I look at myself as like almost like a Pan Asian person in a way where I enjoy all the Asian cultures that I've gotten to experience over here I look at them as different

views of kind of the same picture like they're looking at the same thing but from a different angle and there's things that I value and can appreciate in all of them um I find that some of the things

that I like about my friends in Southeast Asia is that they tend to be agreeable so I find with a fair amount of Western people they just love to argue they want to argue all the time they want

to argue about dumb stuff they they don't want to just have argue in good faith to learn something new they're going to tell you why they're right and if you agree they win and it just gets tedious and

and it's also they're pushing things through a some of them are pushing things through a Christian normative lens don't have an issue I don't have an issue with Christianity I think that you know if a person has faith

in that that's fine but they look at it like what's wrong with you is that you don't follow a Christian set of Ethics you need to stop looking at things through a Buddhist lens and Through My Lens and

uh and that's that's where there's this cultural issue and so that's where I get along well with my Asian friends over here is a lot of them value things like education respecting the elderly um enjoying a nice meal

uh you know there's just this kind of intellectual curiosity that depend that is lacking in the west unless you're in a very big city and then it's pretty good but if you're not in a big city in the

west it's just hard to find intellectually curious people um but yeah so that that was my ethnicity Indian on my dad's side Japanese on my mom's side uh there there's many bitter people in the XA Community because men

in their 30s 40s 50s live in the third world leaving the First World Behind yeah I mean you've got a lot of people that they can't function in the western democracies and I don't blame them sometimes I don't

feel like I can function as well over there either I mean but they think that coming over here will solve that for them and for me I look at a lot of pull factors I feel pulled here at

least as much as I feel pushed away from the Western democracies uh I feel like it's a new lease on life the beautiful weather the friendly people the interesting scenery uh in some the cultural cohesion I like that

people just get along here over uh get along it seems like much better over here on average than uh a lot of people in the western democracies where they seem to be at each other's throats a lot more

a lot more but a lot of people bring those attitudes with them they bring that frustration that they feel they bring that those hard feelings they bring some personality pathology right they have some they have like a personality

disorder where they cannot function in relationships back home and so they come over here because their small amount of money allows them to boss people around allows them to to tell people what to do in a uh like

a Hospitality setting and so you've got a lot of people that that um yeah they they just they're they take advantage of the kindness over here they take advantage of the Goodwill of the of the many people over

here and it's very unfortunate to see uh because I find so many gems of people over here and yeah they get trapped because you know they come over here on a thousand a month and then you know the

cost of living in the west keeps going up like it just keeps skyrocketing because the Western democracies keep printing a lot of money and they find that they can't go back so a thousand a month maybe 10 years

ago they owned a house and they could like or they had their their parents had a house or something so then the cost gets so it gets so cost prohibitive they get tired of living over here because culturally

they're Western they're not part of what makes it easy for me is I'm an Asian person so like I look at this part of the world as having a much I think of it as more normative and the

West as being like culturally messed up whereas deep down they're not accepted over here because they don't really think like the people think here um but they've been rejected back home so they can't really go back home and

so they're stuck in this in between space where they don't fit in over here but they can't go back home financially um and that's the last thing I want for myself I am happy here but if I were

to run out of money here I wouldn't be happy so my long-term goal is to get to the point financially where I can live in this part of the world in perpetuity never have to go back because a

year later in Thailand and I love it more than I did a year ago you know I was warned by a lot of people um you know oh it's G to be this and oh it's going to be

that and I love it I mean I I love it more than I did a year ago because I I respect the Thai people I love the Thai culture and Thai food is among the best quines in the

world it's world class um when I go out in Bangkok I rarely see a person struggling with homelessness um I don't see people arguing and fighting like is very common in the Bay Area I don't feel unsafe like

when I was living around San Francisco you feel very unsafe at night um it's just not a safe place to be you see uh vagrants I mean it got to the point and I lived in a very expensive

neighborhood in the Bay Area uh one of the more expensive neighborhoods in the San Francisco East Bay and occasionally there'd be like a homeless person leaned up against um leaned up against the door of the apartment building so

you would try to leave the apartment building and have to be like dude get out of here like get out of the way of the door I need to leave um so I lived in downtown Berkeley uh and

Berkeley you know is beautiful city there's a lot of beautiful nature there there's a really cool like uh you know vibe there it's it's interesting but it's been just ruined by bad policy bad terrible policy and the countries

in Southeast Asia haven't adopted those policies they don't you know they don't permit this this recklessness this disgusting Behavior this oh it's okay to steal it's not okay to steal over here uh whereas in living in San Francisco

I saw people steal all the time uh it was very common to go to a store and there' be shoplifters there so much so that a lot of businesses have closed they can't afford it anymore so then you

walk around a neighborhood and like half the businesses are just empty storefronts uh and that gets to be depressing whereas I rarely see empty storefronts in this part of the world you see him some but you don't see

him all the time and because rent is not astronomic iCal and because the system hasn't been gamed a lot of landlords in the Bay Area the appreciation is so high they'd rather keep rent up here and have an

empty storefront for 10 15 20 years and just get the appreciation uh and who cares if it's empty who cares if it's blighted who cares if it's an isore whereas here no somebody else is going to rent that

place and turn it into a restaurant or turn it into a massage shop or turn it into an office space um if it's if it's a little bit older building they're going to come in and update it uh

because there's so much foot traffic there's so much Street activity it's such a vibrant and dynamic city there's so much going on that uh people feel safe right people feel safe to go out at night here in a

way that they don't in the Bay Area I mean I remember on the odd occasion I'd go out at night my friends that were Bay Area locals be looking over their shoulder oh gosh got better make sure you

know nobody's going to try to con us or you know Rob us or whatever it may be so yeah very very different culturally and um tie timing is a real thing like I I remember when I was going

to meet up with one of my friends uh last fall maybe it was December uh I get to where we're supposed to meet up we were supposed to meet up um what is it um I think it was

cyan paragon so we were supposed to meet up at cyan Paragon and I get there and she's like still working out and so you know she's like hey I'll be there you know after I finish up my workout

so I just walked around for like 15 20 minutes and uh yeah so there is definitely a Thai timing thing where timing is more uh flexible here in Thailand Sayan Paragon is a really beautiful mall and a City

full of beautiful malls and it's like it's near sayam square and uh and you've got all these malls here sayam Discovery s Center you've got MBK this is where um this is where I like to if I need

to get my phone battery replaced I'll come down to MBK um they've got this really cool art museum I've been to this one I really like it so there's just this like Rich culture that that you experience here

in Thailand it's there's nothing like it but yeah tie time is definitely a thing Ro Rolex at Bangkok malls there's there's a lot of interesting shopping um yeah if you're a shopper at tus you'll have really have to

uh be careful because here there's so many malls and so much to buy to this mall um Sunday it's packed but I came over here to get a shirt and got one it was like $10 no was was

like $99.50 equivalent but there's six stories of clothes you got so much shopping here I mean it's just kiosk after kiosk after kiosk all the different things that you could want this looks like an ice cream shop um

yeah you know bags like everything you could want um I am GNA grab water because I am thirsty when are you planning to get here atarus and also code uh you may now want to answer but what country

are you in at the moment are you in Thailand code you don't have to specify City or anything like that but uh just curious about where you're located but um yeah there's there's so much to see and experience

I want to go to I want to check out this uh where I want to check out this later this week maybe Thursday this beautiful Park three a con con Park and you can rent a bike for 60

bot and ride it around here it's just gorgeous I've heard it called the green lung I don't know if that's the proper name for this spot oh so you're in Vietnam okay um yeah thank you for your Insight

on Vietnam I like I said I've never been there so it's really helpful uh to hear about that who knows maybe if I'm over there at the same time you're at end up in the same city be happy

to uh you know meet up in chat God it's so beautiful but uh yeah feel free um code uh no I haven't uh um I've seen it there's a map for it too um definitely seen it um it's

you know and and to give Barry a little bit of credit it it's escalated it wasn't always this extreme like it is now uh it just is a problem that was just left unaddressed and just kept getting worse

and worse and worse and uh and it's mostly concentrated a few neighborhoods so like in San Francisco uh I guess could pull up don't want to look at it but I'll pull it up anyway it's mostly concentrated down

here so it's mostly concentrated in uh this basically like this so tenderloin is the worst of it I don't know why they okay I was about to say they call it edgy uh this is the worst neighborhood for

it of course they're not going to show I I don't know maybe it's it's Google wanting to do damage control but and maybe it's certain photographs are not yeah they they're they're doing some kind of astroturfing here um

because this neighborhood does not look like this this is maybe these are pictures from Co yeah these are these are pictures from around Co times where the city was empty you can see here though you look at this

the street level like these are all you know have all these metal grates up but they're not that's crazy that's not even in this neighborhood these are yeah they're trying to cover this up this is called the Palace

of Fine Arts it's a crime hotspot but it's nowhere near the tender line yeah they're not that's crazy to me that they are not allowing people to actually okay so so maybe why are they I guess there's you

know there's money in it there tourism is yeah so they're not wanting to show it but it's it's worst in Tender Loin uh Soma this is called South so this is Market Street right here south of it uh

so South of Market Street is uh is the worst um alongside tenderloin um mission is okay like mission is kind of an up and down kind of neighborhood some years it's good some years it's not so good um

but yeah enough enough of uh okay good good code yeah because I was about to say like they're they're running some damage control because that's not what any of these that's not what these neighborhoods look like like it's

it's seriously not maybe we pull up a review here maybe they'll allow okay there we go yeah yeah you see you know you see homeless like they mention homeless homeless homeless homeless homeless like I mean so they they

can't hide the reviews they fortunately cannot uh address reviews and I have concerns about it because it's a safety issue right like I think it's wrong to tell people hey come here and spend money and and then not

allow people to see photographs of the reality like it's a reality and if the city doesn't address it yeah look at this I mean come on like this was seven months ago so it's not like it was oh

it was 10 years ago no like these are realities and people are paying a lot of money you see 9,000 bot people are paying $250 a night to have this experience yeah I mean just like it's embarrassing and

I'm a shareholder I own stock in Google like I I want them to to have some concerns about people's well-being because if people come here and have a bad time they're not going to come back and they're going

to tell their friends not to go there and it's the city can only improve if people take address these issues head-on and address the public safety concerns actually go in and clean the city up and try to do

something to make it livable I'm not I don't have a problem with people being homeless you know I understand it's a real issue uh a lot of people struggle with it it's the the the idea that you're helping

them by not helping them by enabling them like and and enabling the issues it's just uh it's just a tragedy I mean that's that's what it is it's a tragedy but I want to get off the subject because

it's it is kind of depressing uh hoian City it's wild and crazy Thailand is more developed but um Bangkok yeah a much much better City these days but I'll probably uh I'll be honest we're closing in on three

hours um I may be wrapping up soon just because my voice is starting to go a little bit and um I'm getting kind of hungry I need to get on some tax stuff but thanks so much code for

joining me tonight I really appreciate it you've been a great conversation partner and uh and helped me a lot to discuss uh you know discuss these these topics and and yeah I need to do these more often I

didn't realize there was that much interest in in me doing these and maybe I could do them like three days a week I know Heidi and George do theirs three days a week but U yeah I hope you

have a great rest of your your week in hotan city and hope to catch you on the next chat have a good one code all right thank you thank you I'll keep it keep that in mind all right

byebye take care thanks so much everybody until next time