I really am loving Thailand, the lovely weather, despite the occasional heavy rain, and the overall ease of getting things to eat and drink its so nice... easy going. I can totally understand why its a hippy paradise.
On a practical note, we went to visit a large Makro superstore yesterday, just to look around and it has everything and anything you might want, though like the Dutch Makro stores, I am not so sure its a cheap place to go. But for everyday things, some foods, and some specialist foods.. its a once a month place, just like Makro NL.
Other shopping malls and supermarkets are equally impressive, and quite reasonable, though highly variable on price. Live sensibly here and your Bhat goes a long way, live like a crazy farang, and you will go broke pretty quick. Its easy to think, its just 100 bhat, but it adds up.. breakfast today of a nice ham omellete extra toast and a coke 0 was 129bhat, less than 3 euros.. half what you'd pay in NL, maybe even less.. But every day it adds up.
The small markets and street and just off street food vendors and produce sellers are amazing though, there's no need to stock up on things just step onto the street and you can buy breakfast, or fresh meat and veg for tonights meal, for very little money. Its quite extrodinary just how much retail enterprise there is here,
Tomorow we have a weekend in Hua Hin to investigate it as a possible retirement place, but it will be hard to beat Chiang mai, even just in the old town this place has everything, step out a bit into the many different sub-city centres and you find even more to keep you in the 21st centry shoppers paradise.
We are looking at different areas here, and there are so many options, when we do jump, our plan is to rent for a year until we find the dream place to buy, I am wondering if we'll need that long :D some wonderful houses here at and below our expected budget.
I'll report on Hua Hin soon..But probably won't take laptop with me, which btw is being a bit temperamental, seems the cmos battery has died so it refuses to boot without following a hard reset process... but hard to do on the move so we'll leave it here as we go into tourist mode for the weekend.
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