TheSiemReaper

It can be done - despite what others say. Though you'd have to employ 4 Thai staff to get a visa... security guards maybe on minimum wage? But it would be cheaper, by far, to pay for a 5 year Elite visa and incorporate as an offshore entity in Hong Kong (no tax required).

poor value for money and you can make a much better sandwich at home.

In my opinion, literally most everything is of poor value and can be made better at home. But most of us are too lazy to cook and clean the mess afterwards or goes by the saying, 'it always tastes better when someone else makes it'. Then again there are some who have no idea how to boil water let alone cook something........

That's the thing though... Subway sell sandwiches, no cooking required. Bugger all cleaning if you use a chopping board to make it on and consume it from too...

I don't know about you but those meatballs taste much better when cooked....

Microwaved. I think that's a zero effort activity for most people too...

poor value for money and you can make a much better sandwich at home.

In my opinion, literally most everything is of poor value and can be made better at home. But most of us are too lazy to cook and clean the mess afterwards or goes by the saying, 'it always tastes better when someone else makes it'. Then again there are some who have no idea how to boil water let alone cook something........

That's the thing though... Subway sell sandwiches, no cooking required. Bugger all cleaning if you use a chopping board to make it on and consume it from too...

How about for sizes 12+ ?

I order mine from Shoebuy in the US... not been able to find a reliable vendor of large shoes here even in Bangkok.

...got to hand it to the Saudis...they know how to discourage theft.

On the contrary - theft is rampant in KSA ascis a lot of petty crime. One reason is that the harsh punishments are applied to foreigners not locals - the other is that because the punishments are so severe people do not acknowledge such crimes. Theft is a way of life in the Arab world.

What total rot. Saudi applies its punishments to Saudis far more than it does to foreigners. Petty crime is virtually non-existent in Saudi. In the 2 years I worked there - there was an Indonesian cleaner who stole stuff from the people she cleaned for and a Western project manager who stole an iPhone - that was in a company of more than 2,000 people.

Yes they save their mischief for inciting terrorism across the globe.

I wouldn't disagree with that at all. Wahhabism is a seriously awful branch of faith and responsible for much (though to be fair not all) of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

I think you could do something gladiatorial here for the Digital Nomads and get some great car crash TV. Head to a co-working space in Nimman, offer a $6,000 prize to the winner (a year's cash!) and put them through a series of humiliating contests to push their business idea - losers are required to work as a "pork on a stick" vendor outside a local bar for a month; this may even teach them how a business works. The final involves the last 4 contestants taking part in Muay Thai matches after being fed bad seafood - using the toilet sees you eliminated (in more ways the one).

To make matters worse - if you don't use a full journey ticket (Chiang Mai - Singapore) - if the first flight is late/delayed/cancelled - the airline has no obligation to get you to Singapore at all and you'll need to buy a new ticket to get to Singapore. I think I'd go down the night before and stay in a hotel in Bangkok if I was taking that approach.

It depends...

If you have a connecting flight with the same airline - you will go through immigration in Chiang Mai and then be escorted from domestic to international (via a back route) to catch the connection - so you don't re-enter Thailand.

If you are using two airlines or booking two separate tickets with the same airline - you will go through immigration in Bangkok. You'll need to exit the domestic terminal and go to international to leave the country.

I pay less rent in Thailand than in Cambodia but I live a high standard of life. My place in Cambodia include bills, cleaner, and rent for a 1 bedroom apartment set me back about $1,500 a month. In Thailand (for the same things) I pay less than $1,000 and that includes a private internet connection (which my apartment complex wouldn't let me have in Cambodia).

Like-for-like rentals in Cambodia are much worse than in Thailand for the same money. I'd also say (having stayed in a lot of hotels in Cambodia and Thailand) that while service in Cambodia is often friendlier - the quality of like-for-like spending on hotels is better in Thailand than in Cambodia too. Bangkok is the sole exception - you do pay through the nose for a good hotel room (though to be fair - it would be hard to find an equivalent for such a room in Cambodia - the serviced apartment I take in Bangkok has a home cinema system, and fully equipped kitchen - never in a million years will you find that in Phnom Penh).

Living in a house in Cambodia is an excellent plan to wake up with nothing - burglary is rife. If you're not living in security controlled accommodation - it's a question of when not if you will be robbed.

Angkor is not a single place but a huge area full of different ruins and you will not even begin to scratch the surface of it in 3 days let alone have time to go elsewhere, IMO.

I agree 3 days isn't enough time to see the Angkor Park. Where I disagree is spending 3 days there on a visit to Siem Reap - it leads to "all templed out" and misses the point of a vacation rather than a field research trip. It's best to do the "big 3" and Banteay Srei plus a couple more and come back another time (if you like temples enough) than to force feed yourself with as many temples as possible on first visit. I've spent more than a month in the Angkor Park and still haven't seen it all but I did that month over 4 years not in a single month. Which means I'm still keen to go back for more rather than never wanting to see another temple again as long as I live.

It's not that there wasn't money to be made on Amazon but you know that the bottom has dropped out of the market when a thousand (expensive) "how to make a fortune selling on Amazon" courses appear. These only appear when a market is saturated and its business model becomes easy to duplicate and everyone is doing it. Nobody is making $10s of thousands selling garlic crushers on Amazon any more than they're making thousands drop shipping crap from China. The Amazon party has long since disappeared. If you run a business where you create nothing of value and supply no additional value in the chain at all - you cannot make money. A lesson that the "Digital Nomads" still don't seem to have learned. (You will now see somebody going on about customer care - Amazon's customer care is infinitely better than anything someone can provide over Skype from Thailand - but don't let that stop them from insisting anyway).

The whole point of large franchise operations is that they offer a standard experience everywhere - I've eaten Subway in the UK, China, Thailand, Saudi and the UAE (and probably in other places but I forget where) and they've always been crappy sandwiches - however, they are often the only option at an airport or in some obscure business estate (we actually had one in our HQ in Saudi - catering exclusively to our staff).

Most franchises are like that. It's why they exist.

The only franchises I'd be excited to see here are Jasmi Burger (Bahrain's answer to Burger King and it rocks), Al Baik (Saudi's answer to KFC and the only fast food restaurant where queues are literally round the block 3 times to get in), Hardee's (Gulf style - when they split with the American operation their menu was frozen in time) and Fuddrucker's (that dreadful cheese sauce is awesome on fries).

All that aside it won't stop me eating fast food when I'm on the go or just in need of a quick feed. None of this makes Subway a better experience though; the sandwiches are poor value for money and you can make a much better sandwich at home.

Just like no Computer Engineer wants to be called "IT Guy," which was a total generic name for anyone who could put their hands on a computer, usually on the government payroll, and part of the national debt. "IT Guy" did a four week certification course that could have been completed by the engineer in four hours. The engineer has a very difficult four year degree+.

Yes, just like that. The reason so many Digital Nomads are really digital clowns is that they want the lifestyle without effort. Drop shipping, Shopify, Amazon Stores, and lousy travel blogs catering to the broke - they're all jobs that can be done by anybody and thus - there's no money in them. Just like the "IT guy" was essentially on hand to change printer cartridges and fetch more paper for the printer. Whereas the engineer did networking, application and os management, etc. and it couldn't be done by anybody. Salaries reflected the difference too.

Those shunning the "digital nomad" label have put in their hard yards and are travelling and working and most importantly - earning too.

Theft is theft, irrespective of age or nationality. He's lucky he didn't get the impulse to steal in Saudi Arabia.

...got to hand it to the Saudis...they know how to discourage theft.

On the contrary - theft is rampant in KSA ascis a lot of petty crime. One reason is that the harsh punishments are applied to foreigners not locals - the other is that because the punishments are so severe people do not acknowledge such crimes. Theft is a way of life in the Arab world.

What total rot. Saudi applies its punishments to Saudis far more than it does to foreigners. Petty crime is virtually non-existent in Saudi. In the 2 years I worked there - there was an Indonesian cleaner who stole stuff from the people she cleaned for and a Western project manager who stole an iPhone - that was in a company of more than 2,000 people.

It's a funny thing - the digital nomads here are the detritus of the digital nomad world; they blog endlessly on subjects such as "100 free things to do in Chiang Mai" or "How to live like a boss on $2.99 a day in Chiang Mai" - it doesn't take a genius to work out that they write these pieces because poverty limits their experiences. The digital nomad movement as a whole is turning into a pseudonym for "impoverished Western vagrants on an extended holiday" and nothing more. Those who are making a good living and have been doing this for a while are embarrassed by the term "digital nomad". I met with a client in Malaysia recently - they run a multi-million dollar education business and have been "digital nomads" for more than a decade. They were absolutely distraught about the fact they felt stupid calling themselves "digital nomads" - they felt they'd found a term which described them to a T and then had it turned upside down by children and they singled out Chiang Mai as the source of that too.

All those travel bloggers based out of Chiang Mai and not one has visited all the museums in town (an effort which would take a day maximum if you tackled it seriously - most of the museums here are lovely but tiny) or visited anything but the "Big 5 Temples" in town. And so on...

They're devoid of ideas and imagination. They simply don't care about the "working" part of digital nomadism - they're in for the parties and the cheap beer - in essence they're backpackers taking their time nothing more. A huge chunk of this city's digital nomad population is barely making $500 a month. They took the idea of "geo-arbitrage" and got it wrong. Instead of taking a first world living to the developing world (giving a massive boost in quality of life); they headed to the developing world to make developing world wages and want to boast about it too.

I know a lot of "location independent professionals" here who are highly successful - guys in their early 30s running software companies (with multiple Thai employees), tech journalists (in their early 40s), investors (also in their early 40s), etc. but none of them would use "digital nomad" it's a source of shame not aspiration now.

Not exactly spoilt for choice are we in Chiang Mai. The UN Irish pub is miserable and the staff nasty, the Red Lion is designed for a steady flow of tourists, they’re not keen on regular customers hanging about too long in there, it’s order a meal, eat up and then move on to make room for the next customers. The continental restaurants in that area are also very touristy eat up and move on and expensive, The Dukes is usually filled with loud mouthed Americans in competition to see who can speak the loudest, The Pub is like a restaurant within a lost world, it’s dank, grey and musty. Dead cats hanging from the ceiling and skeletons attached to the walls wouldn’t look out of place in there. The rest are just run of the mill type eating places and nothing to write home about.

Are there any real authentic Indian and Chinese restaurants in Chiang Mai? Not meaning those Muslim type Pakistani crap cafes around the Night Bazaar area and the Chinese cafes run and owned by Thais, I mean the one’s like we have in Soho, London. I could kill for decent Indian madras curry with onion bhajis, pilau rice, nan bread and a decent pint of draft lager

The Red Lion is only too happy to cater to regulars. The owner stops to talk with them. The staff remember their beers and they are fine with you drinking all night long. There is no need to eat a meal at all.

I tend to agree on the UN Irish Pub (except I find the staff quite nice there), The Pub (went once and never, ever again) and Dukes.

The best Chinese in town is the one in the Shangri-La Hotel, expensive but excellent Sichuan food.

Not found a good Indian restaurant possibly Al Reem but every time I go there - it's for the Arabic mixed grill.

Internet in PP has been good for a while - however it's not reliable, with all providers regularly failing to deliver and the cheap Chinese routers they supply catching fire on a regular basis. The good news is 4G works well in PP and you can use it as a back up - particularly useful in times of power cuts too. Never heard of Sing Meng; Cambodia's unregulated telecoms market leaves dozens of brands and dozens of providers all over the shop. The most reliable when I was there was Metfone for broadband and Cellcard for 3G/4G services.

Must sees in 3 days: The Angkor Museum (Day One), Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm and any other temples your tuk-tuk driver can squeeze in before you collapse of heat stroke (Day Two), Butterfly Farm, Landmine Museum and BanteaySrei (Day Three - really Banteay Srei is the point here, the others are just minor diversions on the way).

Great Restaurants: Cuisine Wat Damnak (Best Khmer food in town), Olive (Mediterranean), Abacus (French), L'Annexe (French and perhaps the best kept secret in town - a bit more "budget" than the others but very, very nice)

General travel advice - don't bargain too hard with tuk-tuk drivers it has been a terrible low season and there's a drought in Cambodia too. Don't carry valuables late at night and walk to your hotel.

E-cigarettes are banned outright in Cambodia. They're not impossible to buy there but they are challenging to buy. The majority of poor Khmer have never even heard of them.

It's also worth noting that as real evidence starts to build on e-cigarettes - the data isn't quite as positive as the manufacturers would have us believe.

Because the SJ4000 cameras are dirt cheap made in China. They're always breaking and she'll be used to angry customers. It probably cost about 500thb for her to buy wholesale so giving one away as a replcement isn't a big hit.

I own this Camera and when I read the test results and user reviews, this camera is far away from dirt cheap ..... do you own this Camera? or you're simply a China basher?

BHP - the largest photography vendor in the world has the camera at less than $75 to buy brand new. That's dirt cheap. To the point of being nearly free. It's less than the cost of the average mobile phone (which is where most people get their cameras today) by quite a way too.

You don't have to hate China to realize that at that price point a mass produced bargain basement camera is going to have some issues.

On the bright side - for the money (and that's an important codicil here) it's a very good camera.

That's the same Chipotle that food poisoned its customers right? Just to make sure we're on the same page here.

Yeah because Subway is vulnerable to the threat of local businesses ousting it from its suppliers? Oh, no wait a minute, never in the history of mankind has a major chain worried about this. Not once. Given their purchasing power etc. they would have nothing to fear. However, those purporting to know what they do not... they can hide behind this flimsy excuse.

Real estate agents here are often a source of a bargain or two. My own place was 10,000 Baht a month cheaper via a real estate agent than going direct (as my mate who wanted to live here discovered when he tried to go direct). Yes, they are paid a commission but that often leads to negotiating a realistic price on your behalf rather than the one the landlord will insist on and won't back down on for fear of losing face when dealing with a farang. They also arranged for the brand new (but hideous) furniture to be removed - something that the landlord wasn't keen on. Good agents earn their commissions and there are several here. They also make it very, very easy to find something that you want rather than dragging around day after day trying to discover a miracle moment by yourself.

Congratulations on a failure to understand whom this legislation is aimed at. It's not aimed at barang tourists chuffing away in bars. It's aimed at Khmer who are the largest group of smokers in Cambodia; $5 for a Khmer is a large sum of money. It's equivalent to a $100-$200 fine in a Western nation and more than enough to make Khmer think twice about sparking up in a hospital or a school.

Congratulations on a failure to understand addiction. Most addicts ignore all the fatal health warnings and pictures, so most will surely ignore any fine!

As economies retreat, addicts will smoke, drink and do drugs before the money runs out and then will barter and steal to fill the addiction.

Some of the best barter items are cigarettes, and alcohol!

As economies get worse worldwide, the addict's addiction increases from stress.

A fine is the last thing on most of their minds.

For some, even food!

How's the view from your planet?

Down here on earth - in countries that enforce no smoking fines; people don't smoke in colleges and hospitals and schools, etc.

Your rabid views on smoking aside; facts are facts and quite useful when you're debating something. Try it some time, you might even like it.

Almost all meat is "processed" given that most people aren't eating raw meat. It's the quality of the offering that differs - there's a huge difference from a hand cured salami in an artisan butcher to a chemically cured mass produced one from a major processing plant in terms of "processing".

All big brand fast food works with low quality, mass produced ingredients, it has to - there would be no margin in their business otherwise. My objection to Subway remains as not the quality of the ingredients but rather the crapness of the final product. It's just not a good sandwich. Given that I can buy good ingredients and assemble a sandwich easily at home - there is no reason to go to Subway ever.