Pros & Cons after 10 YEARS in a VIETNAM (Why This American WONT Return to New York)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the Cost of Living Abroad Pod, we
talked to Cameron from New York. He told me how
he's able to live on under one thousand dollars a
month in Denying, Vietnam while teaching English part time on
the weekend. He also runs his own tour company and
climbing gym. And he told us about the struggles of
opening his own business and living abroad, and what it

(00:20):
was like to marry a Vietnamese woman, and most importantly,
why he'll never go back to living in the United
States and experiencing the cost of living crisis in America.
I'm Evan A and you're listening to the Cost of
Living a broad Pod. For full interviews, find us on
YouTube at cost of Living a broad Pod. But before
we get started, I just wanted to let you know

(00:42):
that if you're struggling with the cost of living crisis
and looking for a sustainable and affordable way to relocate
your life abroad, check out our resources, courses and community
at cost of Living Abroad dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Take you out for a day trip, or it can
be a pretty high end if you want us to
take care of everything for you. When I came over,
I told my boss at the time, and he goes Vietnam.
Ain't there commedis in Vietnam a struggle. The amount of
Vietnamese I know after ten years is embarrassing. I have
a special deal with my house that you're not going

(01:15):
to find my rent is. But that being said, even
the rents are going up quite a bit now I
see people posting about and not only that, there are
so many things that.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Can go wrong with the rental.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Here how I met my wife was actually met this
girl from Hanoi on Tinder. Not everyone's going to luck
out like I did and just find the perfect city
right off the bed, So leave your options open. I
would visit as many different places as you can.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
I would pick like three. Maybe it's an arduous hike.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
You're going to be hiking for an hour in the
Vietnamese jungle at one hundred percent humidity and it gets
pretty hot here. So if you're willing to do that,
the waterfalls are gorgeous. I think that's kind of the
allure of living somewhere like here is the range at
which you can live is massive, whereas like the like,

(02:04):
there's a much higher minimum when you're in the West.
When you're out here, the minimum is like living like
a local. You technically could live on like six seven
million a month. So if I do go back to Thailand,
that's where I go.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I didn't really feel the vibe that Vietnam has. It
wasn't as chilled. People weren't as genuine or friendly. I'm
either going to go hardcore into youtubing or.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
I'm going to open the climbing gym.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I was back and forth for like six months. Cameron, Yeah,
nice to meet you too.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Can you introduce yourselse so just sort of away from
a little bit of background, who you are.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
My name is Cameron Monez. I'm from New Jersey. Lived
in New Jersey to I graduated high school, then went
to school in Burlington, Vermont. I lived there for seven years,
and then I came to Deno about ten years ago,
and I've been living here ever.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Since a full decade. In Denong, Vietnam. And this was
like the first jumping off point from America.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Denong was basically the first place I landed. I technically
landed in Hanoi. I was there for like three days.
Wasn't a big fan. Came down to Denong and just
immediately fell in love. So never never lived in any
other place other than obviously the US. Yeah, and I
just kind of got lucky on my first try.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I think that's amazing. It is, like I mean, it's
truly a spectacular special place. I think there's no no
denying that. And it's interesting too that you, like your
first jump off into like being abroad, ended up being
your life right, ended up being living here and actually
living abroad as opposed to just you know, a lot
of people think like I'll do a scouting trip or

(03:44):
they kind of like dip their toes at first.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well that was me, like the first two three, maybe
even four years. I was like, I'm going to travel
to all the places. I'm going to find the actual
best spot. Just because Denong is like very centrally located
within Southeast Asia, it seemed like a good jumping off point.
And then as I searched around, I went to a
bunch of different countries and just couldn't find anything that

(04:07):
had the same balance to it.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Let's jump into your literal cost of living abroad, and
then maybe later we'll get into a little bit about
some comparison between different places or your own sort of experiences, motivations,
that kind of stuff. Tell me how you start your day,
what do you have for breakfast, how much it costs you?
Are you solo orre you with a family a partner.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I got married last year. Actually, congratulations, thank you. So
me and my wife we live together. I've kind of
done like mostly I know my expenses better than mine
and my wife's expenses, so.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
I'll do most of that.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
I'm a little unusual because I have the same breakfast
every day, and I have for probably nine or ten
years now, which is basically just two slices of bread
and three eggs. If I'm eating a bun me out,
then it's two eggs in abun me. So that cost
me thirteen to fifteen thousand every day. When I wake up,
I don't like to make decisions. I get my eggs

(05:01):
and then I can start my day.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So, yeah, it's like sixty cents a day, maybe under
twenty dollars.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, an it's about sixty cents. It's super cheap.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
My favorite eggs, like bonnet, like the sort of pan
cooked eggs place is right across the street from here. Yeah,
and it's it's twenty k there or something like that.
Oh that's pretty cheap for a bonnet. Yeah, it's a
little too rich to have every day though. It's got
the like the fatty pat and that whole action. Okay, interesting,
So you're cooking at home? What about lunches?

Speaker 2 (05:30):
So for lunch, I'm also pretty simple. I have maybe
three or four places that I rotate. I usually spend
between twenty five and forty K. Twenty five would be
like a cumsoon, which is rice with veggies and a
grilled pork chop. It's like delicious. Sometimes I'll get an
extra pork chop. It's only like another fifteen K. I

(05:51):
think the more expensive end would be like a chicken rice.
But even that's less than two dollars. I think it's
like seventy something since forty K.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
So are you in your life living like beach Side?
Like do you live in a more touristry part are
you living in a more local part the city? I
mean not a lot, but it does affect prices a bit,
right for sure.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, So like Antung is like the main touristy drag.
I live just south of that, in mean, pretty close
to the mean market. Actually, So I'm like eight hundred
meters away from the beach in a little alley way,
but it's close enough to Antung.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
I could be in Antung in three minutes.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
I can get basically anywhere in the city in fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
I mean. One really like stark difference between most of
the cities and Vietnam and Denying is the traffic situation, right, Yeah,
for sure. So many people their first thing or fear
about Vietnam is not the chaos of the traffic they
see the videos in hanois like kind of been poaching
in for five years. So yeah, and it's real, it's
not made up, but here it really, it really doesn't exist.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
I would beg to differ.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Like when I first got here, there was actually no traffic,
Like we had like four open lanes and you could
do like one hundred down those and you'd see like
five other bikes.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Obviously that was ten years ago.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Things have developed quite a bit, and the traffic is
now my least favorite part of Denam. But that being said,
when I go to Saigon and I'm on the back
of a bike, I'm.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I'm doing the tourist clutch where I'm like.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh my god, it's a lot I like way overconfident,
or when I first got to Vietnam, I was like,
I had a job lined up, so you know whatever.
A lot of a lot of the aspects of my
life were secure in a sense. So it's before COVID,
I wasn't worried about certain things. I was like, oh,
I'm well traveled, you know, solely based on like Wikipedia

(07:41):
and googling. Was like, Oh, I'll live in Cholon, which
is the old China town of Segon, because I like
that'll be historic and you know, cultural and great. And
it's like it is a little bit because it's it's
one of the few places that sort of survived the
bombing and the war, so it like there is some
older architecture there and there's like some older China's influenced Yeah,

(08:01):
but now it's really just known as District five and
it's like insane levels of like throngs traffic. Yeah. Every
single you know, square centimeter of the sidewalk is covered
in multiple vendors, like on top of each other, yep.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
And if there is a patch, they're driving on it.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah. Yeah. I lasted maybe four months, five months.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Where'd you go? District one?

Speaker 1 (08:25):
After I ended up in District seven because that's where
my job was. Yeah, and it was you know, twice
the price, but the reality was I was literally saving
my life because I was not doing a thirty minute
commute on a motorcycle. Yeah and yeah, I ended up
living basically where I could walk to work.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Thirty minute driving Saigon is a stressful thirty minutes.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
And on a bad day or like a rainy day
or a flooded day, it's an hour. Yeah. To dinners,
do you if you live your while are you cooking
at home? Mostly do on the market or you do
little combo?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, so I kind of do a mix.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Sometimes I'll do like a cheap dinner, which would be local,
and that'll run anywhere from a chicken rice which is
like forty K to something a little more expensive. Like
I'd probably eat Western food like once a week, maybe
twice a week. That would be like Indian food, which
you can get for like one hundred and fifty, or
you can get Mexican food for one hundred and twenty.

(09:18):
Burgers for like I usually spend like one hundred and
fifty at a burger joint. My wife cooks about probably
twice a week as well, so We don't really save
money when we eat at home though, because we're eating
higher quality ingredients. I tend to eat more because it's
like healthier and more delicious. My wife is a really
good chef.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
So bonus, Yeah, huge bonus. So yeah, we do a
pretty good mix.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
So like that's probably the biggest variable in my budget
would be like whether if I want to go cheap,
I can cut my cost to like a third of
what they or probably half of what they are on average.
If I'm spending a lot on food, it.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Could be quite a bit more.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
You shared like a pretty accurate detailed budget. You're definitely
tracking it. So what's your you know, grand total bart Park,
what are you eating a month? So what's the ground
total for monthly eating?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
So if I were to go really low, it would
be like two and a half meal, the most it
would be would be like five million. I would assume
it's probably around three three and a half.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Million, about one hundred and forty dollars.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Something like that. Yeah, I would say like.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Fifty Yeah, that's great. So you're talking like under two
thousand dollars a year, like easily under two thousand dollars
a year, maybe eighteen hundred dollars a year.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, budgeting, and you can go pretty cheap here, Like
you could eat every meal for I would say forty K.
If you're doing if you're averaging forty k a meal,
you're you're not eating terribly, but it's still super cheap,
less than two dollars a meal.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, that's sort of like if you're eating local food,
the five to six dollars a day, and especially for
if you're solo or you're single, right, if you're like
you're not interested in cooking, you want to go out
sit somewhere by yourself. There's such a variety of food too.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
When I first got here, things were cheaper back then,
but I was I was living off of like three
dollars a day. I was eating like vegetarian rice for
like fifteen k, which is like nothing. It was like
forty cents fifty cents.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
We've moved from cyclone from ho Chimen to de nine
in the fall, like in October, and it was we
knew it was going to be a lot more affordable here,
but even still we were still like shocked or surprised
by some of the actual numbers. Like when we started
realizing and also the flip side of it being like,
oh this means we can can eat out or do

(11:33):
a few more things, you know, in parts of suburban
ho Chi Man, like the wealthier parts which we were
just living as we've worked there, right, so our salaries
were you'd find like even a bowl of Fu's like
eighty k which is which is three dollars, three and
twenty cents, And I know that's it sounds ridiculous to
say it's expensive, but it is, but it is, right,
everything's a relative cost. It's like the same if you

(11:55):
talk about you know, in some videos, we'll talk about
the idea of like getting scammed or ripped off, and
it's like people are up, you're arguing someone over a
few dollars and then you know they're desperate, and I'm like, well,
that's not really what it's about. To me. It's about
like there's honest people. There's a plenty of beautiful, wonderful,
honest people running legit. Business isn't being on exactly, you

(12:15):
don't need to give money to someone trying to scam you.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Or there's a history on the Denong expats page of
people complaining about getting ripped off for a nook Mia,
A cheap Nookmia is five thousand.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
It's like, what is that?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Like? Yeah, sugar Gang juice.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Sugar Gang juice, and people are like, oh, someone charged
me eight thousand. I usually make a point when I'm
getting ripped off to let them know that I know
I'm getting ripped off, but like Anookmia, it's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Okay, let's get into some of the other details. Well,
what about nightlife. Do you still go out? Are you?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
So? When I first got here, I was going out
all the time. That was probably the majority of my budget. Nowadays,
much more low key. I'd probably go out, I want
to say, once a week, maybe twice a month. It's
usually some sort of event like a wedding or birthday
or something like that, or a random Monday.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
And do you guys drink alcohol too, Like, so you're
going out for dinner and drinks or.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, usually booze. I generally stick to beer. I'm just
ever since I hit thirty, the liquor doesn't treat me
well anymore.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
So recovery beer is definitely harsh yep especially we haven't
talked about it yet, but we'll get into Like the
gyms and working out and stuff, and yeah, any kind
of climbing or athletics. I find like can do a
glass of wine, maybe a couple of light beers, but
anything stiffer than that.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
And it's even the wine I try to avoid, and
the soju soji is the most dangerous. Because I only
go out once or twice a week. Once you're probably
two to four times a month. I do generally go
pretty hard. I usually run up like this is gonna
sound funny, but like a twenty twenty five dollars bill, Yeah,
that's fair quite a bit compared to like, I don't know,

(14:00):
you're just drinking a couple of beers every day.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
One aspect to Vietnam is that especially. I mean, it's
rapidly developing, right, And part of that is more and
more sort of costly or international things being available. And
I think that that's something a lot of people haven't
been here don't understand too, right. Is that in not
just a mutnomen in all of Southeast Asia, like in
places like Bangkok, Quaalumpur, Hanoi, Ho Chi, Mindanang, you know,

(14:25):
not really a limit to how much you can spend.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh, yeah, the upper limit is Western prices.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, exactly Western price. The upper limit is, you know,
going to five star resort and paying hundreds of dollars
for a bottle of whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Right, like for a sky thirty six, and you can
yet hundreds of dollars for a bottle probably Yeah, it's
like six seven eight dollars a beer sometimes.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
What about gym sports, other kind of memberships, like people
are doing whatever, pickleball, yoga classes.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'm lucky in that all my hobbies are essentially free.
I played beach volleyball three times a week, and obviously
the beach is free and open. I'd buy a ball
every couple of years. I have my own portable net.
I would put that expense at basically zero. I'm lucky
enough to own the climbing gym, so I don't have
to pay for a membership there.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
But even before the climbing gym, I think I had
a gym membership for like three months.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
How did you end up opening a climbing gym here?
Pretty far from any kind of climbing route, So how's
it been? When did you open it up?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Give me the full My history with climbing is like
not very extensive. I climbed in university for like one
winter just because I couldn't afford the ski pass after
I graduated. But then like, the rainy seasons are really
rough here. Basically rains for like two three months of
the year every year. I would like, I don't want
to say gains, but like I would lose my gains,

(15:49):
I would lose my ten I would like lose all
my muscle mass, and I'd just be like a slob
for two months playing video games.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
I was like, this is miserable. What do I enjoy?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
That's indoors and I try to bunch of different things
and I was like, wait a second, climbing is like
the perfect sport for that. So when I was visiting Saigon,
I actually went climbing there a couple of times, and
I was like, this is yeah, this.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Is what I want to do. So that's how the
gym got opened.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
I've been waiting for someone else to do it for
a long time, but it just never happens. So yeah, yeah,
I expected someone to open a climbing gym like seven
years ago, because people have been talking about it forever
and it just never came to Fruition.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Switched the name of the gym. How long has it
been open?

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Very creatively Denong climbing Gym. It's been open. It'll be
two years next month.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
The most surprising thing about the gym is how few,
Like there are some expats who go, but the majority
of the people are here for three months or less,
so they're constantly cycling out. It's it's hard to get
a consistent crew going. And the majority of our business
is actually tourists. So yeah, people here for like a
couple of days only passing through. Ye, just trying to

(17:00):
get their climbing fix because we're the only climbing gym
for like eight hundred.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Kilometers, Oh for sure.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Back to what you were saying about Marble Mountains though,
is the government forbids you from climbing there?

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now?

Speaker 2 (17:13):
It's just become too popular and so there's no real
like bolted or safe or cleaned outdoor rope routes.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
What you need of Like me, you tear your knee
a couple of times climbing health insurance? What do you
do for health insurance? Medical costs?

Speaker 2 (17:27):
I not only own the climbing gym, but I'm also
still teaching English. I teach like twelve hours Saturday and
Sunday at the center I've been at for like nine
years at this point, and they cover my visa and
my health insurance beautiful.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I do pay.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
I think it's two and a half million extra to
ensure my wife.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
But yeah, that's that's my health.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Insurance costs two annual annually, yeah, and not.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Monthly annually ninety dollars a year.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah. Yeah. I had a very similar one where it
was like when I was still working for a school,
is about ten dollars a month for my wife and
literally a couple of dollars each for my kids. One
of the things I knew would be interesting about but
is even I'm finding its even more interesting about doing
these interviews and talking to other people living abroad about
their cost of living, is that I think there's a

(18:17):
really sort of skewed perspective on living affordably or cheaply,
Like the idea that like the people who are in
Southeast Asia or living abroad for really incredible cost of
living are like just backpackers, right, or like crashing in
a dorm or something, and it's like.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
There's some lifers here.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah. Well, it's like one of the things I say
a lot, is it?

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Like?

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Okay, so between my wife and my two kids, we
spend about five hundred dollars a person max. Right like,
are absolute the most expensive will spending a month, which
usually involved some sort of travel, is like fifty million
for four of us, which is about two thousand, yes dollars.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Often it's way less. Not But the flip side is
I know for a fact that I'm always spending more
money than my neighbors, but by a lot, right Like,
It's like and that's the case, then there's just you know,
there's there's plenty of uh, there's versatility, right like, there's
there's different lifestyles, different ways to live and to still
be affordable, whether it's you know, you're retiring or you're

(19:18):
teaching English, regardless of sort of age, gender, background, whatever.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
I think that's kind of the allure of living somewhere
like here is the the range at which you can
live is massive, whereas like the like, there's a much
higher minimum when you're in the West. When you're out here,
the minimum is like living like a local, you technically
could live on like six seven million a month.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
You can do it.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
It's just not going to be pleasant for anything you're
used to. Really that being said, like, you just have
so many options here to live as lavishly as you want, yeah,
as backpacker style as you want.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
And yeah, especially I find here in the noun where
there's there's so much tourism infrastructure, like traveling infrastructure, probably
more even than in the big city like in ho
Chi Minh.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, but relative to population.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, you know. The flip side is if you were
to end up somewhere a rural like I met a
couple of years ago, I met some girls who were
working in Playku, which is actually my wife's father's hometown, Okay,
and they were like they were making six hundred dollars
a month or something. They were making about fifteen million
VND you know whatever, like work twelve or fifteen hours

(20:32):
a week at an English center, and they were living
like easily off half of that, right, Like, just because
it's so affordable in a place like that that is
just off to being path that they're just like they're
easily living off three hundred dollars saving three hundred dollars
and then just you know going on trips, right, like
non stop going on trips all over Vietnam, all over
Southeast Asia. Okay, so let's get into some nuts and

(20:54):
bolts utility stuff like electricity, water, your phone plan, and
Wi Fi data, any of those those sort of you know,
subscriptions or fees that come up every month.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah. So my Internet is two hundred and eighty k.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think we have one of the faster internets just
because I'm using Internet all the time.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
My wife uses it a lot as well. Water is included.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
My phone is like one hundred and fifty thousand, one
fifty one sixty something like that.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
It's like eleven dollars for Wi Fi, six dollars for
the phone.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, and my phone is I think unlimited data. I've
never really like run out. It's like I have to
re up it every month, and you can just do
that by a text message. If I make like a
bunch of phone calls, it'll drain it super fast. But
I try to avoid using the phone as much as possible.
And everyone here has Zallo and WhatsApp and messengers, so
you don't actually end up using phone calls except for

(21:48):
really niche situations. So yeah, phone super cheap, and you
could get by without a phone plan, like everywhere has
Wi Fi here if you want.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
That's true, Yeah, if you want to do so. My
parents come and busy, you know, usually once a year,
nice and I get them like a personal hot spot.
But it has a same card in it. But I
think it's not that new. I paid maybe twenty dollars
for this thing years ago, and whenever they show up,
I just whatever, throw ten gigabytes of data onto the

(22:16):
same card. They're both two phones, both using it off
the one little hot spot right wherever they go. It's
my mom keeps it in a purse. That's a good
move and is now too, right, Like obviously you arrive
before the SAM was big, but for me, well, you
like don't even need a same card. You can buy
a like sort of cloud same card now, which a
lot of travelers that people show up to.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Okay, does that allow you to call in the US
as well?

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Think so, Okay, the big one and I'm not putting
a link in this video. It's in the older The
big one is Alo L but there's a couple of
different ones. But they also what they allow you to
do is like I used to have like this little
piece of cardboard and it had like a sim that
was like Japan, SIM, Taiwan, SIM, Thailand, SIM. This allows
you to like sort of buy a general SAM package

(23:02):
that just will potentially transfer as you move around.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
That's sweet. I didn't know that it existed.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
I have no idea how the technology works. But he
learned something new every day. Yep, wait, what about transportation?
So yeah, how do you get around transportation monthly costs,
whether it's renting a bike, owning a bike, grabs in drives,
or cycling or walking whatever you do.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
So I don't really walk much anymore. The motorbike is
just so convenient.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
I buy a relatively new bike for a decent amount
of change. I think I bought my bike for twenty
seven million six years ago, and I probably put I
don't know, maybe ten million into upkeep. Not super expensive.
That's over five or six years total.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
About one thousand dollars usked over five or six years,
A couple hundred dollars a year. You break that down,
you're talking about max twenty dollars a month over the
six years.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
I would be surprised if it's even that much.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
And gases, so I mean.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah, so get really depends.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
I'd probably spend less than like twenty five dollars on
gas per month. I think I refill my tank every
week or so, maybe every like five days, and that's
sixty thousand, So that's to two dollars in change. But yeah,
when I was doing a lot of waterfall trips, that
was easily four or five times as much because I
would be driving out to quang Nam like two three

(24:22):
times a week. Basically I would have to use I
would use like a tank of gas every day back then.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
I mean, yeah, I've talked to someone else who's doing
is doing the like the nang Hooyan quarter, which is
about twenty kilometers, So if you're doing that every day,
you're gonna you know, you're basically gonna be filling up
every day.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, pretty much. It's a more of a small tank
thing than a big.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Distance big is it like a one five cc like that?

Speaker 2 (24:46):
It's a Honda Winner. I think it's a one to fifty.
There you go, But it's a pretty compact. It's the
gas tank is tiny, like I said, it's only it only.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Holds like three leaders.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
So you're at two hundred and two hundred and eighty
dollars a month, and all we have left is travel expenses,
and of course the rent housing will finish with that.
So what about travel trips weekend trips.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
I'm kind of been super busy with having the gym.
I also run Denong Waterfalls, which is a waterfall tour
company really really small out of Poyan mostly, and I
teach on the weekends, and I'm also building a video
game to teach myself something new. I haven't had time

(25:31):
to travel really since COVID, just been super busy, and
I got married last year, so basically everyone came to
visit me last year, and I've just been saving every
penny to kind of make ends meet and go off
on more entrepreneurial adventures. I would say that being said,
I will go to for Christmas next year. I'll be

(25:54):
traveling to America for like a month and a half.
Usually when I do trips, I like to do like
two three months, so it's like two or three years
of saving and then I go on like a real
long excursion. I hate that, like hustle and bustle of
like a seven day trip where it's like, oh I
got to do this.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
I got to see this.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
It's like I want to get on a motorcycle and
just be like, I'm going that way and then just
find a random hotel on the way, just see what's
out there. So yeah, I haven't spent much on travel recently.
Maybe a trip to Saigon or Hanoi every so often.
It's not zero, but it's pretty minimal.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, tell me about the waterfall excursions, the trips. I mean,
some of the people that are living here visiting here
might be curious.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
So when I first got here, believe it or not,
my entire life goal was to drink beers on the
beach and work as little as possible. I did that
for like a year and a half and then I
got bored, so literally achieved my life dreams. So I
tried to find some hiking trails, and everyone was like,
what is hiking? They didn't understand the concept. So I

(26:55):
started walking around in the mountains and then I stumbled
across a waterfall. Then I started looking for waterfalls, and
then I found probably like thirty different waterfalls in the area.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
I was taking my friends.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Out pretty regularly, and they told me to start doing
tours because people would be interested in that. So now
I've picked like three or four of the most easily
accessible and the most beautiful people reach out to me.
I will take them out myself or my friend Tony
and Hoyan take you out for a day trip. It's
usually six or seven hours. You can drive if you

(27:29):
want to. We don't recommend it because you'll be tired,
but you can rent a motorbike with.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
A driver or a car.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
You can get food arranged for you or bring your
own food, so it's pretty customizable. Can get pretty cheap
because you can do most of the things yourself, or
it can be pretty high end if you want us
to take care of everything for you. But either way,
it's an arduous hike. You're going to be hiking for
an hour in the Vietnamese jungle at one hundred percent
humidity and it gets pretty hot here. So if you're

(27:58):
willing to do that. The waterfalls are or just there's
some cliff jumping, a little bit of bouldering, and I
wouldn't really say climbing.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
And are they all day trips? So they're all same
day like?

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, So we do mostly day trips and then we
offer two camping trips as well. One is easier and
more local. The other one is Shattered Falls, which requires
an overnight just because of how far it is. But
Shattered Falls is the biggest waterfall in the area.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
And what's can solo travelers do it? You have to
come part of a group. What about kids or older
people with mobility issues?

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, so kids, it really depends on their activity level,
Like if they're relatively fit, then they'll enjoy it. I've
had kids as young as six like loving it, running
the whole time and then super amped up. And I've
had twelve year olds who weren't into it and just
we're kind of miserable. So it really depends on how

(28:56):
outdoorsy your kid is, how active they are. When it
comes to older people with mobility issues, I wouldn't recommend it.
You're going to have to do a little bit of scrambling.
It's not worth the risk.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
So no flip flops are hangovers either, Right.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
That's how I hike it.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
But no, if you're not accustomed to the jungle like
I am, I wouldn't recommend that either. Proper shoes, proper sunware,
and then you're probably good to go.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Awesome, Okay, We'll make sure to link the business descriptions.
Both of the gym and the tours below. So Ifan's
watching this now, you can add that to your calendar.
You know, either we're going to get a lot of
ship posters in the comments or hopefully you're spending a
ton of money in your housing so that the number
looks realistic for Americans and Europeans.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Well, I have a special deal with my house that
you're not going to find. Okay, my rent is seven
million and I have a three bedroom house. Oh, and
you're not going to find that deal.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Trust me.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
This is a whole over from COVID when rent plummeted
our landlord. I don't know why, just we have a
very good relationship. We're very quiet, very respectful. She hasn't
kicked us out, and she hasn't raised the rent, which
is a miracle. The house probably could go for like
ten to fourteen million she wanted to, but we have

(30:20):
it for seven so I'm not complaining.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Incredible, And sois how many stories, how many beds, how
many baths?

Speaker 3 (30:26):
Three stories?

Speaker 2 (30:28):
First floor is living room, kitchen, second floor is two
bedrooms with on sweet bathrooms. There's a bathroom on the
first floor too, and then the top floor is like
laundry room and bedroom I uses my office.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
I mean that sounds exactly like the layout of our
house at my house. And we paid thirteen mil for it,
So I mean, yeah, incredible deal.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
It's insane, and it's we found it after like a
year and a half of searching, like scanning constantly, and
we went to see it and we booked it that night.
And you find deals like that, you can't wait at
all because people will snatch them up immediately.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, and I mean I've talked about this before too.
I highly recommend at least a few scouting trips, don't
book anything, buy anything, pay huge events is before you've
actually been to a place, you know, it's easy to
sort of think, okay, Vietnam's cheaper than Thailand, or you know,
the Philippines has more English. So that's going to be
my spot. If you're serious about living abroad long term,

(31:27):
it's worth it, even if it's a single trip. You know,
to just come over to Southeast Asia, spend a couple
weeks in different places, a couple of days. Often, like
in your case, you felt the vibe of a place
and you're in love. Yep. I had a great time
in signing on for five years and the job I
had there was fantastic, So that was a big motivating reason.
And then I met a wife. Everyone really has to

(31:49):
get feet on the ground in my opinion, before you
you know book site unseen or.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
And not only that, there are so many things that
can go wrong with the rental here. It could beighbor
has a loud dog, your neighbor has a pet rooster,
like that's the number one thing I looked up for.
Or next door there's an empty lot that's under construction,
Like all of those things are going to ruin your day.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Or your neighbor likes to start his diesel motorbike at
five am to warm it up every day.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
M that's fun.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, ours is We got a powerwasher who opened up
like a little power washing shop right across the street
from me. So I don't hear it in my room,
but in all the other rooms of the house you
can just hear that at seven in the morning. Yeah,
my room I literally soundproofed. It's blacked out like the
bat cave with giants, soundproofing panels.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
I'm a I sleep like a vampire.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
I mean I don't even until my parents or like
someone visits from abroad, I don't even notice the roosters anymore,
and it's almost always the first thing people talk about.
And everywhere I've lived in Southeast Asia, there's even including
in the like downtown part of a city. You're gonna hear, yeah, poultry.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
The rooster is the one thing that I cannot ignore.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
It just it gets break. It drives me insane.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Okay, thanks so much for sharing your budget. If I've
done the math right, I think you're living at about
five hundred and thirty dollars a month the US, and
that's including the rent for the whole house. That's not
like a split rent cost between you and your wife.
So it sounds like you're easily under six hundred dollars
a month. What do you have?

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, my my average on the spreadsheet is like five
eighty four, so I'd say like five eighty five six
or six hundred something like that.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
So that's that's that's for me personally.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
And then I also averaged what I think my wife
spends and that would be like another one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Seven fifty maybe as a couple nine hundred either way,
comfortably under one thousand a month. Well under it, say,
I mean before before I had kids, I think we
were we'd live under a thousand dollars a month and
hoach you in often, Like if we got busy with work,
that was what it is, right, if we were too
busy to be going out for dinner and out for
drinks all the time. We just started saving money right like,

(34:04):
and it just then COVID happened. It was the exact
same thing, right when we were like had the night
life for like going out. Aspect of hope you men
taken away from us. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, I can't,
especially if you're working a full time job, right, Like,
there's no way you could spend that much money.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
I actually think I spent more on COVID because like
everything here went to like a quarter of the price,
so like things I would never get for myself, like
a massage. I was doing massages like two times a
week because they were at massive discounts. Like every parlor
was just trying to not go out of business.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, we were up here once or twice about three
years ago February, and I mean very few things that reopened.
We were stayed at and bang for a bit. It
sounded silenced.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, that's I got married at soul Onbung.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Oh yeah, that's gorgeous, but that I mean, there's such
a sweet family that on that place. Absolutely nothing was
open then and could we were already thinking about coming
up here them. We were looking at businesses and for
a loss. But at that time, people were selling like
fully stocked bars restaurants for like ten thousand dollars America
like went insane, insane, insane. Yeah, like cut sad, not

(35:17):
like a good deal. Like in a way that was
kind of sad because they're taking a loss. Not the
case now though a lot of these houses the rent
for cheap are for sale for half million dollars. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, the things have rebounded to an insane level.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yeah, the speculative property prices to actually buy most people
wouldn't do that anyways, unless you're a partner here. But
they're they're speculative, like they're they're certainly overvalued.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
It's insane.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
And if you were to do a cost analysis of
like rent and how long it takes you to payback,
the payback period is something like seventeen to twenty five years.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, the ratios are way off.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
It's super whack. But that being said, even the rents
are going up quite a bit. Now. I see people
posting about studio apartments for ten ten mill I'm like,
that's insane.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Who's doing that.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
It's four hundred dollars for studios considered insane here and that,
I mean, it seems like that. I interviewed someone and
he was saying he paid five to fifty and he
lives right in high up on muntan Munktig Sure, it's
like the absolute center of the city. And he's saying
he paid five fifty for their one bedroom. And I
was like, oh, it's kind of expensive, you know, And
that is People in the comments are like, oh, so cheap.

(36:24):
Guy must live in a shoe box, and I'm like, no,
that's one of the premium buildings at the absolute heart
of the tourist beach. Yes, yeah, okay, so let's.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Talk about Yeah, you can't beat the location wise.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
It's it's one hundred meters from the two biggest beach
bars in the city.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
You could throw a rock to the ocean from there.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, I mean, if you're on the thirtieth floor like
he is, you're probably literally at the ocean. Easy. You
haven't lived in other countries. But when you got here,
you did some traveling. You did say you were looking around, comparing, contrasting.
So what were maybe some of the places, other places
you went or visit or lived in for a while
that you loved or had issues with, And how do

(37:05):
you sort of do the cost benefit analysis or the
pros and haunts to end up.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
So the closest I ever got to moving was probably Malaysia.
I went to Kuala Lumpur. I loved Kualumpur. I went
to Penang. I loved Penang. The food is fantastic. The
big thing holding me back from those places was at
the time I was only teaching English and I would
have had to take like a twenty probably a twenty

(37:30):
percent pay cut. Cost of living is marginally more expensive.
But at the time the big one for me was
beer is like two three times the price, kind of
a Muslim nation, a little more strict.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
On the booze.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
And then Penang I really liked and it looked awesome.
I could have gotten a job there that paid decently well.
But the beach is like behind the mountains, so you
got to take a one lane road, which could be
like hours of traffic to get to the beach.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
That just kind of put me off of Penang.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
But the food is amazing, people are super cool, the
wildlife is awesome. The way they have the trees infused
with the cities, I love, like those ancient Ficus trees
with all the vines and stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
So yeah, that was probably the closest I got.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
The place I don't think I would ever live is Thailand.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
I've been to Thailand three times. I don't really get it.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Granted I was in mostly touristy places and I've never
been to Chang Mai. Everyone swears Chang Mai is the
place to be, so if I do go back to Thailand,
that's where I go.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I didn't really feel the vibe that Vietnam has. It
wasn't as chilled. People weren't as genuine or friendly. But
I could have just been in the wrong places. There
was one place I liked. It is Ayataya. They do
that the Buddhist monk who does the traditional tattoos. That
area was amazing, but there's not much up there, so

(38:55):
kind of trade offs. There's no beach, no mountains. Can't
really live there. Then I need one or the other
and ideally both.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Denying is definitely one of the places that you can
do the beach and the mountains. I think if and
when my wife and I moved from Vietnam. She's never
lived outside of Vietnam, but it almost definitely be to Qualumpour, Okay,
for some of the reasons you said. Also, public transit,
public transit's so nice, and not just public transit in
the city. You can take public trains, buses and ferries

(39:27):
all the way from Qualampur to Penang and Georgetown in
one way, or to Singapore in the other direction.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
And super easily, super easy.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
A lot more English because especially in Penang and Georgetown
at one point was a British colony. Layover property is
extremely affordable too, and you can buy property as a foreigner.
There's a lot of good vis options there. At least
go there and don't be intimidated or afraid for cultural
reasons until you've actually spent some time there, because it's
it's also a more multicultural place than here.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Oh yeah, it's probably the most diverse place I've ever been,
and that's why the food is so good. You've got
like Malay food, Chinese food, Indian food, like all mixed together.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
It's it's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Definitely, it's an incredible place. And even since yes, it's
the first time I came to Denang seven years ago, No,
six years ago, six years ago, twenty nineteen, so six
years ago, there's more flights. There's direct flights to India
now right from the Nang Yeah, and from definitely a
ton more from Saigon and Nooi. So I have noticed
more Indian restaurants, more Indian influence, which is nice, more
diversity in the food and people.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
That's actually why I ended up going to KL all
the time because they just opened the internet the flight
direct flight from Denong to KL, so I was doing
that for my visa runs for the first year that
I was here. I had to do the three month
tourist runs.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Now now I've got the two year work perm it,
so that's all sort of.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
So, yeah, you get it. You can get a TRC
at two to three year Temporary residence card either through
work or through a spouse. I've done both. You clearly
now have both options as well.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, I still get it through work because they pay
for it, but I could switch to the spouse pretty easily.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Okay, so why do we talked a little bit about
the pros of Penang or Georgetown or Malaysia and also
the language thing. What's your experience with the language bearer here?
It's one of the biggest sort of concern struggles for
people who haven't been here. The reality is it's still
the biggest struggle for me, even dealing with my in laws.
How's it for you?

Speaker 3 (41:20):
A struggle?

Speaker 2 (41:21):
The amount of Vietnamese I know after ten years is embarrassing,
to say the least. It's I have a bunch of excuses.
Most of it comes down to laziness. Though if I
really put my head down and studied, I could do it.
And I know people who become fluent, they're very rare,
but you can do it. It's just really really challenging.

(41:42):
Like recognizing words on signs is super easy. So like
when you first get here, it's really easy to be like, oh, com,
that's rice. So you see rice, You're like, I can
eat there, right, It's not like you're trying to decipher
the kanji or something like that, like those Chinapan Japanese something,
So that part is easier in the beginning, but then

(42:04):
when you get into the speaking and the pronunciation and
the listening.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
The tones are super wacky.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
There's like hundreds of like hundreds of combinations of tones
and I can't even hear the difference sometimes, so for
me to replicate it is just demoralizing.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
It's definitely about real time perseverance and motivation. It can
be done. But yeah, like you, I have not done it.
Got said. Both of us are obviously clear examples of
the fact that you can easily live here for years
or for decades now without learning Vietnamese.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah, I don't find it to be a problem. Vietnamese
people are more than willing to help you out however
they can. And even just knowing like a handful of words,
like learning the proper pronouns for like m is someone
younger than you, or Chi someone slightly older than you.
For girls, if you use the pronoun with fear hello,

(43:00):
they go, oh, you speak Vietnamese, and you're like, no, no,
I don't, but hello, and then you automatically are in
their good graces. Just because you know a few words,
people are super friendly and willing to help you out.
And the number of people who know English now is
I don't want to say exponentially, but it's going up
very fast. When I first got here, there was very

(43:22):
little English, and it still wasn't that hard to get around. Nowadays,
it's much much easier.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
And I think I've said it before, but I think
there's a real clear generational divide, right Like I didn't
sort of born and educated after Doi Moy when the
country reopened. The percentage of people under thirty five who
speak English is very hard.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
And I've seen that in real time.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
When I first got here, I would walk into a
clothing shop and they'd take one look at me and
then they disappear in the back and be like, Okay,
I guess I'm not buying anything, but if you hang
out for a little bit, they're going and getting their
eight year old come speak.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
English with you. So true, Yeah, so hilarious situation.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
My neighbors still do that. Like the closest convenience store
to me where I just like, whatever, buy a beer,
milk or something if I need something quick. Yeah, And
every time I go to the store, they like march
out their little ten year old son to practice English
with me.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
And you know, even if you know the Vietnamese for
what you want and that transaction, they want their kid
to practice the English, and they made a big push,
Like I think all public schools teach some level of English,
it's just their teachers didn't know English that well. Now
you have people with iouts nine teaching the next generation

(44:41):
local Vietnamese people, and it's just a it's just going
to get more and more English from here.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Sure, probably by the next generation will be obsolete.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Right, in more ways than one.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
I think it's going to be some of that some
AI where teaching is probably a dying profession.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Well, teaching English, teaching and classrooms, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
I'm specifically worried about AI though, and that's why I
have so many different branching jobs. It's just like one
of these has to become the lifeline. I even considered
doing YouTube. It came down to where I was like,
I'm either going to go hardcore into youtubing or I'm
going to open the climbing gym. I was back and
forth for like six months.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Answered both film and everything at your climbing gym. Yeah, yeah,
because I think that it's I'm sure you've heard this before,
but the thing is just about there's an audience for everything, right.
I've had multiple channels, Like my YouTube experience started with
just posting my kids homework, like one of the classroom stuff.
So I had a different channel that it's called like

(45:41):
the name has changed. At some point it was just
my name, and then it was like literature and mister Jordan,
and now it's like books with Jordan or whatever. But
it was literally just posting chapter by chapter homework during COVID,
and I just realized immediately. I was like, this is
scary because this is in some ways more effective than
what my job is. Right, Like, all of a sudden,

(46:03):
like my seven minute lesson from today reached two thousand people.
Two thousand people aren't paying twenty thousand dollars to aish,
you know what I mean. Like it wasn't like it
wasn't making enough money to replace my salary or anything.
It was in this greater sort of eye open.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
People are not going to hire a teacher, well maybe
not completely replaced, but they're phasing out.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
And it was also like equally rewarding in some sense,
which is a big surprise. Like sure, there's ship posters
all over the Internet, and it's the more views or
eyeballs something gets, the more shitheads will show up later,
but also just the fact that, like, how truly appreciative
a lot of the people getting that content work, Like
they're like, oh my god, I found your playlist on

(46:44):
this book. You saved me. Yeah, thank you so much,
mister Jordan. And I was like, oh, that's kind of weird,
because that's why I'm a teacher, and I'm getting that
feeling without going into work. And I don't like going
into work every day me neither.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
If I could bring a per fix English education to
all my students without having to be there and force
them to do a bunch of things they don't want
to do, like I try to make it as fun
as possible, like gamification is kind of the name of
the game. But yeah, like sometimes you just have to
do a reading or a listening exercise, and if there

(47:18):
was a more fun and engaging way to do that,
I would do that Instantly.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
We thought a lot about I, like my wife and
I about opening the language center some sort of teaching thing,
in part also because we now have these two kids who,
if we stay in Vietnam, are going to need to
be educated, right, so when I run a business for
ten years and let them go through it, But I
think he was. I think if it's this exact tenure window,

(47:45):
you're going to have a great, successful, profitable business. I
knew someone, a guy who I was a teacher with
in put you in, who did exactly that. He just
quit his job, opened a language center, not stole because
it's after school, took one hundred kids from the Korean
school where he was working and they became his client base,
ran to school for seven years, sold it and moved
back to the UK. Like I think that it and.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Like that's such clutch time.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
Yeah, and I do think that there's a huge you
could definitely do that right now and right here, right
now business. That's ready. If you want to be the
person who does it, it's ready.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
I think that window is closing, though.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
What do you think the biggest mixed conceptions about living
abroad here.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Are biggest misconceptions. I think it's probably changed a lot.
I think people are more attuned to the reality than
they were when I came over. When I came over,
I told my boss at the time, and he goes, Vietnam,
ain't there comedies in Vietnam in that exact voice, and
I was just like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
It'sist country.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (48:45):
So that was like mind boggling.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
And then I go to my eye doctor, who is
an Indian guy, and he goes, oh, we're going to
switch you from like thirty day context to dailies because
I don't know if you're going to have like clean
running water when you go.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
And I'm like, oh, really, like it.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Looked like a normal city to me, Like what am
I missing? Listen to my doctor of course, and then
I get over here and it's just like not any
of that, Like you're not living in a tin shack
roof with.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
Like a satellite dish and like spotty internet.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Like my internet here is stronger than it was in
the US where I live. The electricity is almost always on,
Like I don't get power outages by the gym. That
area gets some power outages. But if you're in like
the ntums, I don't know if you've had any problems
with that. They have scheduled stuff from you.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Yeah, there's like brownouts. We had it actually when we
were staying We stayed in on Bang for a few.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
Months, a little different.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, it's like a sort of touristy beach part and
there was some brownout stuff it's pretty common. I think
that's gonna be more common in the whole world. But
essentially it's like power rationing, where the power gets shuts off.
It would certainly be something to look into. Not I
think if you're moving into a building or a condo,
but if you're looking at a house here and a
real more permanent thing, it would definitely be something you

(50:00):
want to talk to neighbors or check out.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, because like where I'm at now, I think it's
maybe twice a year and it's scheduled. So like if
you know a Vietnamese person or you talk to your landloid,
they could give you a heads up that it's coming.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Yeah, we have our transformer on our block. Blew up
last week, but there we had a back running within.
Like it was like it blew up during dinner time
and we have power by the lights. All came home,
We're putting the kids to bed.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
What can you or other Americans learn from Vietnamese culture.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Vietnamese culture is way more family based and way less individualistic.
There are obviously downsides to that and benefits to like
individualistic mindset, the way families here are so connected to
each other and like no matter what happens. It's like,

(50:53):
it's kind of crazy to see, I love my family
and I'm I think I'm close with them, but the
way I interact with them versus is the way my
wife interacts with her family. She calls them every day,
always facetimes for like an hour, if not every day,
every other day, either her aunts or her grandma's or somebody.
I talk to my parents like every three months, and

(51:15):
my brother maybe every twice a year. But I feel
like that's normal for the West, but here, like the
family is so cohesive. They're really set on like everything
that the family builds is the whole families, So if
one of them falls on hard time, the family will
bail them out, or if someone needs something, they're always

(51:38):
there to help each other out.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Where I think some of.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
That is kind of lost in the West now. But
to the other extent is they then don't see friends
as important as I think we do. Where like the
people I associate my tightest feelings and connections with are
my friends, whereas like hers's family, and yeah, she likes
her friends obviously and like they would help each other out,

(52:04):
but it's somewhere near like the same level it's like
kind of a switch dynamic. I would say, I think
a little more appreciation of your family would do the
West good, A little bit more of that communal sensitivity
instead of just like always being so individualistic.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
I think that would we could learn a lot from that.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
I think it's so true, and like both aspects of it.
I've thought a lot about the family thing. I don't
think i've thought before about that idea that people here
aren't necessarily as deeply entwined with friends. I agree, right
the idea from the West, your high school group or
maybe your college group, or your roommates, you can really
sort of think of those people as your family or

(52:44):
your community, your network, your safety net. And though lots
of people have close friends here, I don't think anyone
would think of a friend group that way in Vietnam, right,
they would think of the bond is always family, always right,
like family first blood is thicker than water. Yeah, it's
a really good one, I think too. It's and I

(53:05):
don't know if i'll leave this on camera, but I
think that that's the root of why you essentially don't
see homeless people here. You know, my parents and now
the people to visit me or ask about that, and
at least as much poverty here, if not more. So,
it's not a poverty question. You don't see people in
the streets because everyone is a part of their family unit, right,

(53:25):
and so that there would have to be some sort
of real like a whole family would have to fall apart,
and then the whole family would have to be out
on the street together. Yeah, there isn't the sort of
like individual who you know falls off the back of
the train or whatever, right or the back of the bus. Right.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
The social structure everyone, Like let's say you're an old
retired grandpa, Like it's socially ingrained of who's gonna take
care of that person. It's like this specific sibling first,
if not them, then this person, If not them, then
this person. So like I guess redundancy or like backup
to like who's taking care of who?

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Almost for some people is.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Restricting because like, oh, if you're a Vietnamese woman and
you marry this guy, you're going to have to take
care of his mother in law for the rest of
your life. It kind of sucks that way, but at
the same time, it means no one's getting left on
the side of the road basically absolutely.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
And I mean my in laws are moving to the
United States and are going to be Vietnamese living abroad.
Interesting because my brother in law is there and it's
his responsibility to take care of them. Yeah. Yeah, And
so they're going to move in with him, and they're
going to look after his child, right, They'll be his
childcare when him and his wife are at work, and

(54:39):
that is their retirement plan. Their retirement plan is putting
money into his housing and his family, yep. And they're
going to go there like it's not and there's no
need to really and somebody's to think about it because
it's preordained, right, like the structure of it is preset. Okay.
So the next question kind of aligns was going to
be how do you meet people here? The friends thing
I think we've already talked about with sports and clubs

(55:01):
and social stuff. So how about you're wife? How did
you meet your wife?

Speaker 2 (55:05):
So that's kind of like a slightly convoluted, longer story.
How I met my wife was actually met this girl
from Hanoi on Tinder. He was down visiting and we
hung out for a little bit. She went back to Hanoi.
We kept in touch, and one day she sent me
a picture of a model and she was like, I
think this girl's really beautiful. And I was like, is
she a friend of yours? She goes no, and I'm

(55:26):
just like, why are you sending me this? I was
like we were talking about it, and I was like,
I bet I could get a date with her. She
goes not in a million years. So I just randomly
texted her on Facebook Messenger. She thought I was creepy
and like didn't talk to me, and I was just like, well,
I tried whatever. A few months later, she's visiting Denong
and forgot who I was, and I was just like, hey,
I see you're in Denong. Do you want to go

(55:47):
on a waterfall trip? She's like, actually, I got nothing
to do?

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Why not?

Speaker 2 (55:51):
And then we went on this waterfall trip and then
just kind of hit it off from there.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
So she went.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Back to Hanoi after like a week, and we kept
in touch. I visited her in Hanoi and then she
moved down to the nunks.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
Fascinating, that's is history Hanoian. I couldn't I'm married to
a Sacanese woman, and I couldn't imagine being married to
annoy and I'm sure you feel the same that. I mean,
that's just something if you come to Vietnam you'll have
to learn for yourself deep cultural differences between the North
and the South. There are real, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
So when she came down here, she thought like everyone
here was super countryside. That's one of the reasons I
don't speak Vietnamese is because my accent is countryside accent.
Annoyan people are very proud of their city and their
language and their culture. But she has very much opened
up to living in Denongans has started to see the benefits.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
My wife after thirty one years in Saigon, this is
her first experience. True experience has been a broad traveling
but this is her first two experience of living outside
of Saigon. And I feel like it's the same way
that Annoyans and Sayonse are both. What they do share
is extreme pride and place in their hometowns. Both of
them come to Danay and are like, wow, oh yeah,
it's nicer.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
It takes like a year or two, but then they're like, actually,
I do like breathing oxygen.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
What's something weird, something strange that still sort of makes
you do a little double take when it happens.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Oh, traffic, traffic stuff all the time.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
You're just driving and you're like, are you seriously doing
that right now? Like like sometimes people be like looking
at houses on the right. They'll be on the right lane,
they'll have their right blinker on and they'll just be like, oh,
what's this without looking left? Turn across six lanes? Just
no clue.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
I call it like the double fake right. But it's
not the other way. They go left to do the
right U turn, or they go right to do the
left you turn.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
It's a classic. It's outrageous.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
And if it's not the way they drive, it's what
they're driving with. My buddy Travis has like a collection
of pictures. He calls it the big load, which is
just all the things they can fit on a motorbike.
Could be like a twenty foot mirror, could be like
five hundred styrofoam coolers, insaying what they put on a
motorcycle here.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Truly impressive feats of balance. Yeah, what's something wonderful about
living abroad?

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Let me hear, like the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
I can't think like, outside of missing family and friends,
I can't think of like one thing that I prefer
back home than to hear. Can't think of anything because
right here I have. I've got the beach within five minutes,
three minutes. I've got Suntra, which has like six hundred
of the rarest monkeys on Earth, that's twenty minutes from

(58:31):
my house. Within two hours, I have thirty different waterfalls
that I can go to that virtually nobody else knows about.
Basically everything that I could want. Actually, now, there is
one thing where like repair men or like fix it people,
people whose job is to fix something a mechanic, they
always do the cheapest and worst job possible. That's probably

(58:55):
the only thing I would change, Like I will tell
mechanics or electricians or roofers, like I need this roof
to not leak. I will pay you any amount of money,
give me like ten dollars, and I'll patch it up
real quick. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I need the
thing replaced. And you really have to like drive it
into their heads and they still don't understand it. The
quick fixes.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
It's an interesting thing I noticed too, and it's not
unique to Vietnam, but definitely it is a regional thing,
and I think maybe it has to do with something
to do with like the rate of development and the
fast place that's fast developing, and you're only just sort
of thinking about like what's next and growing and the
new thing I've never seen anywhere. And this is perfect example.

(59:37):
This is a brand new coffee shop. Someone invests all
this time building this brand new coffee shop yep, and
then like boom, they just walk away, no upkeep and
no one, no one steps in, right, It's like.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
It's a random cinder black, random burnt out piece.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
So they put this whole garden in here, right Like
It's like people will build beautiful houses, beautiful gardens, beautiful buildings,
no upkeep, and the thing that was incredible, like dreamlike
majestic is just crumbling six months later, and they're just like, eh,
not my problem, you know. And you're like, wait, what
what It.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Would take an hour of work and one hundred dollars
to make this place immaculate.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
And labor's cheap, and labors they're cheap.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Yeah, like a couple wood panels and some dude who
knew what they were doing one hour, they could fix
everything here.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
This is not my last I know some other people
have done it. You're a business owner here, you're running
a business here. What for you as someone living abroad
and starting a business in Vietnam, what have the biggest
struggles been, the biggest barriers.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Two things I would say the hardest right now is
finding good staff, because when you find good staff, they're
usually not there permanently. So I've had really good staff
and they've already cycled out, mostly because I'm hiring university students.
The job's just well suited for them because there's a
lot of downtime they can study, so they don't mind

(01:00:56):
working longer hours. But the problem with that is you
get a really good staff, you train them up, everything's
going well, and then they graduate and then they go become.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
A mechanic or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
So finding good staff, training staff, keeping staff, that's all
pretty hard. And I've heard from friends with bigger businesses
that like, even if you pay them more, that like, ah,
I'm just working here at mindset doesn't really change because
that's like what I would think in America, if you
want a better job, you just pay more here, it
doesn't really map on the same way, doesn't really change

(01:01:27):
the mindset.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
The other thing is when you're setting up make sure.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
You have a good good connections with people and you
know what you're getting into, and just expect almost everything
to be late and over like more than you signed
on for.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Even if you have a contract.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
The contracts here don't really mean much because you can't litigate. Yeah,
make sure you trust the people you're working with, and
make sure you get background information on them from other
businesses before you trust them with large purchases or whatever,
and those would be the two biggest things. It's like
contractual obligations and attaining and keeping good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
One of the things I heard from someone who does
a lot of someone living abroad here who does a
lot of negotiations, is that the biggest thing they had
to overcome was it's really common here and I think
in other parts of Southeast Asia for people to say
yes as an acknowledgment I'm not an agreement, And as
a Westerner someone living abroad here, you can feel like

(01:02:29):
you're them being lied to, like you've ben told the
promise because you say, hey, we're going to do this,
this is the deal. Does that sound great? And they're
like yes, and they're just acknowledging they've heard what you
said as opposed to doing what like a handshake agreement
of like yes, I will carry that out, like just saying,
for example, being like Bung right, like oh Vong Vong
mung hung some I'm just saying yes, yes, yes, yes,

(01:02:51):
yes yes, but it's not they're not actually agreeing to
the terms you laid out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
It's a killer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
And now that you lay it out that way, that's
definitely happened to me many times.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
That's not an original. That's one of the things I've
heard learned from someone else. What's one piece of advice
or two if you want, for someone considering the move
here who's on the fence. They're still at home in
America or France or whatever, and they're just thinking about
taking that leap of faith into living abroad in Southeas
stage or elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
So I would say it doesn't have to be a
leap of faith, Like I wouldn't go and liquidate well,
I mean I would personally, but I wouldn't recommend it
for everybody to just liquidate everything you have and then
just hope it works out here. I think it will
work out here, but Vietnam isn't for everybody, and maybe
living abroad is for you, but you're not. Everyone's going

(01:03:46):
to luck out like I did and just find the
perfect city right off the bed, so leave your options open.
I would visit as many different places as you can.
I would pick like three, Maybe go check it out,
live there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
If you can.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
If your finances are tight, then it's going to be
harder to do then I would still I wouldn't recommend
doing it if you don't have some savings, like you
don't want to come out here and lose everything. If
your finances are tight, you need to do a lot
more prep work and line everything up. Make sure you
have a job, make sure you have a plan. If

(01:04:20):
your finances are decent and you can just come out
for a trip.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
That would also be a good way.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Any other advice, I would say, keep in touch with
your friends as best you can when you do move
out here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
It's hard.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
You got to put a lot of work into like
keeping in touch, and that's pretty much it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Okay, So the last one is actually for me. It's
what's one question that I didn't ask you that I
should ask the next person I have on the cost
of living a broad pod.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
I like it because it's really thought provoking, I think
it's less for your viewers and more for like the
next expat is, do you like the country you're living in?

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Probably yes? Do you like it more than the country
you came from? Probably yes?

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
If that's the case, Like, don't try to make this
place like that place. It's more of not really a question,
it's more of like something to think about.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Well, I like the framework of it. It's the two parter, right,
the direct comparison where are you living now? Where from?
Are you in the right place? Basically? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Are you in the right place?

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
I think, well, maybe I'll favor that way, just being like,
are you in the right place for you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Yeah, And don't constantly compare it to your hometown like
it's it's just it's not that, and you're here because
it's not that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
I'm Evan A and thanks for listening to the Cost
of Living a broad Pod. For full interviews, find us
on YouTube at cost of Living a broad Pod. Before
we wrap up, I just wanted to let you know
that if you're struggling with the cost of living crisis
back at home and looking for a sustainable and affordable
way to relocate your life abroad, check out our resources

(01:05:55):
courses and community at Cost of Living Abroad dot com
thanks so much. New episodes air Sunday night in Bangkok.

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