Is the cost of alcohol a major factor in your SE Asian choices ?

[MrWorldwide]

Of course, you can drink cheaply in Thailand if all you want to do is get beer from a supermarket and sit in your room, but where's the fun in that ? Cambo's still the place to be - at least if you want alcohol that you can actually drink without inadvertently setting fire to your aesophagus ....

http://www.ashaandryan.com/cambodia/cheapest-alcohol-world/

[craigt3365]

Actually, beer isn't really cheap here.

[MrWorldwide]

It's all relative.

http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/malaysia/2011/05/17/happy-hours-and-other-ways-to-get-cheaper-drinks-in-kuala-lumpur/

Singapore is still the only place where I think long and hard before ordering a second drink. It's prohibitively expensive, and nowhere near as much fun as KL/Penang.

[David48]

.

NO ...

.

[Upnotover]

It's all relative.

http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/malaysia/2011/05/17/happy-hours-and-other-ways-to-get-cheaper-drinks-in-kuala-lumpur/

Singapore is still the only place where I think long and hard before ordering a second drink. It's prohibitively expensive, and nowhere near as much fun as KL/Penang.

I was at Clarke Quay earlier this week and was delighted to find a bar there with BOGOF running 11 a.m.-7p.m.,9p.m.-11p.m. SGD13 for 2 pints of San Miguel (the proper draft stuff) is a pretty good price, and you can queue them up to get you through 7-9p.m. if you want. On the riverfront directly under the Central mall.

[joeaverage]

nope, like smoking, im going to do it either way

[bangkokburning]

Spirits are practically free. I just paid b220 for a bottle of Jim Beam on my visa run a few days ago.

Beer is beer and if you want it chilled amd canned it's all about standard priced world wide. Ingredients all come from same nations - all imported. Hops and barely, not so much in Singapore...

I developed a drinking problem in Cambodia. Returning twenty years later Id do much less partying but far more pub marathons and drinking alone - if I was not married amd living IN Thailand.

Outside Cambodia, only Lao and Vietnam have cheap alcohol. So does Phils, but its swill. The rest ate far more expensive.

[IrishIvan]

It's all relative.

http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/malaysia/2011/05/17/happy-hours-and-other-ways-to-get-cheaper-drinks-in-kuala-lumpur/

Singapore is still the only place where I think long and hard before ordering a second drink. It's prohibitively expensive, and nowhere near as much fun as KL/Penang.

Chinatown and peoples park has frosty cold tall bottles of Tiger for $6, great for warming up before hitting the four floors of whores

[IrishIvan]

A bottl of beer is my measurement of how expensive a country is. Its the first question I ask someone when they have been to a new place

[lovetotravel]

Spirits are practically free. I just paid b220 for a bottle of Jim Beam on my visa run a few days ago.

Beer is beer and if you want it chilled amd canned it's all about standard priced world wide. Ingredients all come from same nations - all imported. Hops and barely, not so much in Singapore...

I developed a drinking problem in Cambodia. Returning twenty years later Id do much less partying but far more pub marathons and drinking alone - if I was not married amd living IN Thailand.

Outside Cambodia, only Lao and Vietnam have cheap alcohol. So does Phils, but its swill. The rest ate far more expensive.

That wasn't JB you bought. You can't get it in the US for that price. Be careful.

Saying beer is beer is like saying a car is a car. Huge differences.

[MrWorldwide]

A bottl of beer is my measurement of how expensive a country is. Its the first question I ask someone when they have been to a new place

I suspect that joeaverage's answer may be pretty close to the mark, particularly after that first couple of beers leaves me with a 'taste', but the cost of drinks in a bar is one of the first questions that many TVers want answered when they are scoping out a possible alternative to Thailand. Personally, I think its swings-and-roundabouts : rent, fuel. wages and food are so much lower than Oz that I would need to be basically drinking myself to death before my overall spend caught up to what I burn through here each month - if that was the case, would it really matter how much it cost ? Someone alluded to the 'monopoly money' illusion trap one can fall into with a pocket full of baht - I dont have the same easygoing attitude to notes when it's Ringgit or SGD.

Interesting feedback re Clarke Quay - will have to check that out the next time I'm in Sillypore. Cheers !

[rak sa_ngop]

Outside Cambodia, only Lao and Vietnam have cheap alcohol. So does Phils, but its swill. The rest ate far more expensive.

Don't forget Myanmar. Also good value and Myanmar Beer is excellent

[nottocus]

No

[poanoi]

I did make a complete list of my expenses during 1 month,

...beer was the No1 expense.

These days i barely drink at all so it would have to be rent

[lazygourmet]

The cost: certainly not...

But the immediate availability: yes

[MrWorldwide]

lazygourmet, all jokes aside, I've never seen padlocks on fridges containing beer in Malaysia, but to my chagrin they now seem to be a fixture in 7-11s on lower Suk prior to 4 or 5pm. Not sure if this is a legal thing, or the result of pressure from bar owners, but it still seems restrictive when I can buy alcohol anywhere from 10am onward in Oz bottle shops. No argument that anyone sitting in their hotel room (or condo/whatever) at 10am guzzling beer has a problem, but those folks are likely to plan ahead and buy in bulk anyway. First time I've ever encountered reticence on the part of a Thai business to sell something that they know is a guaranteed money-spinner : particularly ironic given the number of people selling alcohol illegally up and down Suk from 1-2am onwards.

[jaideeguy]

LOS is hard on wine drinkers, which IMHO are the most moderate drinkers and wine is probably the least harmful [maybe even most beneficial] of all the alcohol available. Yet you can buy a bottle of 40% imported spirits for less than a decent bottle of wine @ 12.5%. Go figure..........

[Naam]

n Thaivisa hardly a day passes without somebody asking an utmost dumb question