TheSiemReaper

I always enjoy posts from people complaining about spending less than $100 to deal with an official and then claiming "without us they'll be bankrupt". I'm pretty certain that Thailand would survive the loss of the cheap Charlie without any issues at all.

Yes it's easy to see that people with more money than brains might think that.

But when you consider that the poorest legal expat spends at least 5x what his Thai counterpart does, the story falls apart, and reveals itself as pernicious elitist bullshit.

Good for you that you can so easily be extorted for $100, one less session at the soapy, boo-hoo...

But there are people who live on a pension (gasp!), who spend it monthly, to the benefit of their community, who cannot afford to indulge the mismanagement and outright robbery by IOs.

Just because $100 means nothing to you doesn't mean you're better than them. In my book, you're nothong more than a pig.

So save your 'Cheap Charlie' rhetoric for the bargirls from whom it originated, oinker.

Yawn. If you can't afford $100, you're not spending enough in your community to count for anything to them. But keep on believing that your hamster size bundle is making a difference... it's all you have to cling onto isn't it?

So where do you draw the line on corrupt blackmailing officials?

$200, $300, $500.

What point do you complain and say enough is enough and become one of the 'cheap charlies'.

The issue isn't about money, it's about morals and decency.

You're right it's about ensuring that people on lousy government salaries can live a decent life. If you want to pay the government direct... petition for them to triple salaries and watch your actual costs go up by a factor of ten.

It only becomes an issue to people when they haven't allowed for it in their financial planning. Mainly because they're so delusional they think whining about the way Asia works and acting like they've been cheated will change things. And it won't.

It could be $1,000... which is the rough amount over the cost of a visa you pay for a 1 year Chinese business visa for example. It shouldn't matter if you've planned for it and if you haven't... well more fool you.

I always enjoy posts from people complaining about spending less than $100 to deal with an official and then claiming "without us they'll be bankrupt". I'm pretty certain that Thailand would survive the loss of the cheap Charlie without any issues at all.

Yes it's easy to see that people with more money than brains might think that.

But when you consider that the poorest legal expat spends at least 5x what his Thai counterpart does, the story falls apart, and reveals itself as pernicious elitist bullshit.

Good for you that you can so easily be extorted for $100, one less session at the soapy, boo-hoo...

But there are people who live on a pension (gasp!), who spend it monthly, to the benefit of their community, who cannot afford to indulge the mismanagement and outright robbery by IOs.

Just because $100 means nothing to you doesn't mean you're better than them. In my book, you're nothong more than a pig.

So save your 'Cheap Charlie' rhetoric for the bargirls from whom it originated, oinker.

Yawn. If you can't afford $100, you're not spending enough in your community to count for anything to them. But keep on believing that your hamster size bundle is making a difference... it's all you have to cling onto isn't it?

I've been in a fair few Chinese KTVs over the years... in China you never bang the hostesses in the KTV (you may negotiate for them to accompany you home or to a hotel) and I suspect that while the gentlemen involved here will probably have had a lot of groping going on... they won't have had sex on the premises. So no bar fines, no short-time rates. Then you get 27 bottles of beer (say 150 baht each) and say 1000 baht for each girl to accompany them in the room plus maybe 300 baht for the room itself. 7,000 Baht seems more reasonable than 14,000... but yeah, these scams are global. I know plenty of young lads who have visited a SOHO "strip club" in London to find themselves facing bills of up to £1,000.It's the way of the world.

Lol, corruption boo hoo hoo... it's how Asia functions. If it functioned like the West - you wouldn't want to be here. So you take the rough with the smooth and smile. Knowing full well that a similar service from a "non corrupt" Western government without a single bribe would still cost 3-10x as much.

There's always one insane moralizer on any thread concerning alcohol... is there a good reason that a city can't cater for both the early risers and late risers? Most cities manage it just fine.

There was a krav maga instructor in Chiang Mai, he's an old mate of mine, but he moved back to the UK a year ago... no idea if there's anyone doing it now.

Agreed dental care here is excellent and costs less than in Thailand. I'd be straight over the border for any real medical treatment mind you.

Note: All Cambodian banks require the services of an intermediary bank for direct bank-to-bank transfer (my clients' preferred payment method) - clients don't like this and won't use them (and it's expensive). Their 2nd preferred payment method is PayPal... and that doesn't work in Cambodia. If this was about setting up a single transfer from one overseas bank to another - I could make it work but it's not, it's about setting up dozens of payments a month and Cambodia is no use at all for that.

None at all. Flights from SHV only to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.

In Chaing Mai?

thought u loved Cambodia?

IF I didn't love the sea i would move up to the area around Fang

But ......

I do love Cambodia but I don't love its banking system. It may be easy to open an account but to get money into that account from overseas... is a total ball-ache and an expensive ball-ache at that. However, I don't love the sea... so I'm going North. :-)

for $700/month you could have a 2 bedroom house with land in Phuket 1-2 kms from the beach :-)

you can also get a studio apt with wifi, air, cable for under $200

Cambodia is NOT cheap

Well, I've just signed a lease for a 1 bed serviced apartment with swimming pool and gym in Northern Thailand... will be moving in a month. Fingers crossed - it's at least as good value as what I have now. Rent there is $550 a month.

I definitely have a soft spot for Cambodia. I have lived there before. But I recently decided, not so much to stay in Thailand, but more accurately not move to Cambodia. For most of the negative reasons above. Hugely substandard medical care, really dangerous driving conditions, almost complete lack of public transit in the capital, poor accommodation vs cost consideration (the latter became dire when my country's currency tanked against the US dollar). But, never say never.

Poster shirtless talks about $100-$150 rooms. OP, have a look at them to see if they fit your standards. Those kinds of (nicer) rooms are far from the core (remember, no public transit, just tuk tuks) or the worst ones right downtown. The latter accessed from the garbage strewn street down a darkened, dirty alley, with entry through a heavy locked steel door, up a narrow unlit staircase, with steep pitch and irregular steps, twisting and turning to the 2nd or 3rd floor where you will unlock another steel gate to enter a room barely big enough for a bed, with no a/c, a ceiling fan and upper wall air vents and washroom with shower spraying your toilet seat and sink. While those might run $50-$100 a month, I'm not exaggerating -- much.

Very much so, my apartment is $700 a month (1 bedroom) which when you put the bills, taxes, etc. on top comes out to be $1,000 a month. It's a nice apartment but I could do much, much better (even in Bangkok) over in Thailand for the same cash.

For a reasonable standard of life (e.g. not living like a local farm worker in either country) Cambodia is more expensive than Thailand on a like for like basis. However, a visa is easier to obtain in Cambodia (1 year multi-entry guaranteed and a work permit is a doddle to procure). The cost of beer, wine, spirits and cigarettes is much lower in Cambodia than in Thailand (which can offset the cost of living differences if you like to get sloshed or smoke 60 a day). Health services in Cambodia are utter <deleted>.

Last time I was in Bangkok I was sat with a group of 20 men who had just renewed theirs via an agent. (Who amusingly also got them locked out of Malaysia by using his own fingerprints to obtain entry/exit stamps for their passports).

....Still cheaper than a Thai retirement visa

a thai 1 year EXTENSION is only 1,900 baht $54 good for a1 year stay in Thailand

a multiple re entry permit ( so u can come and go as u please) is another 3,800 $108 so total $162

ONLY 1,000 baht for a single re entry

so how is the Cambodian extension at $285/year cheaper??

Yeah, if you do it legally... my experience is that most don't and are paying 25K Baht (no permit) for their retirement visas in Thailand...

Sorry, this isn't true. You can get a business visa for $35 on entry and then a 1 year version (multiple entry) costs $285. If you are not working, you do not need a work permit (despite all the expat scare stories... there's no evidence whatsoever that Khmer authorities are cracking down on those not working - take it from me, I have a business visa and no work permit - no-one has knocked on my door to ask me for one, no-one has been asked when renewing a business visa for a copy of their work permit and no-one has been asked for a work permit to exit/enter the country).

Do I think it's likely that there will be a retirement visa one day? Possibly but given the pace of change here - we're talking years not months. As for the work permit, you can use a fixer to arrange one if it turns out you do need one (unlikely) and it will cost less than $300 including fixer fees. Still cheaper than a Thai retirement visa and there are no requirements to put any cash in a Cambodian bank account.

You can always pay in Riel in Cambodia. Though in many places the exchange rate is bad (seriously) at 4,100 Riel to the Dollar - though the majority of places exchange at 4,000 Riel to the Dollar (which is good because the official rate normally lays around 4,050 - so in theory there are tiny savings to be made by changing dollar into Riel and paying in Riel, though I can't imagine ever being bothered to do so).

I read that and thought he was one of the biggest tossers on the face of the planet. To date, number of times I've been scammed in S E Asia? Once. Total cost to me over what I should have paid? $5. Not worth an article is it? People only get scammed when they let themselves be (and I was got because I was drunk and my friend was apocalyptically drunk). My fault, move on.

When I was there, I was the only person who actually crossed into Cambodia of the 200 or so people who left Thailand. It's a very, very quiet route. Great road and almost no traffic. So sorry, can't offer a first hand account of successfully bringing in a car there.

I've been here for the best part of 4 years and had one minor incident in all that time (an argument with a thieving tuk-tuk driver - who suddenly realized he'd picked the wrong place and time to try it on). Otherwise, I've never been so much as looked at funny by a Khmer. This is absolutely not the case in Thailand where I've spent decidedly less time overall. If Khmer are getting attacked - you'll only read about in Khmer language news (which tends to ignore a lot of the foreigner issues conversely), so because you (nor I) have heard of it, it doesn't mean it's not happening. The English language press here loves to create the impression that Cambodia is lawless and dangerous on every street corner but I know more foreigners get into shit in Thailand in a week than they do in a year in Cambodia. Thailand, for example, is the 2nd most popular destination in the world for British people to need consular services either as victims of crime or the causes of it (because British people with lots of cheap alcohol and cheap prostitutes are pretty much bound to cause crime - It's shameful but true and I'm from the UK). The most popular is the UAE (somewhere I have also lived and to be honest I've never felt safer anywhere in my life than in the UAE).

O'Smach border (at least it was a couple of months ago when I was last there) consists of a modern hut on the Thai side, a 10 meter break and than a wooden hut on the Khmer side. They're friendly and competent (though expect to pay a small bribe to facilitate things on the Khmer side - almost everyone crossing is a Thai heading to the casino... so the rare moments that a foreigner actually enters Cambodia is a cause for celebration for the bored and poor guards there).

There's a car park right next to the Cambodia visa hut... so you'll probably be asked to park up and then do the paperwork. I really liked using the Northern borders much, much more pleasant than Poipet and actually, surprisingly even more efficient than on the main border with Vietnam (which in itself is also very good). As long as you have the right paperwork, I wouldn't expect too many hassles.

Cheap and clean do not compute in Sihanoukville. It's a filthy dump and particularly places closer to town than Otres. If 100 Baht is too expensive for a cup of coffee... you'll be fine you can get a coffee in Cambodia for 50 cents.

No, the Cambodians are too busy hating on the Vietnamese to be hating on Westerners. It's been interesting to watch the Russian Mafia get a slap from Cambodia this week over the festival down in Snookie.

Khmer people in over-touristed destinations are actually much, much nicer than Thais are (in general) because it took about 30+ years of mass market idiocy for the Thais to start resenting the farang fool. Khmers are still pleased we're here spending money and I think they may just be naturally more tolerant of minor stuff (if you look on Facebook they circulate the nude pics themselves, for example, and just laugh about it) than the Thais because after you've dealt with genocide in your lifetime or your parent's life time... you don't sweat the small stuff very much any more.

Some good points you have raised.

However, what do you make of the absolutely FRIGHTENING brick attacks, seemingly aimed deliberately at foreigners/expats (if this was actually the case, it would amount to a hate crime in my book) back in 2010-2013 (based on the reports I have read from the Phnom Penh post)?

Here's an article describing the incidents: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/brick-attacks-plague-riverside

However, I have to disagree somewhat with your points on Thais. As much as you might claim that some Thais are a bit tired of foreigners, first of all, westerners have never been a big force here, and even Arabs, Chinese, Indians and Russians, all of whom are generally present in larger numbers than any single western nationality and are presenting some headaches of their own (perhaps bigger ones than any westerners ever presented) on Thais, for most Thais, foreigners in their country in the form of expats and tourists (irrespective of nationality) is just the way it is - most are not even exposed to them enough to be able to draw an opinion of them. Most Thais are more weary of Cambodian and Burmese migrant workers, but again, unless a Thai is directly involved in their employment or works alongside them, the average office worker for instance has too little exposure to these workers to be able to form much of an opinion of them; few would know any or be friends with any.

However, one thing seems for sure - I have NEVER heard of Thais throwing bricks towards expats/foreigners in some kind of hate crime. That kind of seemingly random, unprovoked attack using a weapon as deadly as a brick, when used as a projectile, is absolutely unforgiveable.

Even though most of the attacks occurred around 5 years ago (with the most recent account I read about from around 2.5 years ago) it concerns me to even read about such incidents in the first place.

My father was in the back garden once, when some idiot kids threw a brick over the wall and took a large (though thankfully only cosmetic) chunk out of his scalp and forehead.

You get dickheads everywhere. I doubt that was a racist attack more a drunk teenager with his daddy's car acting important to his friends. "Look even Westerners cannot stop my mighty immunity to prosecution..."

Compare this to the Thai taxi driver who beheaded an American in the street (with a Samurai sword no less) for disputing the fare. He then got his 7 years for murder (because if a Thai apologises for his crime in public they halve the sentence).

Or the endless YouTube videos of farangs getting a kicking from Thais...

It's really difficult to see racism here in Cambodia. I've lived in Thailand too (and in fact, hope to be moving back later this year) and it's so obvious there. The whole "Thai Number One and everyone else Number Ten" thing is ingrained from birth. You see racism constantly - for example, in a queue with a Thai behind you, you will often be ignored so that the Thai can get served first. This never happens in Cambodia.

Note: You pay "tee" money on a golf course, a bribe is "tea" money.