Isaan bound

Stickman's in rural Isaan this week. I particularly liked his account of village life
The reality is though that the infrastructure of this village, like most in the entire Isaan region, is barely adequate. The water supply can go off for days at a time and a period without mains water of a week is not uncommon. High speed internet you can forget although, like much of rural Isaan, there is excellent mobile coverage so getting medium speed internet with your mobile phone is quite doable. If you want a copy of the Bangkok Post or The Nation, you would have to travel into Khon Kaen proper. But then if you wanted all of these comforts, you'd never have moved there in the first place.
... and this, on money (pertinent for some of our readers)
Speaking of money, while there's not much to spend your money on, it is a complete and utter fallacy that these rural Isaan families can live happily on 3,000 baht a month. You so often hear calls in Pattaya and Bangkok bars from guys - often those without a lot of money - telling others not to "over pay". Subsequent argument concerns the low cost of living in the village and the little amount of money needed to survive. Aren't these guys so noble? The truth is that people in these villages need much more money than you think. Sending kids to school, for example, is relatively expensive. Country folks' kids may not have 5 sets of school uniform like the city folks but they need money for transport to get to school, money for snacks and the school always has their hand out for this or that every other week. Just getting around isn't cheap and a trip into Khon Kaen will cost at least 20 baht each way. It doesn't sound like much but then you might have to travel across the city on another form of transport once you get there. The truth is that this talk of 3,000 baht a month being enough to survive on is absolutely survival level. Many in the poor, rural parts of Isaan are in debt up to their eyeballs. Recent price increases for basic food items have really hit them hard. And frankly, the dwellings most live in are very humbling indeed.
http://www.stickmanbangkok.ofingo.com/S ... onKaen.htm (http://www.stickmanbangkok.ofingo.com/StickMarkII/DestinationKhonKaen.htm)

[thaiguest]

Stickman's in rural Isaan this week. I particularly liked his account of village life
The reality is though that the infrastructure of this village, like most in the entire Isaan region, is barely adequate. The water supply can go off for days at a time and a period without mains water of a week is not uncommon. High speed internet you can forget although, like much of rural Isaan, there is excellent mobile coverage so getting medium speed internet with your mobile phone is quite doable. If you want a copy of the Bangkok Post or The Nation, you would have to travel into Khon Kaen proper. But then if you wanted all of these comforts, you'd never have moved there in the first place.
... and this, on money (pertinent for some of our readers)
Speaking of money, while there's not much to spend your money on, it is a complete and utter fallacy that these rural Isaan families can live happily on 3,000 baht a month. You so often hear calls in Pattaya and Bangkok bars from guys - often those without a lot of money - telling others not to "over pay". Subsequent argument concerns the low cost of living in the village and the little amount of money needed to survive. Aren't these guys so noble? The truth is that people in these villages need much more money than you think. Sending kids to school, for example, is relatively expensive. Country folks' kids may not have 5 sets of school uniform like the city folks but they need money for transport to get to school, money for snacks and the school always has their hand out for this or that every other week. Just getting around isn't cheap and a trip into Khon Kaen will cost at least 20 baht each way. It doesn't sound like much but then you might have to travel across the city on another form of transport once you get there. The truth is that this talk of 3,000 baht a month being enough to survive on is absolutely survival level. Many in the poor, rural parts of Isaan are in debt up to their eyeballs. Recent price increases for basic food items have really hit them hard. And frankly, the dwellings most live in are very humbling indeed.
http://www.stickmanbangkok.ofingo.com/S ... onKaen.htm (http://www.stickmanbangkok.ofingo.com/StickMarkII/DestinationKhonKaen.htm)

Having been to a village 2 hours east of Udon Thani and having stayed there for a week (with my boy) looking out at rain-drenched fowl and insipid slabs of rubber made from moulds created by countless hours of labour and seeing vast vistas of waterlogged fields sporting tenuous crops of rice I thanked fortune/god/fate or whatever for delivering me from such an existence. Yet, the Thais themselves, in their day-to-day routine, belied all this misery..they were so happy. so hospitable, so unaware of their poverty that I went away wondering who was poor, I, myself, or they.
Yet the fact is, that, even Isaan, Thailand, has been bitten by the western (mostly American) 'affluenza' bug as has most of Asia.
Read all about it in Oliver James' book 'Affluenza' published in 2007 by Vermilion, London.

Yet the fact is, that, even Isaan, Thailand, has been bitten by the western (mostly American) 'affluenza' bug as has most of Asia. Read all about it in Oliver James' book 'Affluenza' published in 2007 by Vermilion, London.Selfish bastards - fancy wanting a washing machine or some other labour-saving device. Why can't they content themselves with back-breaking work like their parents and grand-parents?

[TrongpaiExpat]

I was surprised looking around my BF home town center, So Pisi, in Nong Khai Province at the prices. Many items were priced higher than Bangkok, especially at the electronics store. All the stores are mom and Pop or open markets and even some food prices were higher than in the Bangkok super stores, Tesco, Big C etc. The nearest Tesco is a two hour drive and some actually drive there if they are buying enough to make the trip worthwhile.

The other option is black market goods from Lao, especially cigarettes and whiskey.

The vast majority of goods in Laos are more expensive than Thailand.
Many people I know in Wiangjang do their shopping at Tesco in Nong Khai.The savings more than make up for the additional transport cost.

[thaiguest]

Yet the fact is, that, even Isaan, Thailand, has been bitten by the western (mostly American) 'affluenza' bug as has most of Asia. Read all about it in Oliver James' book 'Affluenza' published in 2007 by Vermilion, London.Selfish bastards - fancy wanting a washing machine or some other labour-saving device. Why can't they content themselves with back-breaking work like their parents and grand-parents?

No, it's not about washing machines and other labour saving devices.
From what i could see the parents/grandparents couldn't care less about such things and didn't have them.
What they did have was a plethora of offsprings with mobile phones glued to their ears, obsessed with western TV and living out the fantasies of Thai Soaps and all financed by a few rai of rice or a few bales of rubber (or maybe a falang or two in pattaya). When you see the Isaan boys in Pattaya sporting 2 inch finger nails you can bet they won't be helping with the harvest any time soon.

When you see the Isaan boys in Pattaya sporting 2 inch finger nails you can bet they won't be helping with the harvest any time soon.Yes, clearly we must impose our own standards of moral indignation and demand that the Thais revert to the nobility of the simple, non-consumerist life ... while we, of course, go on with ours. I'm wondering how you arrive at your conclusion that the parents are not interested in labour-saving devices such as washing machines

Has anyone spent time in a typical rural village in either Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, or Myanmar? If you have, you will no longer think of a typical Issan village as "poor".

[thaiguest]

When you see the Isaan boys in Pattaya sporting 2 inch finger nails you can bet they won't be helping with the harvest any time soon.Yes, clearly we must impose our own standards of moral indignation and demand that the Thais revert to the nobility of the simple, non-consumerist life ... while we, of course, go on with ours
Don't be too smug in the belief that we can 'go on with ours'. The signs are not too good right now for 'us'.
When and if we all go home or the boys reach 40, they'll be very happy to have the rice farm.

I have an Isaan friend at the moment and he asked me to buy his mother a washing machine. It is the only thing he has asked for like that. He has never asked me to buy him a mobile phone.

[thaiguest]

I have an Isaan friend at the moment and he asked me to buy his mother a washing machine. It is the only thing he has asked for like that. He has never asked me to buy him a mobile phone.
I don't doubt you for a moment.
My score at the moment (after 5 years in Thailand) with Isaan boys' requests;
MOBILE PHONES FOR THEMSELVES; 755- AT LEAST.
WASHING MACHINES FOR THEIR MOTHERS; MAYBE 1- AT MOST.

at least mom is unlikely to lose the washing machine

at least mom is unlikely to lose the washing machine

That is because it is unlikely to exist.