We started our day today looking at an apartment to get an idea of the cost of living in Bangkok. We took a look at an apartment in the Asoke area. Below are shots of the facility.

The master bedroom below has a nice view of the city.

Second bedroom below.

Below is the guest bathroom.

Here is the kitchen area features a washer & dryer with fridge and cooking area.

This 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment with a sleeper sofa rents for 35000 baht and is about 65 sq meters. The internet will cost about 600 baht, electricity for moderate use is 2000 baht and water is 200 to 300 baht. The monthly living cost for housing will be 35000+600+2000+300 = 37,900 baht ($1100 USD/month).

This particular apartment is near the train station (see below) which provides access to many parts of Bangkok. An observation I made is that the train and stations are kept very clean. There isn’t a single piece of trash or plastic in the image below nor on the train.

The downside to the train in Bangkok were the huge crowds. The image below I was only able to take after a whole bunch of people exited at a particular stop as my arms weren’t free the minutes before this photo was taken.

Chinatown

We took the train to Chinatown in Bangkok and I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting a vibrant scene of vendors selling their wares, the area filled with the aromas of authentic street food but most of the shops were closed and there seem to be quite a few empty retail sites. We went on a Sunday so perhaps that was bad timing or perhaps Chinatown here is dying a slow death like most retail around the world.

After our visit to Chinatown we took a Grab back to our hotel area. Grab is the “Uber” of Thailand and most of South East Asia. We’ve had hit or miss success with Grab. Sometimes the drivers will randomly cancel our car request after they have accepted. Most of the time, the Grab app will tell you a car will arrive in 8 minutes which usually means 16 minutes. It was actually rare that the Grab car arrived within the estimated time. I don’t blame Grab or the drivers, the traffic here is terrible and I think the algorithm used to estimate time is using traffic free time distance instead of factoring in traffic.

We had lunch at “The QUAD” which appears to be a food court inside an office building. I had an amazing chicken curry and wife had river prawn pad Thai.

After lunch, we couldn’t resist getting another foot massage due to being on our feet all day. The cost in this higher end area though was 300 baht but it was also for 1 hour and we left the massage center feeling like butter.

Great food, great service and lots to do. Tomorrow will be an exciting day so stay tuned…

Categories: Bangkok
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