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Title-wise, that just had more panache than The End Is Near. Or Your Ass Is Grass. I coulda also gone with The Sky Is Falling!, which may have been more appropriate since one of the requirements of being a sexpat in Thailand is the willingness to predict doom and gloom at any opportunity. Jabba’s been busy this week advising his band of merry men to cancel any flights they may have booked that have a stop in Korea because Kim Jong-un is throwing a hissy-fit again. But then throwing a hissy fit to mark the occasion of someone else’s hissy fit is, at least, meeting kind with kind. I’m not sure if it’s about being an old queen or being an old sexpat, but hissy fits seem to rule the day. Especially when it’s over the end of the world as we know it.
Second in popularity to whining about bar boys who don’t show the proper enthusiasm for the thirty bucks they are being paid to bring an octogenarian to climax is how dear that thirty bucks is these days. This week the baht once again strengthened against the dollar. And pound. And pretty much every other western currency. The message boards are filled with woe over how damn expensive Thailand has become. Sexpats already living on the margin are becoming destitute. Sex touri can no longer afford to visit the Happiest Place On Earth. The sky is falling and Thailand’s future is going right down the toilet with it.
I too remember the good old days when the exchange rate was 41 baht to the dollar. Back then gas ran under two bucks a gallon too. More recently, I remember being thrilled when the rate went as high as 32 during a visit, though it seemed to hover closer to 30 most of the time. I don’t ignore exchange rates. I even take the time when in Bangkok to go to where the best rates are available. Even when it is only a fraction of a percent more. But the difference between getting 32 baht to the dollar and 29 isn’t gonna break me. It’s hardly noticeable. And there’s a good chance in five year’s time that I’ll be remembering the good old days when you could get a 29 baht to the dollar rate.
I realize that not everyone’s budget is as healthy as mine. Just as there are those who can afford to drop bigger bucks than I do on holiday. But if your financial picture is so dismal that getting 3 baht less per dollar exchanged is that big of a hit, maybe you shouldn’t be spending a grand on a week of getting your rocks off. And if you retired in a foreign land with a nest egg so small to put you at the poverty line when inflation kicked in, well, that wasn’t a very smart move now was it? Maybe you should have allowed your bigger head to do your retirement planning for you. But then I guess even when you can no longer afford the cheap sex that drew you to your new home thanks to the unfavorable exchange rate, there’s still value in being able to bitch and moan about how expensive things are these days. And that’s gotta be worth the ten cents less you’re getting per dollar exchanged.
Though many holiday for less and live in Thailand on less, most would agree that an outlay of $5,000 would allow you to do either comfortably. The difference between the exchange rate today – and hell, let’s drop it to an even 29 since we’re headed that way anyway – and what it was just a few years ago when you could get 32 baht to the dollar, on $5,000 is just under fifty bucks. That’s chump change. Or to put it in a perspective sexpats can understand, the boy you rent for the night now costs you a whopping $3.25 more than he would have just three years ago. That’s assuming you’d pay the going rate. Which most sexpats wouldn’t. Because $35 is way too much to be spending on an orgasm.
For the visitor who spends two weeks in Thailand and offs a boy nightly, that means spending an additional $45 over the length of your holiday on getting off. Or $90 for those who prefer an early evening and late night orgasm daily. Compare that to the increase in air travel costs over the last few years and you should quickly realize the exchange rate is not the problem. But bitching about the cost of air travel just isn’t as much fun.
This morning I checked the rates at a hotel in Bangkok that I first started using over 20 years ago. It’s a three star hotel that likes to think it’s a four star hotel, nicely located a short block off the happening section of Sukhumvit, offering spacious rooms with marble floors and a buffet breakfast with at least a dozen hot dishes. Their ‘Executive’ room ran 1,800 baht twenty years ago. And it’s still 1,800 baht today. That may cost me almost $20 more per night due to today’s exchange rate, but it’s still an incredible deal. And less than the Motel 6 a few minutes from my home charges as its weekend rate. Meanwhile, in Bangkok, dozens of new hotels in and around Silom have sprung up in just the last few years with nightly rates around 1,2000 baht. That’s about $40 regardless of which exchange rate you use. How can you possibly claim that Thailand is no longer an affordable place to live or visit?
The cost of drinks and off fees have gone up over that span of two decades, but the average bar boy tip in Bangkok hasn’t. So he too costs me $20 more at today’s rates than he did when I first began visiting Thailand (though I doubt it’d be the same bar boy. I hope.). That tip due to the difference in exchange rates over the last several years costs me just over $6 more today. And my pleasure is worth every penny of that ginormous amount.
I get it. When you have nothing else to occupy your time, bitching about anything and everything is a happy diversion. It’s almost as good as predicting the end of the gogo bars, the end of Westerners’ influence on Thailand’s commercial sex scene, and the end of Thailand’s allure for sexpats and touri alike. But when it is the difference between paying $31.25 and $34.50 for a night with a hot young stud who’ll make all of your fantasies come true, you just come off sounding silly.
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Chaleejr said:
The first time I arrived in Thailand (91), the exchange was 25 bath to the dollar, then came those years of financial crisis and the exchange reached 50 baths to the dollar, boy we were really in paradise because the prices of everything stay the same. So not having the exchange reach that low mark (25) it is still a bonus to me.
Bangkokbois said:
Now that you mention it, on my first visit the baht was high too – around 27 to the dollar. And everything seemed so cheap! I think if it had never dropped everyone would still consider Thailand an inexpensive holiday or place to live. Instead we got spoiled when the baht’s value was low. Thanks for putting that into perspective!
Dekar said:
Well it seems from your list that the inflation in Thailand actually is close to 0 and just the strengthening of the economy results in a “worse” exchange rate. But the calculation of inflation and exchange rates for retirement has always been the weak side of people even if they don’t go abroad.
Solution in the end is starting to work again. Might help to reduce the belly fat a bit and maybe the bar boy is also more enthusiastic if the customer looks like a human being rather than a whale 😉
Bangkokbois said:
Or they could do everyone a favor and migrate like the rest of the world’s whales do!
Alex said:
It’s a pity that your maths teacher wasn’t allow to cane you. A drop from 32 baht to 29 baht per dollar means that you lose the equivalent of about $500, not $50, when exchanging $5,000. 🙄
On the bright side, there’s the ongoing decline in prices for electronic gadgets like cell phones and such. So, these guys whining and bitching about prices going up really have to consider how many phones, game consoles and computers they can now afford to buy for their boy(s). 😉
$5,000 is indeed a good budget. For expats per month (I typically spend less, but getting free housing, being quite busy most of the time and not having any kids that I’d have to send to private schools for a proper education certainly helps keeping my expenditure low!), for tourists per week (I typically spent more as a tourist, but I was young and foolish).
Bangkokbois said:
Oh.
Then never mind.
🙂
Al said:
Busy most of the time? Free Housing? Time to sit and do the math?
Are you in jail?
Bangkokbois said:
lol.
Nope, just gave math up for Lent this year.
Al said:
Umm actually directed at Alex…..sorry. But was just kidding anyway.
Bangkokbois said:
Sweet!
I’m 2 for 2 on this post!
🙂