Live in Thailand on $10 /day

Cell phones, satellite TV, running water, gas cooker, all the modern amenities, and their income is around $10 per day……. but could you live here?

 

The story starts here, in the agricultural land about 200km north of Bangkok. This photo is taken from the temple high on the hill overlooking the town of Chinat; A very beautiful but somewhat isolated temple, but that is another story.

From this view, you can see that the entire area is quite well watered, and this mostly due to the irrigation canals that cris-cross the entire landscape. Rice farms account for much of the agriculture in this area although there are also numerous fruit farms. The land is generally kept in large tracts held by a few people and most of the population is desperately poor and work for a subsistence income by their personal labor only. Given that there is no welfare or any other kind of fall back for the people, then they are all quite willing and ready for work of any kind and at any time.

We travelled to a farm that is about 45 km south and about mid way between Chinat and Supan Buri. My friend has a friend there who has been asking us to go and visit for a very long time, and so, since we were in the general area, we made the call and the plan to make the visit was finally put into action. The roads and bridges all around Thailand are all very good, and there was no problem with any travelling. However, getting clear direction from the Thais on just where they were or how to get there was quite a challenge. Numerous phone calls and stopping to ask directions three times finally resulted in us being on the right road into the farm. This was an unsealed one lane road but not too rough…. so far so good. Along the way we did encounter one of the local wildlife. This lizard was about 5 feet long and I tried to encourage it out onto the road for a full picture, but it took fright and ran back down into the irrigation canal and disappeared into the undergrowth. We were later told that there are many of these creatures around this area, and interestingly enough, the Thai people regard these as very bad luck. I have not been able to find out why this is attributed to these lizards, but it is a very serious insult if you are called one of these (worse than being called a dog or any other animal). I will not put the Thai expression here, but the story is enough. To be stupid is to be a buffalo, but to be really bad, and you are called one of these things.

Finally we arrive. I met Lek when she was working in Bangkok and no, she was never a girlfriend or any other relationship ever existed. She was a friend of a friend and someone whom I tried to help a little. But yes, she was working in the oldest profession – something that she is not so proud of now, but not something that she would ever feel any guilty conscience about. She was only doing what she had to do to help out her family who were actually living on this farm. She is a nice girl and she now stays “home” with her husband (never actually formally married, but that does not really matter out here).

She was raised on this farm, and I think that she is illiterate as are so many from the farms. These days it is compulsory to send the children to schools, but this is only a quite recent law and not so long ago, it was very common for children to not be sent to school after the first few years. No one actually thought that this was such a bad thing anyway especially for the girls as they were only likely to be farmers’ wives. Not even necessary for the boys too because it was considered that they would only be left to work on the farm just as had generations of their families in the past. Today this has left them with little options, and so they just stay on the farm and do what they can to maintain a living. But there are some strange things out here now and intrusions of the modern world in their lifestyles, mobile phones being the most noticeable and almost everyone, even out here on the farms, seems to have a hand phone and the money to pay for the calls.

Motorcycles are another modern addition to the family lifestyle here, and nearly every household has at least one motorcycle. Actually, motorcycles are mass produced here in Thailand and so are relatively cheap to buy, but the price would be a huge investment for these people and I really don’t know how they do it. The bike becomes the family transport and it is very common to see the entire family aboard the motorcycle and heading off to the market. Helmets are quite expensive, so they are almost never worn by anyone here and generally the people don’t even consider them to be necessary anyway. I was told once “He always rides a long way on his motorcycle and never had a problem before, so it will be fine, don’t worry about him.” So there you go, and I don’t push it any further on that topic.

Lek and her husband live in a house just like this one that is the next door neighbors. The really strange thing with this house is that that is a solar electricity generation panel that you can see in front of the house. I commented on this and was told that it is in use and works quite well. I suggested that it was in a shaded area and that it was quite dirty. I made the suggestion that they should clean off the collected dust and reposition it away from the house and the trees. I was told that this could not work because it has to be near the house so that the cable would not be too long. Good enough but what about the dirt? Well, I didn’t pursue that any further either.

How would you like this as the view when you are sitting in the front of your house? All very tropical and exotic? Sure is, and the climate is wonderfully warm and balmy all year round. Just a great place to live for sure and this alone makes it seem just so inviting.

I decided to wander off and check out the actual lifestyle, and here is a tour of the house. This structure is mostly bush timber sticks and small logs with a cladding of very rough corrugated iron. However, the ventilation is very good and the place certainly keeps very airy so I guess not so hot. Firstly, here is the kitchen. Note the cooking facilities which are quite a step up from a few years ago when it would have only been open fires and perhaps a charcoal fired cooking pot although such are still very commonly used.

Kitchen - Bedroom - Bathroom

Moving on to the bedroom, and again it is quite simple in design and layout. The floor is very dry, dusty dirt so I guess that this saves lots of time without the need to sweep or dust. Note that all furnishings are produced right here, and there is almost no commercially made furniture at all. Bamboo is used extensively. Note that the leg of the bed needed to be adjusted to the right height, and a suitably sized chunk of concrete works very well and is a permanent part of the layout of the room. Actually, between the kitchen and this bedroom, that is the entire interior of the home, probably about the size of a garage in a western country, although I guess most garages in America would be much more luxuriously appointed than this place.

The next place to check out was the bathroom. This was a detached building, about ten feet from the side door of the main home. This is a pretty modern facility. It boasts running water (actually the only part of the home with any plumbing at all) and a flushing style of toilet. I have never bothered to find out how the toilet works. I guess it is a system similar to a septic tank but I have never actually seen such a tank in or near these types of bathroom, so I am not quite sure how the waste is treated or disposed of. Just another topic I choose not to know any more about. You can see that it has a cement floor so this is quite modern. There are buckets of water kept filled from the one outlet tap and this is then used to “flush” the toilet with large ladles. It is also the water from the large buckets that is used for showering and the water is just ladled over the body as required. This is all very minimalistic in the approach, but it takes almost no maintenance and it serves the purpose perfectly well.

When you feel like a little relax (and that seems to be pretty often here) you can relax by the pond at the back of the house. This is a nice shady area and the pond often supplies a good sized fish for the evening meals, so everything has a good place and serves many purposes here. Again this is a very low maintenance area and it is very clear that there has been no maintenance for a very long time. It gets cleaned only on a “as needed” basis and that certainly does not seem to come along very often at all. However, it is free, and a very relaxing spot to while away a hot afternoon.

Now, once again, there is a surprise. On turning around from a wistful gaze over the pond I get jolted back to the 21st century. This picture says it all. No money for something better than a dirt floor, but we simply have to have that satellite TV! Yes, that is the bathroom on the left. Maybe there is no local reception available for television here or maybe this was put here by a generous benefactor, I really don’t know. Actually, this is just the sort of thing that these people would run out and buy if they ever were lucky enough to finally have a win in the lottery. Everything else is so normal; they just don’t see the need to upgrade anything. I did not even bother to bring this thing up in conversation as it just did not seem to those living here to be all that unusual. Times have sure changed for the poor people in rural Thailand!

Now, how to make a living? Here is Lek’s husband stringing flowers onto bits of twine which are used to make fresh smelling floral arrangements that are very popular here. Many people buy the final products to hang in their cars and trucks. They not only smell great, but are thought to bring good luck. The sellers for these things wander around in the lanes of traffic stopped at the numerous traffic lights on the highways and byways all around the country. There is good demand for the products, and near Lek’s home the flowers grow profusely so there is no shortage of resources. This is just one of the ways that they can earn money right here at home. Also in this picture is his grandmother. She is very quiet and just sits there and watches the world turn. It is possible that she is does not have nimble enough fingers to help with the work, but that would not be any issue anyway. She is elderly, and the entire family is more than happy to have her there and support her completely. I am sure that she lends her vast expertise in cooking at meal times too.

We had brought with us a few dishes of food, such is the custom around the world and especially here. You just don’t turn up empty handed when visiting family or good friends. In the market, there were some quite unusual dishes, and I was told that the one pictured here is very popular and it certainly is an interesting way of packaging food. I guess this comes from very long ago when there were no other materials available other than what occurred naturally and nearby.

As you can see, the big leaf water plant is put to very good use. This is called Bai Mai Doc Bua, or the leaf of the Bua flower water plant. This has other used too, but as a package to contain the food which is then steamed, it still works perfectly and is commonly used around the country. Contained here is rice, vegetables, pork and eggs all beautifully cooked and quite delicious. Please forgive the Styrofoam packaging of the modern Thai market place.

This place is just a wonderland of things to see and do. Here I go off exploring and not far from the home is a very large pond and it is just full of all kinds of wildlife. I did see another large lizard like the one that greeted us on the road in but this one was busily swimming away among all the water weed. I can see why the people living this very simple lifestyle love it so much and really cannot see anything that they would like to change.

So, could you live here? I know of many westerners who have made the change and “gone native” as it is referred to. It does take a certain kind of individual (and I don’t mean only those who have no option other than a jail cell in the west). Generally, when a guy who is accustomed to western standards of living tries to live in such a place, they first inject a big slab of money and establish for themselves a place similar to what they are used to. This can be seen around the country in almost every village and it not really the same as actually living the true Thailand rural lifestyle. We really cannot comprehend what it would be like to have absolutely zero money and still have such a carefree lifestyle and attitude to the world. The extended family is still very much part of the social structure, and certainly is a major contributing factor to the attitude of the locals. They are totally self reliant and self sufficient. They have been taking care of themselves for a very long time and have not forgotten how in this century. But they do like the modern trappings, and it is likely that the very basic lifestyle will be gone before the passing of another generation. Sad really, but that is progress.