It’s nearly 1am on February 14th in Bangkok. Sam
and I have been on our feet since 7:15 yesterday morning walking, bussing, and taking
the sky train to reach various parts of this eclectic city. We departed Daruma
on Monday (how we miss our friends there!) and are spending three days
sight-seeing in Bangkok before we head to Koh Phangan for the next big permaculture
adventure. I thought it would be interesting to write out my expenditures for
today in this blog post- a day in the life through the lens of my wallet. It will give you a sense of how Sam and I spent our time, and it will be useful for my own budget-tracking purposes. I spent
exponentially more money today than I normally do because Sam and I went
shopping and I decided it was a day to indulge. Today was kind of like a
mini-vacation, you might say. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
For my purposes here ‘B’ stands for Baht, which is the
Thai currency.
30 B = ~1 USD.
15B Bus
from Shanti Lodge to Siam Square.
20B Sky
train from Siam Square to Wireless Road.
$82 USD Fee
to add pages to my passport at U.S. Embassy.
120B Iced
soy latte at Starbucks (yummy indulgence).
150B Transaction
fee for cash withdrawal from ATM. Necessary preparation for what lay ahead.
50B Ridiculously
spicy and tasty lunch at MBK mall.
400B Two
pairs of incredible, floral parachute pants that I’ve been waiting for all my
life.
65B Chocolate
coconut shake at vegan hippie restaurant Ethos (yummy indulgence #2).
110B Photo
album made from recycled paper and post cards at bookstore.
290B Handmade
journal bound by string and bearing the Ohm symbol a.k.a. the most perfect place to
hold the details of my adventures through Southeast Asia.
120B A
‘Hippy Lady’ at Hippe De Bar. Location chosen carefully after perusing the menu
of every bar on Khao San road in search of the best deal. Yes, we asked to see
the size of the glasses. (yummy indulgence #3).
35B Pad
thai and spicy tofu curry for dinner. What a steal.
140B Vegan
chocolate cake with coconut cream and bananas. To compensate up for my inanely cheap dinner, I returned to Ethos and got this delicacy to go. With no
tupperware container to my name here in Thailand, I got resourceful and stuffed
the hunk of cake with its banana chunks and soupy coconut milk in the
oh-so-useful plastic Walt Disney World travel mug I tote around. (yummy
indulgence #4... are your surprised?)
Total for the day (excluding U.S. cash for visa
pages)
1,515B
Expenditure breakdown
Transportation: 35B
Food & Beverage: 530B
Souvenirs: 800B
Other: 150B
When I first calculated the total I was slightly
horrified. My expenditures have been almost nonexistent up until this point
because Sam and I hardly left Daruma during the past three weeks. A bottle of coconut sap drink now and again, perhaps some rose apples from the market, or a 100B card to top off phone minutes... Nothing more.
Then I calculated the currency conversion. 1,515 B is about 45.45 U.S. dollars. Two pairs of pants that are
out-of-this-world awesome (you should see Sam’s tie-dye pair), a journal and
photo album I absolutely treasure, and an incredible sampling of the many
tastes Bangkok has to offer... I’ll take it for $45, thank you very much.
Like I said, today was a mini-vacation of sorts so this certainly does not reflect my normal budgeting for the trip. But if you're looking to travel cheaply and still fully experience the many wonders of a foreign place, I would definitely recommend coming to SEA for a time.
Happy Valentine’s Day! (In case you are wondering yummy indulgence #5 will be some sort of dark chocolate in celebration of Valentine's Day. I've yet to actually see any legitimate dark chocolate... but I'm determined)
Good night to some and good afternoon to most,
Kelly
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