I Own a Lady Bar in Thailand. This Is How Much It Costs.

Sign up for SafetyWing Nomad Insurance before you travel to Thailand: Get SafetyWing Nomad Insurance

Curious about the Cost of Living Abroad? Stay updated with the latest visa, bank & expat tips: Subscribe to the newsletter

This episode of The Cost of Living Abroad Pod is brought to you by SafetyWing Nomad Insurance. In this episode of The Cost of Living Abroad Pod with ‪@NolanJax‬ and ‪@evan_eh‬ we compare the best affordable places to live and retire early in SE Asia, including a full monthly budget breakdown of Chiang Mai, Thailand, Opening a Thai Lady Bar, dealing with Thai Bar Girls, and discussions of the pros and cons of living in Thailand vs Vietnam.

Here is the link to Nolan's business: https://www.nolan-jax.com/home

Episode chapters:

00:00 Cost of Living in Chiang Mai
04:37 Setting Up a Lady Bar
12:31 Challenges of Staffing and Management
18:26 Transitioning from Software Development to Entrepreneurship
23:55 Understanding the Lady Bar Culture
30:21 Safety and Community in Chiang Mai
33:21 Navigating Language Barriers in Thailand
35:45 Cultural Adaptation and Insights
37:40 Transportation and Cost of Living
40:49 Lessons from Opening a Lady Bar in Thailand
45:26 YouTube Journey and Authenticity


Leave a review, if you enjoyed listening — it helps more than you think.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by Safety Wing. Today,
on the Cost of Living a broad Pod, we're diving
into the neon lit your soap underbelly of chang My,
Thailand with Nolan, a Next programmer turned lady bar owner.
He made nearly twenty thousand a month from his first
bar before losing it all in a classic Thailand flame over.
But he's back with a second bar, smarter, sharper, and

(00:21):
willing to spill every hard earned lesson about what it
really takes to run a lady bar in Thailand. Welcome
to the Cost of Living a broad Pod. I'm super
excited to talk to you today. I know you own
a lady bar in chang My, Thailand, and I've watched
a bunch of your videos on YouTube, so I'm really
excited to share with my audience basically your cost of

(00:42):
living everything you've gone through to set up not one,
but two different lady bars in Changmi, and kind of
to hear the struggles, the pros and cons and what
it's actually been like for you to leave home, relocate
to Thailand and start a business.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Let's jump right into your cost of living. You know,
what you're eating on a daily basis, how much you're
spending monthsly on food, and then you can just sort of,
you know, naturally incorporate the costs of your business as
well into that if you want to.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I actually am living right now in a townhouse in Padet,
which is fairly close to my bar. So I moved
in there probably three months ago just because of the location.
And it's about eleven thousand a month, which is really
nice for having I have two bedrooms in an office
or am able to set up a studio for my
YouTube channel, so and I actually can sublet one of

(01:40):
the rooms out to one of my staff.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
So that's pretty handy as well. So nice.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
You know, Usually that average basis, I'm spending maybe you know,
maybe up up to five and about a day on food,
as where I'm at, like where the bar is at
is in like a pretty tourist area for Chang Miley's,
so I mean either at the bar are trying to
get food quickly to go back to the bar and film,
So between coffees and food, I'm thinking about five and

(02:05):
about a day.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's sort of fifteen to twenty dollars US range. Maybe, Yeah,
it's so hard to gauge these things, right because so
many people in the audience, not so many people. People
tend to do this thing where they think, oh, Thailand's
so much more expensive than it used to be, and
I think they idealize or like have this sort of
like vision of like the paradise on five hundred dollars

(02:26):
a month thing, And it's like, you can do that
if you're a broad backpacker or whatever. But the majority
of us who live here, like yourself and myself who
live here long term, you wouldn't want to write like
what you're doing is experiencing a different sort of quality
or life. You're saying basically, your food costs are actually
more than your your rental cost for your place would

(02:50):
Like it's what do you think that kind of cost
would would be back home in Canada? Right, Like the
equivalent to maybe five hundred bucks on food and drink,
three hundred and fifty on rent eight hundred and fifty bucks,
which is maybe a thousand bucks Canadian? How much does
that send you back in Alberta and in Canada.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
A townhouse like this, you're probably looking at two grand
Canadian a month, maybe maybe more, and then food with
food these days in Canada, I don't even want to
think about it. It'd be ridiculous. I remember when last
time I went back. Even going out for fast food
in Canada, these days, you're looking at twenty bucks for
a burger and fry.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
It's like, it's it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
So, you know, the last yeah, the last time I
went home, I had a great time. It was like
right after the COVID break in twenty twenty two. In
other words, it was cheaper, not then than it is
even now. Yeah, I remember I got a I went
to like a local diner, a spot in the neighborhood.
I grew up in this place, has you know, been
there probably for a couple of decades. And I sat down,

(03:52):
I ate something so simple. I think it was like
a French toast with like you know, like three sticks
of bacon or something. And it was literally like twenty
five dollars with my coffee. And they were charging extra
for sierra. I mean, can't blame them. I guess it's
the cost of running a business. Yeah, so let's get
into the business aspect of it too. Your your bar,

(04:13):
I know, it's like literally adjacent or on the back
of the big Way Thai stadium and ring in Chang Mai.
So why don't you tell me a little bit about
not just the cost of like rent and operational costs,
but the whole process of setting up that business for you.
How much it costs you know?

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
So when I came back this year, this bar was
sitting empty. Essentially, what it is in Changmi you have
Loydcrow Road, which is where all the lady bars are
really situated, and then kind of almost at the end,
you have the boxing stadium and that is kind of
the hub of that area. There's a hallway all the
way back with bars, and then in the back you

(04:54):
have a boxing ring with more bars surrounding that long
and mine's right on the back. To get that bar,
I neither pay key money. In these bars. You pay
three hundred thousand bought up front plus sixty thousand which
is your two months damage deposit, first month rent, and
then a three thousand bought processing fee. So that'll get

(05:15):
you in the door to actually open the bar. Then
you need licenses like business license, liquor license. If you're
gonna sell cigarettes, you need those that could be anywhere
from three to five thousand bought, and that'll give you
for the year and then then you're good to go.
The doors could be opened. But with mine, like it
just flooded and Shang Mai. Actually right before I got

(05:35):
the bar, probably maybe like two weeks before I got
the bar, it had flooded, so there was no fridge
in there. There was really nothing in there. There was
a bar top and a couple of shells and some chairs,
but I had to buy a bunch of schools and
liquor and more shelving and new fridge. So probably once
we're ready to open, I was probably another one hundred

(05:56):
and fifty thousand bought in in investing into the bar
actually get us open. But that being said, like I
didn't need to put all that in. I just wanted
to add a bit more to the mark to get
it open.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Right, So a thousand bots about thirty bucks. So you're
saying the the initial cost is about under under ten
thousand US dollars, another couple thousand for the sort of
the actual physical location, the rent, et cetera. And then
the regulation, red tape bureaucratic stuff in this sort of

(06:28):
three thousand dollars range altogether, so like all in, you're
still talking under fifteen thousand bucks. Like to open the
door like latch keys turn and start operating.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, that's pretty manageable.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
What about the costs of the operational costs? So not
just like all the liquor and buying liquor, ordering liquor,
that whole process, but also the bargols, like what's it
like hiring a staff, you know, dealing with the staff,
not just paying them financially. Also the sort of like
you know, the language bearers, the psychological emotional stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, I mean that is definitely a tricky side.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
There's a weird part in the bar scene in Thailand
is that I cannot legally hire somebody to work in
the bar, so I have to have somebody to hire
people to work for me. So I actually found somebody
when I first opened. Somebody found me my manager, and
then she came to work for me, and then she
would hire everybody. She would post on Facebook, she would

(07:25):
ask friends, she would look around, and then we'd slowly
get people into the bar. The biggest challenge for the
entire time we've been opened is getting staff. Like the
girls either don't want to come consistently, or they don't
know how to work, or they don't know how to
speak English. So it's obviously it's the area Island is
predominantly for foreigners, so if you don't speak English, it

(07:48):
makes it harder to you know, communicate with the customers.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
So that has.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Been a big challenge, is getting staff and maintaining staff
throughout the whole time. So like payment is different, like
every bar pays differently, but you know, we pay a
salary because we're right in the back, and I find
that when you're in the back of the stadium, all
the bars have to pay salary because the girls really
don't want to come to the back and have to
serve the customers drinks were watching the fights because those

(08:14):
people are not buying them drinks, they're just buying drinks
through themselves. So you have to pay a salary. So
we pay about three hundred bought a day in salary,
and then we pay them per drink they.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Get after that as well, and then again that varies
on bars.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Okay, right, So the structure is like it's about whatever
it is ten to twelve dollars us D salary and
then a sort of tip or commit sales based commission,
I guess you'd call it where they got a couple bucks,
they sell a drink, and what's it like your all
time sort of? I know you've had two different bars,
so you can you can sort of explain the difference
between how each one worked out, didn't work out. What's

(08:52):
your your all time sort of like highest month, the
most you're selling, the biggest, you know, gross revenue, well.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Gross revenue I think was around six hundred thousand bought
in one month with a profit of almost three hundred
thousand bought. That was in my first bar. Because the
thing with that bar was that what was really a
large bar, which was great, well it was it kind
of a double edged sword, but it was great because
you could have a lot of girls, you could have

(09:20):
a pool table, you could have a lot of room,
But then you had to have a lot of girls
at one point in that bar. The reason why we
were making so much money was during high season, we
had ten to fifteen girls, and if each one of
them are getting a decent number of drinks, then you
can actually make a good amount of money. But then
once it started to slow down, all of a sudden,
you having to pay salary for ten to fifteen girls

(09:41):
when the customers just aren't there anymore. So it made
it kind of like when I was running, I kind
of took care of it for the first that one,
like we opened in January of twenty.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Three, and that one, for the first four months.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
I was the one running the bar and or I
had a manager, but I was on making sure everything
was there any proper, And we were making two to
three hundred thousand bought a month on average. But then
once I left because I had to go home to
Canada for family reasons, and so then we started, Louis
lost fifty thousand bott a month after that for the summertime.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
So okay, So I mean those are pretty I think
for a lot of people, that'd be pretty shockingly large
numbers though, right, I mean, like six hundred thousand is
over twenty thousand dollars Canadian revenue. You're talking about ten
thousand dollars Canadian a month, I mean, and keeping in
mind the you know the differences and cost of living, salary,
operational costs. But then the flip side too, is that

(10:38):
losing fifty thousand a month, that's a home let me
check it out. I don't want to get this number wrong.
That's fifty over fifteen hundred dollars and they're read a
month U attitude. What's that like? Almost two thousand dollars
Canadian a month? No joke? Yeah, wow, So what that's
a pretty high risk? I mean, I think it's more

(10:59):
risk financially people would think, right even just like the
number we lab was saying like, Okay, you're all in,
you're opening a business for fifteen thousand dollars, but then
you're you're in a risk scenario where you could lose
ten percent of that a month in operational costs.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
That one.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
We The reason why we lost money in that one
was because we made some My partner and I had
made some errors that one of the reasons why I
ended up selling it to her was that she refused
to mitigate those errors. So, you know, there's things you
can do salary wise, Like back in that bar, we
were paying them five and are bought a day no
matter what, and then they'd get twenty bought for the
first four drinks and then a hunt about after that.

(11:38):
But a lot of the girls had the mentality that
they're fine, I'm living on five and about a day
they got fifteen thousand bought a month. That's a that's
a good salary here for some a lot of type people.
So they're like, we don't need drinks, we don't want
customers to come to the bar, we don't want to
get say, with anybody. So it's like they're actively trying
to make the bar and not too well because they're
fine and making that. So you kind of have to

(11:59):
lo their salary and make it an incentive to get
drinks so that you know you both can succeed. So
there are things you can change that a lot of
the other bars do in the area. But she just
wasn't willing to do that, and it just was really
difficult to get us to move towards something more like that.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Tell me about that original process of how you met
your first business partner.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
So when I.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Initially came to Thailand, I came for a different reason,
and I was here doing software development, and I was
actually living in Santi Tam, which is a kind of
the north western corner of Chang Mai, and just happened
to be that the Condominimum was staying at was two
blocks away from her first bar that she opened with

(12:42):
another Thai guy that she knew, and so they'd have
food and drinks there, and it was right near my place,
so I would go there every once in a while,
and she happened to be the only girl there that
spoke English. So we just started a friendship. And I
was here again, like I wasn't here trying to work
on business. I was here working on on soft development
and building an app for myself. But in conversations with her,

(13:05):
it just seemed how possible and how open Thailand it
is to starting businesses. How they do really reduce a
lot of the barriers to entry on things you have
to do in the West. You know, you don't have
to do the inspections and the you know, red tape
and all the legalities that you do have to do
in the West. You can kind of break through that.
She even said for herself, like you can set up

(13:26):
a restaurant like she had a restaurant, and you don't
have to have the licensing, you don't have to have
any of that in place. You can open for six
months and then you can go back and get all
the things you need to make sure that you're about board.
So I kind of give you that grace period here
to make sure that you can actually do that. Anyways,
I ended up having to go home after that time

(13:47):
frame and coming back the next year. I came back
with kind of mentality that maybe I'm gonna shift away
from softer development as I got kind of disenfranchised with
that and move towards more of a physical entrepreneur. Sit
here in Thailand, What.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Was the process in your mind? And then also like
physically getting ready for it, Like why did you leave
Canada for Thailand?

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, I left Canada the first time and during COVID
so twenty twenty one I think it was, and Canada
was locking down like crazy on COVID. Everything was where
I was because I was actually working in Northern BC
and I'm from Alberta. Technically at the time in Canada,
it was illegal for me to drive to work. So
it was just like there's so many regulations, there's so

(14:31):
many things. I was just like, this is just ridiculous that,
like this is how we're treating this. And I've been
talking like I've always been into like the digital nomad space,
like you know, researching being a digital nomad, and I'd
previously talked to another guy who's lived here a long time,
Brett Dev, and we had a conversation about like digital
nomad and Chang Mai and you know where to come

(14:54):
and when I I wanted to get out of Canada,
was sick of Canada for the minute. I just wanted
to get out And and I don't think get away
from the winters a little bit too. Like where I'm from,
every year it gets down to minus fifty and I'm
just like, I don't want to do another winter if
minus fifty. So I'm going to get away from that
for a little bit. And I thought, might as well
try Thailand, Like it looks beautiful and this is what

(15:15):
I want to do. And so that's I kind of
just gave the like took the plunge and moved over
for the winter. So obviously things changed, but yeah, it was.
It was a great experience.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
How come after your first year you make that shift,
you know, forget the cliche digital nomad sitting in a
laptop on a cafe all day and you go back
to basics and open up real brick and mortar business.
I mean, I love it. I think it's awesome that
you're taking that risk, it's more skin in the game.
You're more invested in Thailand and the people, the community,
the place. So tell me about that choice for you.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
So when I was here initially doing this soft development,
I met that buddy mine and he'd shown me the
Lloyd Cray area, the area that I ended up opening
my bar in, but like through that time and then
going back because I was actually building an app for
the oil and gas industry, trying to pitch it to them,
trying to get somebody to buy in. Essentially, I was
told that the only way I could get that app
off the ground is if I put like a half

(16:07):
a million Canadian dollars into myself. Trying to freelance and
working with clients online. In the software industry, you're really
underpriced if you're a Westerner because you got to compete
against people who are willing to do it for half
the price if they're from you know, Ukraine or from
India or wherever. So it's like you keep getting undercut,
and I just I kind of got sick of having
to deal with that. Whereas like I felt like if

(16:28):
I had something of my own, yes, you're going to
have other challenges, but you can control the narrator. You
can control it a lot more than the digital sphere
where you have to be competing with everybody in the
whole world.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
I think that's such an interesting take on it, because
one of the things that I've never really quite articulated
it that way. But one of the things I always
think about now is that even people including myself, who
I had a really traditional in person career. I was
a school teacher for seven years, you know, all over
the world internationally, but also like I worked for the

(17:05):
public school board in Canada, I worked for the government
right it was a literal public servant and public employee.
And I think that a lot of people in that space,
myself included, don't think of themselves as competing globally, but
we actually are now, Like anyone, including teenagers in Canada

(17:26):
can just go online and get educated now, But we
have those sort of like old school industries where you
don't you don't see the fact that you're in you
know what I mean, Like you can't like tangibly see
your competition, so it's easy to tell yourself that you're
not competing with them and it's not actually affecting you.
You kind of like open my eyes there in a
way that I hadn't thought about, and I appreciate it.

(17:47):
So tell me about the flip side of that. Whereas
you're now in competition of course with your neighbors and
the other bars at the Matai Arena and in Chang
Mai and around Thailand, but I know there's all also
like a really different sort of sense of community among
business owners. And you started your own membership of bar

(18:08):
owners in Thailand and people who are interested in the
bar and nightlife and food the beverage industry in Thailand.
So tell me about that experience for you, you know,
immersing yourself in the local culture through through enterprise, through
being an entrepreneur and a business owner.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
One of the one of the best things and one
of the most interesting things I find with having a
bar there is like, if you're in an area like
this in Canada, your next your neighbor is not your friend.
They're not gonna help you out, They're not gonna be
there for you. They're your competition.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
You want them to fail so you can succeed. Whereas
here all the bars if if you go there and if.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
You're social and if you're you know, you're going throughout
each other, They're gonna come to you.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
They'll help you out. Like I can.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
If I need liquor that I ran out of there,
then I can borrow from another bar. If I, you know,
don't have lines or something, I can borrow and I
give it back the next day, and and vice versa.
You know, they're willing, they'll come to my bar. Like
my birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and all
the bars in the area came and were buying drinks
for me and my girls, and like they were want.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
They want you to succeed here.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
They really do care that you're doing well and actually
care that you're you're gonna succeed here, whereas I think
there's not that mentality anymore in the West, there's that
like competitive mentality. And one of the problems I find
is a lot of guys who come over here and
they try to institute that kind of competitive Western mentality
into Thailand. They get pushed out because people don't want

(19:31):
to deal with that here. We didn't come to Thailand
to be like the West. They came here to be
like Thailand. And so you gotta it can't get hard.
You really have to kind of go with the flow
a little bit more here than you would maybe back
in Canada. There's a lot more. Well, it's tie time.
That's always the thing that people say, right, Taye. People
work on their own time frame. They're not gonna they're

(19:52):
not gonna show up on time. They're not gonna, you know,
do things the same as we would in the West.
But at the same time, that's why we came here,
So you can't expect people to be like you are
where you came from when you left that place for
a reason. And then yeah, I've created I'm trying to
create a membership of other bars because I think there is, like,
especially for foreigners, there is a big information gap on

(20:15):
number one, getting a bar yourself. Because when I opened
my bar, like again, I had my partner and so
she kind of guided me through a lot of these things.
But there's a lot of misconceptions around what you need
as a bar, what the.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Actual hurdles they're going to be.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
And so I want to create a membership of like
minded foreign bar owners that we can help each other
out and make sure that we all succeed.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, I feel like that's so true. And even despite
Ai and the sort of you know, AI is kind
of you know, I know it's a large language model,
but when I think about AI, I think of it's
just like it's a search engine on steroids. And the
biggest issue with search engines is that there's too much information, right,
And I feel that the same way with the AI race,

(20:57):
that there's too much information and the issue the real issue,
and you're looking at something specific like opening a bar
and Thailand or legitimately like trying to move to Vietnam
to set up the right visa for you, you have the
right bank for you, the right healthcare options for you
as a single person, which is like that's the kind
of stuff I help people with on on my website

(21:20):
on the cost of living a broad dot com. It's
like you're always going to get a general answer, and
I know that you can train an AI prompt, but
it's just not the case, right, Like you have to
actually get boots on the ground or be talking to
someone like yourself who's done it before. Right, Like we
can go on to chat ChiPT and say, hey, man,

(21:41):
what's the paperwork I need to do to open a
bar in Thailand? Like I'm sorry, Like no, fucking way.
It's not gonna it's not going to actually tell you
the struggles, right, So it's a what are some of
the biggest, you know, hiccups, the roadblocks, the things you've
had to overcome. Obviously you sold your first bar, so
you've had a few, So tell me about the big

(22:04):
bumps you've had to get over on the way to
having a business.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
The number one thing with the first bar was being
on eye to eye, like I'm having the same vision
as my partner with where the bar was gonna go,
and so we had a different idea of how the
bar was going to move forward, and that's kind of
where we came to heads and so we ended up
having some issues. The biggest but the biggest problem is

(22:29):
always going to be coming to staffing, because staffing is
gonna be what makes your breaks your business here, especially
a lady bar. Like there's a big misinception with the
lady bars that you just need to if you just
have the hottest girls in the world working in the bar,
you're gonna do great. When it's like I had really
hot girls work at the other bar. But the big
thing for slow season is that you need people who

(22:50):
want to keep coming back, and so these girls have
to know that they need to make friendship with these guys,
not romantic, but just like relationship with these guys so
that they'll want to come all the time. They want
to come to the bar every week because a lot
of these guys live here and they I see it
all the time now, like I see guys and they'll
go around the area. They'll go to one bar, see
a girl they know there, then they'll go another bar

(23:11):
they know girls there, and then go another bar they
know a girl there, and then they'll go home. And
so it's like you want to get in that rotation
with your bar and you know, and no easier way
to say it. So it's like it's about creating that
friendship with these customers because I think especially in Shang
My Chang, my bar scene is a lot different than
say the southern ones. So it's like you have to

(23:32):
have a bit of a different mentality, but like you
have to have the staff that are willing to do
that and then understand that kind of relationship that they
need to have because you know, at the end of
the day, that's the people are gonna.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Make your business here.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
As simple as that like, if you don't have the
good people, your business is not going to do well.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Okay, So let's talk about that because I think, you know,
we've talked a tiny bit about this before, but I
think the biggest misconception about lady bar in Thailand in
Southeast Asia is that it's just sex pats westerners, right,
It's all it's only foreign Western, old white guys, sex pats,

(24:11):
passport pros looking for prostitution. And I think it's it's
way more nuanced than that, for better or worse. So
like you tell me, tell me about your take and
your own experience on that sort of stereotype or idea
of what a lady bar is.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Yeah, there's definitely guys who do come for that, and
one hundred percent that does exist, but I don't think
it's the majority, Like especially up here in Shanghmi, Like
we don't have the number of bars they do in
Pata and Bangkok, and we don't have the number of
girls working in these bars. So it's like up here,
you know, there's maybe there's probably like thirty bars ish

(24:50):
in the boxing area, maybe another twenty along the street
that are lady bars, and that's it. That's it in
the whole city, so it is the market is much smaller,
and so like you know, I've seen guys who have
the mentality.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Of the sex pad and they'll come and they'll walk.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
By the bar and they'll single signal girl to come
out and be like, oh, bar fun, and she's like no.
Because a lot of the girls who work in shang
Bi number one, the Mama songs are the managers won't
let them just leave there in the middle of the
shift because they need them to be working. And number two,
a lot of them like they don't go with customers
at all. Yes, there'll be some girls in some bar,

(25:27):
in a bar maybe that will, but not every girl
in every bar or will go with the customers. There's
a lot of different reasons why girls. Maybe they even
prefer to work in Shangbai is because they're allowed to
do that, right, Like a lot of girls have families
and they're simply sending money back to their family. They're
supporting their families, or maybe they're you know, they have
a kid and the same thing. Right, But there are

(25:49):
the ones that will be the party girls. But I
think especially in Shangbi, it's not as often whereas like
in Bangkok and Patya, you've got this insane number of
bars and each bar has like twenty or thirty girls,
And so I do think it's more prevalent down there
because you're just going to have the competition of if
you if you don't go with customers, then you know

(26:11):
they're not going to come to your bar. So I
think it might be a bit of a different case.
But I still think like it is, there.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Is a nuance to it, you know.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
I think a lot of the time it's blown out
a proportion where it is still the girl's choice.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
It's not like it's not her choice.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, I think there's also the it's I mean, it's
of course it's financial. It's transactional in the same way
if you're at home at a corporate bar in Toronto
or New York, sorry, like the waitress is flirting with
you because that's her job, right like, regardless of anything else,
that's her job. It's transactional. You're sitting there and they're
paying customer, and that you know, employees is being paid,

(26:48):
and that makes it a professional, you know, relationship. But
I do think that there's like the original statement you're saying,
what I think of two is that, like how much
of it is like the cheers thing, right, Like so
not just like the one night in Bangkok sex tourist,
sex paths or whatever, but like real actual expats, Like
the majority of my audience, they're older guys, not all,

(27:11):
but most of them are single. And even if they
aren't single and they're dating a local woman or married
to a local woman, they just want to go out
and meet other people, including other guys and other expats,
right They're looking for community, for making friends, for relationships.
And I think a huge part of that is that
like literally just like wanting to go somewhere wherever it

(27:34):
knows your name, right, like wanting to go to the
sounds corny, but I really think it's true.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
I do think That's what I think.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
I love about Chang Mai and why a lot of
guys do move up here for the long term expats
is that you know, even if you want to go
to lloydcro Road and sit with a girl, there's no
like expectation that anything more is going to happen. Maybe
you just want to go with your buddies, have a
good looking girl on your arm, buyer a couple drinks
have a good night. She'll increase the party level. Your

(28:02):
friends will have fun, and then you go home Like
it's nothing lude or like or anything CD. It's just
it's a nice environment. All the girls are friendly. It
just increases the atmosphere, right, But it definitely is something
that yeah, like it is a bit different.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
We'll talk later about YouTube and the social media aspect
of it, but part of it is that people don't
realize the actual whatever the algorithm, the thing it creates sensationalism, right,
sensational headline, sensational viral clips on a video, whereas like sure,
like maybe I've been making content NonStop for seven years,

(28:39):
it's just one or two clips that go viral, and
the people associate with that. And I think there's the
same thing about you know, like nightlife in Thailand. Right,
someone pictures nightlife, maybe they think like, oh I saw
a YouTube video of someone getting beat up, or they
saw a YouTube video it's like, you know, a walking tour,
but it's actually of like a one hundred meters strip
of pataiya that yeah, you know, ninety percent of people

(29:01):
don't live on. And I do think even here in Vietnam,
I think there's a reputation that Thailand has a sort
of scary or dangerous or CD nightlife. So do you
feel safe there? Both as an xpat as a business owner,
I use Safety Wings Essential Plan every time I travel

(29:22):
around Southeast Asia to film this show. And not just
for medical stuff. You also get up to five hundred
dollars per luggage item lost, three thousand dollars if your
checked luggage disappears, five thousand dollars for tripped interruptions. I mean,
this stuff can come in super handy if my camera
equipment or recording gear goes missing, or if I get

(29:43):
stuck and have to reschedule an episode, And if there's
travel delays, they do cover you for up to one
hundred dollars a day in your hotel. And this is
on top of all the medical insurance. If it sounds
good to you, use this QR code over my shoulder
to sign up now or check the link pin in
the comments and at the top of the descriptions for
this episode. I mean, you literally said you had a

(30:05):
falling out with your your old Thai partner, but you know,
how was that or is it scary? Is it actually safe?
What's alike? Right? You're you're in the city dangerous.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
That was the one thing that like my family was
worried about what I said I was first gonna come
over here. But Thailand is very, very safe, And I
even saw a couple of weeks ago that Changmai was
rated the safest city in Asia. So there is that mentality.
But like, I've never felt in danger. The only time
you're gonna have issues, I find in Thailand is when
you messed with local people, businesses or something like that,

(30:39):
or disrespect cultural heritage. Because if you're gonna be that
kind of guy, you're, yeah, you're gonna run into issues.
But if you just live in a normal life like
Thai people have been nothing but genuous and and and
helpful in any situation I've been in, I've never felt
in danger here at all. As for my ex partner,
that was not an issue at all. Like, you know,
we had a disagreements and stuff, but it wasn't a problem.

(31:03):
It was just, you know, we've ended amicably, like us
like any business relationship. Right, maybe if I had not
you know, got out of there when I did, and
i'd fought her more, maybe then we could have ended
on bad terms. But she's still a friend of mine today,
like I still talk to her now. We just had
different visions of where we wanted the bar to go
and what we thought that would be the most successful

(31:23):
way to move the bar forward.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
And so that's why we kind of ended that partnership.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
So, and what about I presumably your your old partner
I can't remember, is bilingual? Right?

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
How has your experience been both as a business owner
and just living as a long term expat in Thailand?
Have you started to learn tie? Do you struggle with it?
Are you just completely tell me about the language bearer?

Speaker 3 (31:49):
I struggle with it. I struggle with it. I'm trying,
but it's just it's, yeah, I need to learn. That's
one of my biggest priorities. But I haven't learned it yet.
I've walked out in that A lot of the people
I work with, even the girls that work in my bar,
half of them like speak English. So it's like it
is pretty nice in that regard, But I do definitely
have to learn tie. It's key to running a business

(32:11):
here because that is one of the detriments is like
the girls they're talking and tie and you don't know
what are they actually saying do I have to put
a speaker up here and try to record to decipher
what they're trying to say. But that is something that's
definitely priority, and if, like hope moving forward, I definitely
need to make that more of a priority. Just been
between juggling the bar and YouTube and trying to build
the business, it's been put on the back burner for now.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
What about in I'm just thinking about my own experiences
here in Vietnam and where the sort of like the
biggest pain points are with language, and it's with the
bank or healthcare usually, right, Like, those are the times
when I'm sort of like most like I'm scared, I'm
stressed out, I'm like I want to be somewhere where
I actually understand what people are thought. Right, it's like

(32:56):
health or money or the two my two biggest like
language stress factors. So, how has it been both your
experience both at Thai banks and then maybe second after
that with healthcare stuff, that has been Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
That's been a big challenge in the banking. Like, luckily
enough I don't have to do too much, but it
is it is definitely a challenge. You know, Google Translate
is definitely your friend. But I find here there are
quite a few people who do speak a little bit
of English, at least broken English, so you can get by.
When I did have some medical issues a couple of

(33:29):
years ago, when I used a Bangkok Bank at Bangkok
Hospital here in Shanghai.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
And I didn't have any issues, so that was pretty nice.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
But the one thing I do have issues with is
like I just had some construction work done on my
bar and they messed up. But because they can't understand English,
like it's trying to communicate with him. It was just
he knew nothing, so even when I put it in
Google Translate, I was still struggling. So they tried to
make a booth and I said it has to be

(33:57):
this wide for the couch that's going between it, and
they made it the wide minus the wall, so the
coach actually didn't fit. So I had to buy more
things and change stuff around. And yeah, so it definitely
is a challenge.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
There's no I don't think there's any magic bullet for that.
I think it's just you start with your first hundred words,
whether it's a ahasa thaie or yet. After you get
your hundred words, you know, you try and work up
to five hundred words and just you know, set yourself
a regular schedule for learning. What about Thai culture in general,
what are some of the things you talked a little
bit about the timing and the hr stuff, but just

(34:30):
in your personal life in adapting from you know, living
in sub zero northern British Columbia, a hot, humid Buddhist
culture in Thailand, what are the things you've learned culturally?

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Well, the Taype people, like they always funny because they
always said that the Canadian people are the nicest people
in the world.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
I think Thai people would be put them around for
their money because they're.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Such a nice people.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
The holidays can be challenging though, because, especially running a business,
you never know when you have to be closed, when
you have to be open because we have to close
for all the Buddhists random holidays, so that can be frustrating.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
But no, it's the culture is very nice.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
The nice single tilent is everything is so available, everything's
so easy, everything is open for you, And I think
that kind of leads to like the Buddhist mentality of
like seize the day or live every day to the fullest.
The one weird thing to me though, is like, ye,
people don't like to keep savings. I don't know if
that's the generality or that that's just the ones I've met,
but it seems like once they have the money, it's gone.

(35:28):
That might be the same thing with that Buddhist mentality.
But it's been nice though. The biggest challenge for me
living here is the heat, because like I'm I'm a
Northern Canadian boy, Like I've gone through winters and a
T shirt and a vest and it's been a bit
of a challenge to do.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
It's a heat, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
How do you find things, like, you know, just your
basics getting around driving a motorbike presumably chang.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
Mine as what they're second or third biggest city, but
you can still drive here.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
The roads are not crazy.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
I know Thailand has a bad reputation for driving and accidents,
but so far I haven't really found it to be
an issue. Like the roads here are so beautiful, Like
even once you drive into the countryside, you'll have these
winding roads through small villages that are perfect pavement, and like,
traffic can be crazy, but it's not insurmountable, like I

(36:14):
think if I was living in Bangkok, I don't know
how comfortable I'd feel driving a motorbike just because it
is what I see and it's just insanity. But like
here it's very manageable. I have a motorbike that I
drive around and there's no issues, Like I drive to
work every day and I drive around wherever Ney to go,
and there's never really been an issue.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
And everything's so close too relative to what I'm used to.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
What's it cost you to have a motorbike.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
I'm still renting and it's two thousand bottom months, so
it's really not that much. And then gas is maybe
three four hundred bottom months, Like it's very like it's
almost negligible.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
What would you be paying or what were you paying
back home? Car payments, insurance, gas all in I.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Didn't have car payments, but like I had a car
and it was probably like insurance I think was like
one hundred and fifty bucks a month or something of that.
And then gas, Yeah, like gas was guess is so
expensive easily four or five hundred bucks a month.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
So talking about yeah, maybe ten percent, right, Like what
you're paying in Thailand together around is ten percent of
the transportation you cossack home.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Especially Canada.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Like when I was working, there's no problem with me
having just drive into work for the day for like
an hour and a half and then like working for
the day and then drive another hour and a half.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
So it's just like my experience in Toronto. When I
think about why I don't want to ever go home,
back home to North America, to Canada, to Toronto long term,
I think about when I was commuting to downtown Toronto
on the train and it was like it's dark when
you're walking to the train in the morning. You know,

(37:56):
maybe it's snowy slushy too, which is literally like pitch black.
You're getting on a train just like rammed like a
sardine with all the like the layers, the jacket, the two,
the hats, the scarf. Everybody's like wet, grumpy, tired, cold,
hacked in like sardines. And then you know, eight hours
later you're doing the same thing again.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
I mean Toronto transit I think is very affordable. It's
like one hundred dollars a month or something from one
of those passes. Maybe it's two hundred dollars now yeh.
But the actual experience of it, right, they're thinking like,
holy shit, two hours an hour and a half, two
hours of my day, five days a week spent doing that.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
It's not worse it, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
If you're gonna do it all again, you know, leave Canada,
make the big leap to move to Thailand. What's something
you would do differently this time? You know, if you had,
if you had to go over a take two.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Go over take two.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Hey, I start YouTube sooner because how powerful YouTube has been,
even like even if I didn't open a bar, I
didn't open a bar, it opens up something else. The
how powerful YouTube has been for my business is just
you know, I didn't think it would be that much,
but like I have people coming in to see me,
you know, three or four days a week to come
and see me in the bar and buy drinks by

(39:13):
drinks of the girls. So it's like that has been
a really big thing for me. And I definitely start
that sooner. And I probably wouldn't open the first bar
with the other girl just because how it went. But
you know, I think I probably would open a smaller
bar and off of the off of the main strip,
just because you know, the thing with my bar is

(39:34):
like so I paid twenty thousand bought rent, months for
rent and all that upfront costs we talked about before.
But like you can easily get a bar where you
just have to pay two months damaged uponsit and first
month rent and you're in the bar, So you can't
pay thirty thousand bought and you can open a bar.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
So that's are you saying a thousands of dollars?

Speaker 2 (39:54):
You asks, yeah, and you can have a bar?

Speaker 4 (39:58):
Yeah, you legitimately think there's so I mean, And if
anyone's watching and wants to open a bar in Thailand,
well and can.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Literally help you out with it. So obviously as socials,
everything's linked below. Get in touch to them. Four people
watching and listening right now, explain to me again in
slow motion. If I move to you know whatever, my
wife leaves me because she's annoyed with me youtubing too
much tomorrow, I'm like, Okay, screw it, I'm gonna move
to chang MYI. I know there's great international schools, our

(40:29):
friends who've taught there, and bring my kids. I've got
I promise. I have nine hundred and twenty one dollars
in my bank account. What are the steps I go through?
To the bar chang My for a hundred thousand bucks.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
There's bars like over and by the Nipisar that it's
just a bunch of bars in this little tourist area.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Like they're probably no bigger than this room. They're very small,
but you.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Just call the number up. They're having a bunch of
them are sitting empty. Put the nooks, call the number up.
They're just an empty shell of a room. It's yeah,
it'll be two months damage deposit, first month ranch. They'll
be around ten thousand bough. They very they can even
be less. They could be five thousand bough to be honest,
some of them depends on the location, so like you can.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Rent a bar for nothing here or something.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Something depends on the place right and then you just
have to kit it out with your your fridge and
your bar top and if you can fit a pool
table in there, great, and then buy some alcohol and
you're off to the races.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
I mean, I love how supporter are because honestly, listening
to you right now, in my head, I'm like, I
gotta get the fuck out of Vietnamal It'll be my
vanity project on top of YouTube, just I can host
my weekly hangouts. I wouldn't. Oh man, I'll literally call
it cheers. That's awesome. Yeah, I owne a lady bar.

(41:44):
You can too for a thousand bucks. Tell me about
your YouTube experience, like how did you start? How did
you get into YouTube?

Speaker 3 (41:53):
So my buddy again, the one who brought me out
to Chang Mai, he's a big YouTuber and he kind
of when I was opening the bar, he said, like,
you need to do YouTube. And so when I opened
that bar, I decide, Okay, I'm gonna be doing YouTube.
The big problem for me, especially with that bar, was
like consistency because that bar I would be there from
like I'd get to the bar at five pm and

(42:15):
I'd be there until five am a lot the time.
Like we stayed open late that bar. That's why I
made good money, but like it was hard to and
I was working this after a job still at that
point during the day, so it was hard to do YouTube.
So I wish I could have been more consistent, and
I think if I had been more consistent, my YouTube
would be even higher than what it is now. Kind
of get things done. But the thing I love about YouTube,

(42:36):
and I know we talked about this before was that, like,
it's not just like a vapid vanity project that the
hot girls and the chads can do well.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
It's something that like if.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
You lean into the psychology behind how people think, and
how you can phrase the video, how you can how
you can word a title to create that curiosity gap,
to create them make the viewers think about what you're
actually trying to talk about. And then also you can't
just make that and then not deliver. You can't say
something crazy and then have the video but nothing else,

(43:06):
because then it's just people are gonna click off of
it and then YouTube just kill your video. So what
I've found and what people have told me too, which
is a really nice and really rewarding part of YouTube,
is that like I've always tried to be you know,
authentic and just tell people the truth, Try not to
be too flashy, try not to like be like sensationalizing
what's going on, and just tell people how it is

(43:26):
to actually be here. The viewers appreciate that. I think,
especially with this advent of AI and all the faceless
chat GPT created videos, they all say the same thing.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
People want something that's more authentic.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
They want a true experience rather than just like you know,
garbage more just like stuff that's just gonna tell them
what everybody already knows. So, you know, having that authentic
experience of being able to do that has been just
it's been really rewarding. That's probably like the most rewarding
part is people like appreciating it and you know, coming
to you with that. My big viral video has has

(44:03):
a bit to do with bars, but it has to
do with the bar girls and you know the lies
they tell you and so, like it was before I
was just talking about my day in the light, like
here's what happened on the bar, Here's what happened in
my bar, Here's what it was like. I maybe not
broadened it, but did a bit of an offset onto
like the things that people care about around bars, and
that's you know, the girls in the bars, lifestyle, my

(44:25):
bar itself.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
You know.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
So it's like more just making it more of a
well rounded niche.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
What do you think the next step is for for
your life in Thaighland, for the bar, for the YouTube,
the whole thing, Like, what are your what are your
plans maybe for the membership or the community you're building,
what are your plans for the rest of twenty twenty
five and and on.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
I'd like to build out this membership, this this bar membership.
Unless I'm going to Pouquette tomorrow, so we'll see what
happens there, because that don't try to be the first step.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
What are you doing in Bouquette A guy.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
A guy's flying me out to Pouque to get my
advice on his bar and maybe partnerships, so we'll see.
I'm not too sure what he has a bar already,
but he wants my help and setting it up, so
I will see what he exactly is thinking. But I'm
only going there for the night, so so yeah, it
should be interesting. But I'd like to set something up
like that because I think, and i'd like to build

(45:19):
some courses because I think I, like I said before,
there's such an information gap. But also there's things that
I can just I simply cannot talk about on YouTube
without causing issues for myself and for YouTube too. So
it's like I just I would rather just have a
course where I can direct people to if they want
to get like a full details, you know, a to

(45:39):
b A to z on how to actually open a
bar in Thailand, how to everything you need to know,
build something like that out that can give this information because,
like I said before, like when I opened my first bar,
I was kind of flying blind having to just you know,
have my partner do everything, and I just kind of
like followed along, which is obviously not a good idea
if you if you want to be successful. I was

(46:02):
lucky enough that she was above board, but there's a
lot of guys that could be taking advantage by something
like that. So I want to make sure that people
are properly educated on how if they do want to
do this, if they can.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah, I think that's interesting too, what you said about
things you can't talk about on YouTube, because I made
a video that was similar, but it was like a
little bit more edgy, right like, about stuff actually that
actually actually happened a couple of times. One was about
Vietnam and one was about Thailand and Bangkok, and they're
about that about like nightlife and culture and some of

(46:33):
the things. And the reason I made them was because
my audience was asking guys were asking me questions about
certain things about nightlife, about dating, about whatever. We're not
going to talk about it here. For exactly this reason,
I had two videos in about six weeks get demonetized.
That's why I was like, Okay, fuck this, I'm building
my own website and taking a private because it's just

(46:53):
it's so right, Like there are certain things I have
real information of real answers that I'd love to share
with people, but it don't belong in the comments section
on YouTube. Can't necessarily put them in a video because
they're too valuable, or they'll get you de monetized, or
they're not for they're not for general consumption, right, like
they're not for the public. Let's do a last question

(47:14):
and then I'll do a wrap up. So my last
question is, what's something I didn't ask you today on
the cost of living a broad pod that I should
have asked you or I could have asked for my
next guess.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
My main thing I guess would be like the variability,
because like we talked a little bit about, you know,
how much you spend on food and stuff, but like
a lot of guys do want to come here and
they want to spend the fifty bucks or whatever. The
budget backpacker is a five hundred bucks a month, and
I think there is a possibility A lot of people
think that's not possible anymore, but it definitely is. You

(47:50):
can go out in Thailand and trim Vietnam as well,
and I could eat a meal for thirty forty bought
every meal and spend one hundred bot a day on food.
But like you were saying earlier, like it depends on
where you're wanting. Like I'm finely doing that, but you know,
sometimes you want to go and you want to have
some comfort. Sometimes you want to go and have a

(48:11):
pizza or have something that's more Western, which can skew
it out of proportion. So I think there's they're both
ends because like Thiland's the same thing, like you can
have you could easily spend a couple thousand.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Bought a day on food if you wanted to.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
But like, and that's a nice thing, but I think
people still think you can't be the budget guy anymore.
They think Thiland's gotten way more expensive and maybe a bit,
but in a grand scheme of things, it's.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
All about like what you want.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
I only spend five hundred bot a day because you know,
go for a couple of coffee, there's one hundred bought
of coffee, and then you eat one meal for a
couple hundred botom there you go. So it's like, you
know it just I think that's the big misconception. Stills
Tyland's gotten so much more money or more expensive.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Rather, you know what.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
I think that that's a great way to end it,
because I feel like the exact same way about to
everyone is complaining about this one tiny little area which
is blowing up, and it's just blowing up because there's
now high demand for something that has a small or
limited availability. Vietnam is a massive, incredible country of one

(49:13):
hundred million people. Thailand is absolutely massive, the whole Southeast
Asia region. You could spend decades traveling around here. And
I promise yet if you if you still want to
get by on five hundred bucks one thousand bucks a
month in Southeast Asia, absolutely you can.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Nolan, thank you so much for coming on. It's Nolan
Jacks dot com. I'll put his website here a link
to his Thanks for having me appreciate it. Thanks so
much for watching this week's episode of the Cost of Living,
a broad pod brought to you by Safetying Nomad Insurance.
You can find more episodes of the pod over my

(49:54):
Shoulder or check out the Cost of living abroad. Dot
Com right here,