Of course, something always goes wrong. Nadia got sick and is going to stay back until she feels well enough to travel. Because she has a Belarus passport, she can take a sleeper train to Moscow and fly from Moscow to Da Nang, directly. It's more expensive, but because she is going to leave the dog with a friend, that will be simpler.
Because of this, I canceled the really nice B&B and got a basic one, just for me. The ratings are good and it is 102USD for 14 days and comes with breakfast. The location is good enough, by Silk Village and within a 1.5km walk of both Ancient Town and An Bang Beach. It is close enough in that there are lots of takeaway within an easy walk of the hotel.
Until my wife comes, I'll probably lay low. We'll see, but the hotel room does not look very comfortable for work. So, I will probably catch up on my messages at breakfast and then walk to the beach. There are plenty of cafes, pubs and restaurants right on the beach and there is a beach village with street food and a market. Generally, if you buy a coffee or a lunch, the cafes allow you to sit and use their Wifi and chaise lounges for as long as you like. So, I will probably do my 'learn, think and write' there. That is typically six hours per day, so if I get there around 9:00 A.M., I will leave around 3:00 P.M.
Then I will either pick up some dinner and stay in to watch Netflix and/or Youtube or change clothes and head to Ancient Town to eat.
There is a world class gym in Hoi An (due to the very heavy tourist trade) that costs $30 per month. In addition to all the equipment, they have personal trainers and classes that do not cost extra with the monthly plan. So, I will do that, but go, probably, only twice per week. As you get older, they suggest that sessions that may be every third day when you're young, should be every week. Otherwise, it is easy to over train and actually lose muscle mass.
I got really sloppy in Brest, because the gyms aren't that convenient. But when I was in Miami, it was normal for me to have a upper body day and a lower body day. I'd do core both times. So, that I will get back to. They do a lot of yoga in SE Asia (surprise, surprise), and I might take some classes, since they are free.
Yesterday, I bought a backpack, which I will use as my carry on. I have a hard side, wheeled carry on with my luggage set, but that really isn't very convenient for day to day. I got a 'Sketchers' brand that is full of zippered pockets, waterproof interior, etc. So, it will be my carry on and my backpack in Hoi An.
So, all set. As my wife says, I feel like I am sitting on my suitcase. I have everything ready to go, but won't leave for three days.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Friday, November 8, 2019
The Adventure Begins
I didn't start this blog when I moved to Belarus for the simple reason that when I came here, visiting Brest was very difficult. Now, Belarus has instituted 30 day visa free travel for most Western passports, so when we return in the summer (if we do) I will do Brest in more detail. However, on November 16 we will hop a train to Minsk and start our journey to SE Asia. I will chronicle this in detail.
This post is just about getting all the details straight before embarking. And there are a lot.
First, our travel itinerary. We board a train in Brest at 6:28 A.M. which arrives in Minsk at 10:30 A.M. We then take another train at 7:21 P.M. to Vilnius, Lithuania that arrives at about 9:30 P.M. We stay overnight in Vilnius, taking a flight from Vilnius to Moscow to Bangkok. We stay in Bangkok for a little over a day and then take an afternoon flight from Bangkok to Danang, Vietnam where we get our 'visa on arrival'. We then have a car pick us up and drive us the 16 miles to our B&B in Hoi An.
Planning the trip was a complicated process. First, I needed to decide where we wanted to come to rest in Southeast Asia. Initially, I thought I would be traveling solo and I chose Pattaya, Thailand as entertaining. I didn't plan on staying for more than a month, but that was where I planned on starting, because it is a very good place to meet people. When that changed to traveling as a couple with a dog, Pattaya was then not the best choice.
So, I watched lots and lots of videos and read lots of blogs. They mostly advocated for Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. However, more and more, Vietnam started coming up. Indonesia and Malaysia were not choices because they weren't dog friendly. Thailand was often the first choice for Digital Nomads. But, lately, the visa situation has been getting more difficult. It is OK for 2 months, but beyond that they get testy with visa runs. If you decide to go for a long term visa, they want you to put a pretty hefty amount in a Thai bank. Philippines is very attractive, but it is either very rustic or more expensive. Now that they have reopened Boracay, it does look like one of the better choices, though it definitely is not inexpensive.
So, I started watching lots and lots of videos on Vietnam. Hanoi and HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City, the old Saigon) are very popular with Digital Nomads, but they are a bit more expensive and much more urban. Much of them are still the Vietnam that most people think of but they are building newer, Western friendly accommodations. In general, they didn't appear that attractive to me. So, I started looking at Danang, the third largest city in Vietnam. It is going through a boom and My Khe Beach, made famous in America as China Beach, is turning into an upscale, international destination with luxury high rises lining the beach. However, 18 miles away is Hoi An and, clearly, per the videos, visitors from all over the Anglosphere fall in love with it.
I was able to find a B&B with a 35 m^2 room and a balcony, buffet breakfast and accepts our dog for 490USD per month. All of Hoi An receives reviews with much higher ratings than any other place I've ever seen, not just in SE Asia, but anywhere. Cleanliness and service are the features that people rave over. As I dug into all the features of Hoi An, it became the clear winner and I booked a room from Nov. 19 to December 19.
So, next, it became a matter of the best way to get from Brest, Belarus to Hoi An. That is complicated by the dog. Aeroflot and Ukraine Air are dog friendly and inexpensive. Turkish Air is inexpensive and takes dogs but charges over $200 per leg for them. Most of the other airlines are expensive and take dogs or are inexpensive and don't.
Next, I needed to consider what airport would be our departure point. At first I thought that we would take a train to either Warsaw or Minsk and fly from there. Brest is actually closer to Warsaw, but the train is less expensive to Minsk. The first thing I found out was that flying to Bangkok and then to Danang was much cheaper than flying to Danang directly. I tried flying to Hanoi or HCMC and then to Danang and that didn't help. The difference was between about 900USD and $600USD per ticket. So, I was planning on a train to Minsk and then flights from Minsk to Moscow to Bangkok to Danang.
I got lucky in a bizarre way. Strictly speaking Social Security does not pay beneficiaries if they are living in Belarus. You can file for an exception with the State Department, which we did. But, after seven months and numerous calls, we had not yet received any Social Security payments. They owed us thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. That money was the difference between just getting by and having all the money we needed to enjoy SE Asia. So, I hatched a plan. We would rent an apartment for a month in Vilnius, do the change of address and and get the money released. Then we would leave to Bangkok from Vilnius. When I went to check the flights, I found that the tickets were just 330USD, which saved another $340.
At the last moment the State Department released our Social Security, so Vilnius wasn't necessary. But it still was the correct choice money-wise on the flights. So I booked two tickets from Vilnius to Moscow to Bangkok on November 17, arriving in Bangkok on November 18 and two tickets from Bangkok to Danang on November 19. I still needed to book hotels for one night in Vilnius and one night in Bangkok. I could try to do it all without breaks but there are two very good reasons not to do that.
First, we would need to get up at 3:00 A.M. to get a train that would get us to Minsk and then to Vilnius by 6:20 P.M. when our flight left for Bangkok. Then at 6:00 A.M. (Brest time) we would need to rush to catch the flight to Danang, arriving around 9:00 A.M. (Brest time) and then take a car to Hoi An, arriving at our B&B around 10:00 A.M. That is 31 hours of constant going. To say that it would be exhausting is a vast understatement. Two, and this is the most important, if any of our legs were late on their arrivals, we would miss the rest of the flights to Danang. These cheap tickets are not refundable and we would need to buy new tickets, spend more on hotel rooms while our B&B in Hoi An would still be charging us, even though we weren't there. Thus, one night in Vilnius and one night in Bangkok.
Vilnius is a small city, but because it is the Capital, it has an International Airport. Consequently, when I put one night, near the airport and takes a dog in Agoda, then Bookings.com, I got nothing. There were two that met the criteria in downtown and one looked good enough for one night and cost 45USD. So, I booked it. Bangkok is a huge city and I had lots of choices, but I chose one relatively near the airport and close to a huge mall. I figured that would be important if we forgot something essential. Good thing I did.
Vietnam has become a 'come on in; stay as long as you like' kind of place with 30 day, 90 day, six month and one year visas. We decided to get 90 day multiple entry visas. We applied for them through ivisa.com and everything was quick and smooth with a minimum of paperwork.
A month in advance we got the dog current on all shots and updated the 'pet passport'. Just before we leave we need to get a veterinarian certificate of health that is good for only 5 days. So, we can't get it until November 15, leave the next day and clear passport control in Danang on Nov. 19. So, that just leaves the dog on the plane. Aeroflot was a breeze. I just called a number, asked for English (I could have done Russian but at B1 it would be frustrating for everyone) told them about the dog. They told me I was clear and that the cost would be $84 to have the dog in the cabin with us. The Vilnius to Moscow and the Bangkok to Danang legs are short but the Moscow to Bangkok leg is 9 hours and the dog would be traumatized if it was in the cargo bay the whole time.
Nothing was easy about the flight from Bangkok to Danang. Flights were either very expensive and took the dog or very inexpensive and didn't take the dog. The best alternative ended up being on Bangkok Air. I booked from their site, where I got a 102USD ticket that was not advertised on any of the usual sites. In fact, traveling with a dog in SE Asia is difficult. Bangkok Air only takes the dog in the cargo bay. But, they also only charge $33. It is a short trip, so I don't think the dog will be very traumatized, especially because, by then, she will be an experienced flyer. I bought the tickets, selected our seats and wrote down all the information. Good thing.
For some reason, my confirmation went to a Yahoo! e-mail address and Yahoo! threw it into the spam folder, which they only retain for a week. So, I lost it. After a whole lot of searching around, I finally found a place where I could communicate with Bangkok Air via e-mail and I told them the situation and that I needed to get the dog approved. I waited two days and then I received an e-mail giving me a different e-mail address. So, I cut and pasted the story into a new e-mail and sent it off to the new address. Three days later I got the confirmation e-mail and another e-mail telling me that I needed to tell them the breed and weight of our dog and the size of our dog carrier. In that e-mail I was told that it needs to be a hard sided dog carrier. Ours, because it works in a cabin, is soft sided. So, we are going to need to buy a hard carrier in Bangkok and use it for travel around SE Asia. That isn't a problem because, as I said, I booked us for 31 hours in Bangkok. This is another reason why you should take a break between legs.
We wanted to get vaccinated against Hepatitis and Typhoid, but our doctor in Brest told us that these shots are only available in the government clinic in Minsk. They are advised but not required in Vietnam, so we are going to risk it and get vaccinated upon arrival. I found a great site, hoiannow.com that has everything you need to know about living there. I also joined the Hoian and Danang expat Facebook groups. Between them all, I found that there is a U.S. trained doctor in Hoian that the expats love. Every three to six months, I need to get three tests, one for my diabetes and two for my cancer. Also, I have three medications that are 'prescription only' in some countries and OTC in others. Either way, it looks like it will not be a problem.
So, we are a week out and we have everything set except the dog certificate. Now, a lot of young DNs just fill a backpack, go to the airport, buy a ticket to wherever and go. Most have Schengen or U.S. passports, so if they need a visa at all, it will likely be a 'visa on arrival'. We aren't like that. We plan meticulously, but throw it out and make a new plan if the mood strikes us. WE are spontaneous, but, always, we are also prepared.
This post is just about getting all the details straight before embarking. And there are a lot.
First, our travel itinerary. We board a train in Brest at 6:28 A.M. which arrives in Minsk at 10:30 A.M. We then take another train at 7:21 P.M. to Vilnius, Lithuania that arrives at about 9:30 P.M. We stay overnight in Vilnius, taking a flight from Vilnius to Moscow to Bangkok. We stay in Bangkok for a little over a day and then take an afternoon flight from Bangkok to Danang, Vietnam where we get our 'visa on arrival'. We then have a car pick us up and drive us the 16 miles to our B&B in Hoi An.
Planning the trip was a complicated process. First, I needed to decide where we wanted to come to rest in Southeast Asia. Initially, I thought I would be traveling solo and I chose Pattaya, Thailand as entertaining. I didn't plan on staying for more than a month, but that was where I planned on starting, because it is a very good place to meet people. When that changed to traveling as a couple with a dog, Pattaya was then not the best choice.
So, I watched lots and lots of videos and read lots of blogs. They mostly advocated for Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. However, more and more, Vietnam started coming up. Indonesia and Malaysia were not choices because they weren't dog friendly. Thailand was often the first choice for Digital Nomads. But, lately, the visa situation has been getting more difficult. It is OK for 2 months, but beyond that they get testy with visa runs. If you decide to go for a long term visa, they want you to put a pretty hefty amount in a Thai bank. Philippines is very attractive, but it is either very rustic or more expensive. Now that they have reopened Boracay, it does look like one of the better choices, though it definitely is not inexpensive.
So, I started watching lots and lots of videos on Vietnam. Hanoi and HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City, the old Saigon) are very popular with Digital Nomads, but they are a bit more expensive and much more urban. Much of them are still the Vietnam that most people think of but they are building newer, Western friendly accommodations. In general, they didn't appear that attractive to me. So, I started looking at Danang, the third largest city in Vietnam. It is going through a boom and My Khe Beach, made famous in America as China Beach, is turning into an upscale, international destination with luxury high rises lining the beach. However, 18 miles away is Hoi An and, clearly, per the videos, visitors from all over the Anglosphere fall in love with it.
I was able to find a B&B with a 35 m^2 room and a balcony, buffet breakfast and accepts our dog for 490USD per month. All of Hoi An receives reviews with much higher ratings than any other place I've ever seen, not just in SE Asia, but anywhere. Cleanliness and service are the features that people rave over. As I dug into all the features of Hoi An, it became the clear winner and I booked a room from Nov. 19 to December 19.
So, next, it became a matter of the best way to get from Brest, Belarus to Hoi An. That is complicated by the dog. Aeroflot and Ukraine Air are dog friendly and inexpensive. Turkish Air is inexpensive and takes dogs but charges over $200 per leg for them. Most of the other airlines are expensive and take dogs or are inexpensive and don't.
Next, I needed to consider what airport would be our departure point. At first I thought that we would take a train to either Warsaw or Minsk and fly from there. Brest is actually closer to Warsaw, but the train is less expensive to Minsk. The first thing I found out was that flying to Bangkok and then to Danang was much cheaper than flying to Danang directly. I tried flying to Hanoi or HCMC and then to Danang and that didn't help. The difference was between about 900USD and $600USD per ticket. So, I was planning on a train to Minsk and then flights from Minsk to Moscow to Bangkok to Danang.
I got lucky in a bizarre way. Strictly speaking Social Security does not pay beneficiaries if they are living in Belarus. You can file for an exception with the State Department, which we did. But, after seven months and numerous calls, we had not yet received any Social Security payments. They owed us thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. That money was the difference between just getting by and having all the money we needed to enjoy SE Asia. So, I hatched a plan. We would rent an apartment for a month in Vilnius, do the change of address and and get the money released. Then we would leave to Bangkok from Vilnius. When I went to check the flights, I found that the tickets were just 330USD, which saved another $340.
At the last moment the State Department released our Social Security, so Vilnius wasn't necessary. But it still was the correct choice money-wise on the flights. So I booked two tickets from Vilnius to Moscow to Bangkok on November 17, arriving in Bangkok on November 18 and two tickets from Bangkok to Danang on November 19. I still needed to book hotels for one night in Vilnius and one night in Bangkok. I could try to do it all without breaks but there are two very good reasons not to do that.
First, we would need to get up at 3:00 A.M. to get a train that would get us to Minsk and then to Vilnius by 6:20 P.M. when our flight left for Bangkok. Then at 6:00 A.M. (Brest time) we would need to rush to catch the flight to Danang, arriving around 9:00 A.M. (Brest time) and then take a car to Hoi An, arriving at our B&B around 10:00 A.M. That is 31 hours of constant going. To say that it would be exhausting is a vast understatement. Two, and this is the most important, if any of our legs were late on their arrivals, we would miss the rest of the flights to Danang. These cheap tickets are not refundable and we would need to buy new tickets, spend more on hotel rooms while our B&B in Hoi An would still be charging us, even though we weren't there. Thus, one night in Vilnius and one night in Bangkok.
Vilnius is a small city, but because it is the Capital, it has an International Airport. Consequently, when I put one night, near the airport and takes a dog in Agoda, then Bookings.com, I got nothing. There were two that met the criteria in downtown and one looked good enough for one night and cost 45USD. So, I booked it. Bangkok is a huge city and I had lots of choices, but I chose one relatively near the airport and close to a huge mall. I figured that would be important if we forgot something essential. Good thing I did.
Vietnam has become a 'come on in; stay as long as you like' kind of place with 30 day, 90 day, six month and one year visas. We decided to get 90 day multiple entry visas. We applied for them through ivisa.com and everything was quick and smooth with a minimum of paperwork.
A month in advance we got the dog current on all shots and updated the 'pet passport'. Just before we leave we need to get a veterinarian certificate of health that is good for only 5 days. So, we can't get it until November 15, leave the next day and clear passport control in Danang on Nov. 19. So, that just leaves the dog on the plane. Aeroflot was a breeze. I just called a number, asked for English (I could have done Russian but at B1 it would be frustrating for everyone) told them about the dog. They told me I was clear and that the cost would be $84 to have the dog in the cabin with us. The Vilnius to Moscow and the Bangkok to Danang legs are short but the Moscow to Bangkok leg is 9 hours and the dog would be traumatized if it was in the cargo bay the whole time.
Nothing was easy about the flight from Bangkok to Danang. Flights were either very expensive and took the dog or very inexpensive and didn't take the dog. The best alternative ended up being on Bangkok Air. I booked from their site, where I got a 102USD ticket that was not advertised on any of the usual sites. In fact, traveling with a dog in SE Asia is difficult. Bangkok Air only takes the dog in the cargo bay. But, they also only charge $33. It is a short trip, so I don't think the dog will be very traumatized, especially because, by then, she will be an experienced flyer. I bought the tickets, selected our seats and wrote down all the information. Good thing.
For some reason, my confirmation went to a Yahoo! e-mail address and Yahoo! threw it into the spam folder, which they only retain for a week. So, I lost it. After a whole lot of searching around, I finally found a place where I could communicate with Bangkok Air via e-mail and I told them the situation and that I needed to get the dog approved. I waited two days and then I received an e-mail giving me a different e-mail address. So, I cut and pasted the story into a new e-mail and sent it off to the new address. Three days later I got the confirmation e-mail and another e-mail telling me that I needed to tell them the breed and weight of our dog and the size of our dog carrier. In that e-mail I was told that it needs to be a hard sided dog carrier. Ours, because it works in a cabin, is soft sided. So, we are going to need to buy a hard carrier in Bangkok and use it for travel around SE Asia. That isn't a problem because, as I said, I booked us for 31 hours in Bangkok. This is another reason why you should take a break between legs.
We wanted to get vaccinated against Hepatitis and Typhoid, but our doctor in Brest told us that these shots are only available in the government clinic in Minsk. They are advised but not required in Vietnam, so we are going to risk it and get vaccinated upon arrival. I found a great site, hoiannow.com that has everything you need to know about living there. I also joined the Hoian and Danang expat Facebook groups. Between them all, I found that there is a U.S. trained doctor in Hoian that the expats love. Every three to six months, I need to get three tests, one for my diabetes and two for my cancer. Also, I have three medications that are 'prescription only' in some countries and OTC in others. Either way, it looks like it will not be a problem.
So, we are a week out and we have everything set except the dog certificate. Now, a lot of young DNs just fill a backpack, go to the airport, buy a ticket to wherever and go. Most have Schengen or U.S. passports, so if they need a visa at all, it will likely be a 'visa on arrival'. We aren't like that. We plan meticulously, but throw it out and make a new plan if the mood strikes us. WE are spontaneous, but, always, we are also prepared.
We had a two bedroom apartment and a studio apartment that my wife used as her retreat and atelier. We are letting the two bedroom apartment go, but we are keeping the studio. It comes with a very good sized storage locker where we will store the stuff from the big apartment. I still have a little bit of stuff that has not yet been moved out of the apartment, but that is it. Now, we just wait a week and GO!! I'll post again on train day. I'll also probably post some photos and maybe even a video.
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Thursday, October 24, 2019
Documenting SE Asia
I am going to do a series of blogs (that will include my photos and may include vlogs) on our 6 month excursion to SE Asia. I can't precisely say how this will go because we are flexible by nature. We tend to plan in detail and then deviate from the plan or change the plan often. However, we do know this with certainty. We are going to take a train from Brest, Belarus to Vilnius, Lithuania. From there, after staying one night, we will fly from Vilnius to Bangkok, Thailand with a 2 hour layover in Moscow. We will spend about 28 hours there and then fly from Bangkok to Danang, Vietnam and take a taxi to Hoi An, where we have reserved a B&B, Galaxy Homestay for 30 days. Then, we'll see.
This is the photo of the room that we booked. When we get there, I will post a photo of the actual room and our impressions. The room cost $370 for the month, but we bought two breakfasts for $2.00 each per day.
In the planning phase, we needed to budget for the cost of getting from Brest to Hoi An and then create a monthly budget. I found four videos on Youtube with people who detailed budgets for Hoi An. They spent, at the bottom, $1,176 for a month and at the top about $1,500. We decided to set our budget at $1,500 with $500 for accommodation, $500 for wife (she shops) and $500 for me. As Digital Nomads, we have the added challenge in that we have a teacup Yorkie, Miki. She adds to our costs and limits our choices, especially in travel and accommodations. Galaxy was very welcoming to Miki.
Right now, the important part is to arrange for the trip from Brest to Hoi An and that took some doing, mostly in research. Train tickets from Brest to Vilnius is about $75. I booked a hotel for $43 (with breakfast) that is close to the train station and will take Miki. We will likely need about $60 for taxi and lunch. Both Warsaw and Minsk are closer to us than Vilnius, but, for some reason, Aeroflot flies very cheaply out of Vilnius. A one way ticket from Vilnius to Bangkok was $267 each and $84 for Miki won the floor by us. Hotels are much cheaper in SE Asia and I booked a nice 3 star hotel near the Airport in Bangkok for $31. We will be there for 28 hours and there is a mall nearby, so, I am budgeting about $70 for 'other expense'.
The flight from Bangkok to Danang takes 1 3/4 hours and, sadly, Miki will need to stay in the cargo hold. The airline assured me that the conditions are just like in the passenger cabin. Our tickets are $102 each and Miki costs $33. For SE Asia our tickets are relatively expensive, but most of the airlines do not take dogs at all. At least Bangkok Air does. It is expensive on all the reseller sigtes, but on their own site, they have a special discounted rate. Our visas (we will get 3 month, multiple entry) will cost $184. Vietnam is supposed to be a communist country, but it seems that there are entrepreneurs everywhere. There is a fellow who runs a car service that will pick us up at the Danang airport and take us to Hoi An for $12. The regular cabs cost $20.
So, the total 'cost of getting there' is about $1,325. Spread over six months, that is an additional $220 per month. The trip back will be about the same, so total budget, actually, is about $1,500+$220+$220 = $1,940. So, we are allocating $2,000 per month to this adventure. We will follow that closely to see how the Budget v Actual turns out. Below are some photos that convinced us to start in Hoi An.
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| Ancient Town |
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| An Bang Beach |
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| Caterpillar to Clothes in Silk Village |
I really want this blog to be a comprehensive resource for people who are extended travel to SE Asia. So, I will do careful analytical Hoi An posts on
- General: How to get there, a monthly budget, etc.
- Accommodations: There are a whole lot of apartments in Hoi An, but there are literally 1,000 hotels, villas and B&Bs (Homestays). I will try to cover many of the options and try to give you ranges on costs, etc.
- Ancient Town: For about 1 km along the river there is a World Heritage Site, Ancient Town with a market on an island directly facing the Ancient Town. Ancient Town is about 600 years old and has a number of historical sites and museums that can be seen for a ticket just a little over $5 for five of them.
- City of Lanterns: At dusk, downtown Hoi An becomes a myriad of lanterns with an enhanced 'Lantern Festival' at full moon. Additionally, little candle holders are floated by the hundreds down the river. Also, handmade, silk lanterns are sold through multiple shops.
- Food: Hoi An does not have a 'grocery store' but instead has a number of shops and a rather large market. There are about 1,000 restaurants in the area and there are street food vendors everywhere. There are women wandering around Ancient Towns with trays full of fruits for sale. I will very faithfully record the selections and prices for you.
- The Beach: There are two large beaches, An Bang and Cua Dai and a small Hidden Beach between them. An Bang Beach is often mentioned in lists of 'Best Beaches in the World' articles. Cui Dai was destroyed by a Typhoon and despite having the high end resorts (Hoi An has a Four Seasons), it has not really recovered. An Bang has a little beach hamlet and the beach is lined with cafes and restaurants that will either rent you a chaise lounge for $2.00 or let you stay all day for a lunch.
- Lantern Festival: When the sun goes down, Ancient Town and the Night Market light up with silk lanterns. Every full moon, there is a 'Lantern Festival' when the number of lanterns increases, there is an increase in street performers and the traffic increases dramatically.
- Clothes: Hoi An attracts the best tailors and seamstresses from around Vietnam. There are four major tailors, literally hundreds of 'hole in the wall' tailor shops and a whole lot of pret-a-porter boutiques. There are also custom made shoes, purses, etc. Since the PPPX in Vietnam is about 2.9:1.0, the clothes are inexpensive but, purportedly, of very high quality.
- Arts & Crafts: Clothes are emphasized in discussions of Hoi An, but it is only part of what is made there. Silk lanterns are best known, but they also have a lot of painting and wood carvings. These tend to be missing from blogs and vlogs about the city.
- The Villages: There is a silk village where the inhabitants go from the silk worm to fabric making to clothing manufacture. There is also a 'rice village' and a 'vegetable village' and a 'beach village' at An Bang Beach.
- My Son: Close to Hoi An is My Son, an ancient Hindu ruin site similar to, but obviously much smaller than Angkor Wat.
- Ba Na Hills: This is a combination French and Vietnamese heritage is on full display.
- Marble Mountains: Between Da Nang and Hoi An are five mountains made of marble and limestone. It has many ruins.
I'm sure that once I am there I will find other posts that are worth your reading. I want this to be comprehensibly useful, whether your interest is general, a week or two holiday or a long term 'DN' style visit. Please feel free to comment.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
That is a Really Dumb Idea, Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang says technological unemployment will eliminate not just the jobs of half the workers, but the job category itself. It looks probable that he is correct over the next 20 years or so. That is, indeed, a problem. They will need to be retrained and low unemployment will go away for a very long time. Also, right now, 4.7% of the adult population, due to various disabilities, are essentially unable to create value added at a rate sufficient to justify the minimum wage. Technological unemployment will likely increase that to 15%, because the remaining jobs will be somewhat more intellectually or socially challenging. So, about 50% of the workers are good. 35% are going to go through some tough times as they go through retraining. For them, it is essentially a temporary problem. And 15% will never be able to support themselves through work.
Giving everyone $1,000 per month is a really stupid way to solve any of that. The 50% don't need it, which means that the other 50% should get $2,000 per month. If that is the budget. That is good, because, in the U.S. $1,000 per month does not finance a life worth living, but $2,000 at least gets one close. The 35% do not need $1,000 per month for life. But they probably do need at least a 60% of salary unemployment benefit extended for at least three years. That way they can afford to be retrained without their life falling apart. The 15% should get the SSI disability for which the 4.7% currently qualifies. Now, that is a bit more complex than Universal Basic Income (UBI). But it makes sense and UBI doesn't. Apparently, Andrew Yang thinks you are too dumb to follow all that, so you need something simpler.
We have this basic issue that Americans, more and more, do not want their citizens to lack a livable income or access to health insurance. I sympathize. The U.S. is the richest non-boutique nation in the world and if it can't assure a good life for its citizens, who can? But it needs to be done intelligently. In other words. we want to incentivize people to succeed while assuring that those who are not up to the challenge or who have suffered a 'good faith' setback are cared for. But, UBI doesn't do either well. At http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com I will be publishing articles that take on the major issues of today and, hopefully, provide sensible, non-partisan ideas to deal with them. Like this. Please visit and when you do, be sure to sign up for my newsletter.
Giving everyone $1,000 per month is a really stupid way to solve any of that. The 50% don't need it, which means that the other 50% should get $2,000 per month. If that is the budget. That is good, because, in the U.S. $1,000 per month does not finance a life worth living, but $2,000 at least gets one close. The 35% do not need $1,000 per month for life. But they probably do need at least a 60% of salary unemployment benefit extended for at least three years. That way they can afford to be retrained without their life falling apart. The 15% should get the SSI disability for which the 4.7% currently qualifies. Now, that is a bit more complex than Universal Basic Income (UBI). But it makes sense and UBI doesn't. Apparently, Andrew Yang thinks you are too dumb to follow all that, so you need something simpler.
We have this basic issue that Americans, more and more, do not want their citizens to lack a livable income or access to health insurance. I sympathize. The U.S. is the richest non-boutique nation in the world and if it can't assure a good life for its citizens, who can? But it needs to be done intelligently. In other words. we want to incentivize people to succeed while assuring that those who are not up to the challenge or who have suffered a 'good faith' setback are cared for. But, UBI doesn't do either well. At http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com I will be publishing articles that take on the major issues of today and, hopefully, provide sensible, non-partisan ideas to deal with them. Like this. Please visit and when you do, be sure to sign up for my newsletter.
Monday, October 7, 2019
America is Hopelessly Broken
I am a Digital Nomad, which means that I live temporarily and sequentially in several countries. We hang out in Brest, Belarus in the summer, though we do travel around Europe during those months. We are about to go wander around SE Asia for this winter and spring. In May we will probably go visit Alanya, Turkey (though that could change) and if we like it, lease a BOO (base of operations) there. There are a few dozen other countries on that list of potential places to visit or temporarily reside. No place in the U.S. is high on the list. That is also true on Nomadlist.com, which generally only ranks New York, L.A. and sometimes Los Vegas on its 100 most popular destinations list. Some of that is because the U.S. is just beastly expensive. A $3,500 budget in the U.S. is really a struggle. Over much of the world, that buys an affluent lifestyle. However, some of it, also, is just because the U.S. is broken and, though it is my home country, it is a place to be avoided.
What do I mean by broken? Well, I will explore that in this blog over time. It is central to why I am a DN outside of the U.S. rather than within it. It isn't broken in just one way. It is broken in lots of ways. And the politics of the country makes it hopeless to try to fix it. I know, I tried. And to be honest, with my blogs I hope to, over time, 'fix' it for some Americans, even if nobody can fix America. So, here I point point out a few reasons.
The U.S. is the only significant country that taxes its citizens no matter where they live or where they earn their money. There is a $105,900 Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, so, it is not a serious problem for middle class expats. But, if you aspire to success, it seems more than a little sharp that the U.S. can take up to 37% of your income without providing you with any meaningful services. For a fair number of Americans, that has become their practical reality and many of them are renouncing their U.S. citizenship.
Also, and this is very important, there is a requirement that you spend at least 330 days in a foreign country in order to qualify for the exclusion. Essentially, they are encouraging you to stay away. Additionally, the U.S. charges a repatriation tax if foreign income is brought back home. This is particularly a problem for foreign income of U.S. corporations. When these companies consider where to place new facilities, this repatriation tax pretty much throws the U.S. out of the running. So, and there is more, the U.S. tax code is a complete mess that Congress can't seem to fix and every time they try, they just make it more complicated.
The U.S. has law-abiding people around the world who wait in line for a decade or longer to enter the U.S. legally and, meanwhile, other foreign nationals sneak over the border or don't go home when their authorization expires. These people are now measured in tens of millions and Federal, State and Local government officials are fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo and, if anything, facilitate the unauthorized aliens. This is morally repugnant and, also, counterproductive to the nations best interest.
The Federal government provides billions of USD to support research in academia and facilitates loans for students while keeping their hands off of the cost of a university education. This is while revenue per student at most Universities is over $50K per year. OK, let's say that a professor has a payroll cost of $120K, there are 15 students in the class and the room costs $30K per year. The direct costs are $10,000. Now, there will undoubtedly be overhead, but that isn't even close to justifying the prevailing tuition rates. How is this happening when Student:Teacher ratios are almost always under 10:1? Because Professors do very little teaching. The politicians are busy talking about student loan forgiveness for the already scammed, and this debilitating debt is a problem. This debt cannot even be discharged in bankruptcy. However, most of the effort should be put into figuring out how to stop the scam and that is not being talked about at all. The U.S. should be proud of many of its universities. But that doesn't justify condoning the extortion of immoral tuition on the backs of young Americans who just want to build a good life for themselves and their families.
The U.S. pays 30% more for its health care than any other country and double the average for the OECD countries. If it got the best result by far, that may be justifiable, but the World Health Organization rates the health care in the U.S. well below the best. While most of the health care costs are hidden in the cost of goods and in lower wages, politicians are far more interested in whether the health care system should or should not be run by the government than just lowering the costs to something similar to the best health care programs in the world.
The U.S. educational system is hopelessly broken. Children graduate from high school barely able to read and completely incompetent in math. However, they are quite proficient in social justice issues, delivered in a politically biased way by teachers who are overwhelmingly supportive of one political party over the other. Once I attended a precinct caucus of the Democratic party and advocated that the Party should have a plank supporting a law that required 60% of the dollars allocated to education nationally must be spent IN the classroom. That means teacher, room, furniture, books and other direct teaching aids. The idea was so popular that I was elected delegate to the District Convention to pitch the idea. This would have lowered the cost of public education by more than $1,000 per year per student. When I got to the District Convention, my proposal wasn't on the agenda. When I asked the Convention Chair why, she said it must have gotten missed. When I asked her to put it on, she told me that the agenda was set and couldn't be changed. Uh huh.
The list could go on and on and I will expound on this topic over time. But the important point is that even if the serious flaws in the American system are voiced to a wide audience, the system really doesn't allow for remediation. That America is broken should be self-evident. That it is hopelessly broken is is only obvious to those who have attempted to fix a part of it. Even then, those people think that the confounding of solutions is just peculiar to their problem rather than pervasive. As you will see here and in my more formal blog http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com, there are political divisions that are actually ideological in nature much of the time that will eventually break the U.S. into three pieces and probably, by the time it is done, into five or more pieces. How that will happen will also be interesting to consider which I will do here and on michaelwferguson.
Please do visit http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com and consider subscribing to The Polymath e-mail list and reading about our crowd funding effort. Concrete support is essential to continuing our iconoclastic effort to pursue nonpartisan articles. And, if you are interested, please stay up to date on The Nomadic Polymath.
What do I mean by broken? Well, I will explore that in this blog over time. It is central to why I am a DN outside of the U.S. rather than within it. It isn't broken in just one way. It is broken in lots of ways. And the politics of the country makes it hopeless to try to fix it. I know, I tried. And to be honest, with my blogs I hope to, over time, 'fix' it for some Americans, even if nobody can fix America. So, here I point point out a few reasons.
The U.S. is the only significant country that taxes its citizens no matter where they live or where they earn their money. There is a $105,900 Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, so, it is not a serious problem for middle class expats. But, if you aspire to success, it seems more than a little sharp that the U.S. can take up to 37% of your income without providing you with any meaningful services. For a fair number of Americans, that has become their practical reality and many of them are renouncing their U.S. citizenship.
Also, and this is very important, there is a requirement that you spend at least 330 days in a foreign country in order to qualify for the exclusion. Essentially, they are encouraging you to stay away. Additionally, the U.S. charges a repatriation tax if foreign income is brought back home. This is particularly a problem for foreign income of U.S. corporations. When these companies consider where to place new facilities, this repatriation tax pretty much throws the U.S. out of the running. So, and there is more, the U.S. tax code is a complete mess that Congress can't seem to fix and every time they try, they just make it more complicated.
The U.S. has law-abiding people around the world who wait in line for a decade or longer to enter the U.S. legally and, meanwhile, other foreign nationals sneak over the border or don't go home when their authorization expires. These people are now measured in tens of millions and Federal, State and Local government officials are fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo and, if anything, facilitate the unauthorized aliens. This is morally repugnant and, also, counterproductive to the nations best interest.
The Federal government provides billions of USD to support research in academia and facilitates loans for students while keeping their hands off of the cost of a university education. This is while revenue per student at most Universities is over $50K per year. OK, let's say that a professor has a payroll cost of $120K, there are 15 students in the class and the room costs $30K per year. The direct costs are $10,000. Now, there will undoubtedly be overhead, but that isn't even close to justifying the prevailing tuition rates. How is this happening when Student:Teacher ratios are almost always under 10:1? Because Professors do very little teaching. The politicians are busy talking about student loan forgiveness for the already scammed, and this debilitating debt is a problem. This debt cannot even be discharged in bankruptcy. However, most of the effort should be put into figuring out how to stop the scam and that is not being talked about at all. The U.S. should be proud of many of its universities. But that doesn't justify condoning the extortion of immoral tuition on the backs of young Americans who just want to build a good life for themselves and their families.
The U.S. pays 30% more for its health care than any other country and double the average for the OECD countries. If it got the best result by far, that may be justifiable, but the World Health Organization rates the health care in the U.S. well below the best. While most of the health care costs are hidden in the cost of goods and in lower wages, politicians are far more interested in whether the health care system should or should not be run by the government than just lowering the costs to something similar to the best health care programs in the world.
The U.S. educational system is hopelessly broken. Children graduate from high school barely able to read and completely incompetent in math. However, they are quite proficient in social justice issues, delivered in a politically biased way by teachers who are overwhelmingly supportive of one political party over the other. Once I attended a precinct caucus of the Democratic party and advocated that the Party should have a plank supporting a law that required 60% of the dollars allocated to education nationally must be spent IN the classroom. That means teacher, room, furniture, books and other direct teaching aids. The idea was so popular that I was elected delegate to the District Convention to pitch the idea. This would have lowered the cost of public education by more than $1,000 per year per student. When I got to the District Convention, my proposal wasn't on the agenda. When I asked the Convention Chair why, she said it must have gotten missed. When I asked her to put it on, she told me that the agenda was set and couldn't be changed. Uh huh.
The list could go on and on and I will expound on this topic over time. But the important point is that even if the serious flaws in the American system are voiced to a wide audience, the system really doesn't allow for remediation. That America is broken should be self-evident. That it is hopelessly broken is is only obvious to those who have attempted to fix a part of it. Even then, those people think that the confounding of solutions is just peculiar to their problem rather than pervasive. As you will see here and in my more formal blog http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com, there are political divisions that are actually ideological in nature much of the time that will eventually break the U.S. into three pieces and probably, by the time it is done, into five or more pieces. How that will happen will also be interesting to consider which I will do here and on michaelwferguson.
Please do visit http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com and consider subscribing to The Polymath e-mail list and reading about our crowd funding effort. Concrete support is essential to continuing our iconoclastic effort to pursue nonpartisan articles. And, if you are interested, please stay up to date on The Nomadic Polymath.
Friday, October 4, 2019
SE Asia
Well, we bought the tickets and reserved the first month's B&B in Hoi An, Viet Nam. I've written a preliminary description of the place, which you can find on my pages. On Nov. 14, we will take a flight from Vilnius, Lithuania to Moscow and from there to Bangkok. We will probably spend a day in Bangkok and then fly to Danang, Vietnam. We will then take a taxi to Hoi An (about 20 km to the South) and check into our B&B, The Galaxy Homestay. After a month, we will assess what we want to do next.
Our B&B is about 1.5km to An Bang Beach and about 1.5km from the center of Hoi An with its Ancient Town, the Night Market, various museums, etc. With breakfast for two, it is 490USD per month. We were somewhat limited because we needed to find a place that would accept our dog. Fortunately, even though Hoi An has only about 70K people, it has about 1,000 B&Bs, hotels and resorts. So, finding a highly rated one at a reasonable price that would take a dog wasn't that hard. In fact, after much research we had 10 candidates.
I, of course, need to work during the day. Our room has a desk and WiFi, so I will probably work there. There is a balcony, so the dog can lay outside if she wants. I plan on knocking off about 2:00 PM and going to find my wife, either with or sans the dog. We will wander around until dinner (we eat about 5:00 PM) eat and then return to 'home'. Then we will either stay in or change and head to Hoi An for a little entertainment. Weekends (that may not be Sat. and Sun) will be different. We may take a taxi to Danang for some big city fun (it has about 1.5 million people), go to Ba Na Hills, Marble Mountains, Silk Village, spend the day at the beach or just hang around the B&B (it has a lawn and a cafe).
I watched 4 videos of different couples who lived 3+ months in Hoi An and shared their budgets. They all spent between 1,250USD and 1,500USD. The 1,500USD couple enjoyed Western restaurants and imported beer a lot and that is expensive. The other three were 1,400USD or less. Two of them rented a scooter on a monthly contract. The 1,250USD couple took bicycles everywhere and a couple times per month would rent a scooter. I also looked at Numbeo.com and Nomadlist.com to get additional support for costs. After all that, though we have more, we agreed on a 1,500USD budget. For example, sometime before we return to Europe, I want to do the 2 night boat ride in Ha Long Bay, which will require dipping into our reserves.
When we get there and gain some experience, I will post how that all turned out, moneywise. And, of course, photos and maybe a video or two.
Our B&B is about 1.5km to An Bang Beach and about 1.5km from the center of Hoi An with its Ancient Town, the Night Market, various museums, etc. With breakfast for two, it is 490USD per month. We were somewhat limited because we needed to find a place that would accept our dog. Fortunately, even though Hoi An has only about 70K people, it has about 1,000 B&Bs, hotels and resorts. So, finding a highly rated one at a reasonable price that would take a dog wasn't that hard. In fact, after much research we had 10 candidates.
I, of course, need to work during the day. Our room has a desk and WiFi, so I will probably work there. There is a balcony, so the dog can lay outside if she wants. I plan on knocking off about 2:00 PM and going to find my wife, either with or sans the dog. We will wander around until dinner (we eat about 5:00 PM) eat and then return to 'home'. Then we will either stay in or change and head to Hoi An for a little entertainment. Weekends (that may not be Sat. and Sun) will be different. We may take a taxi to Danang for some big city fun (it has about 1.5 million people), go to Ba Na Hills, Marble Mountains, Silk Village, spend the day at the beach or just hang around the B&B (it has a lawn and a cafe).
I watched 4 videos of different couples who lived 3+ months in Hoi An and shared their budgets. They all spent between 1,250USD and 1,500USD. The 1,500USD couple enjoyed Western restaurants and imported beer a lot and that is expensive. The other three were 1,400USD or less. Two of them rented a scooter on a monthly contract. The 1,250USD couple took bicycles everywhere and a couple times per month would rent a scooter. I also looked at Numbeo.com and Nomadlist.com to get additional support for costs. After all that, though we have more, we agreed on a 1,500USD budget. For example, sometime before we return to Europe, I want to do the 2 night boat ride in Ha Long Bay, which will require dipping into our reserves.
When we get there and gain some experience, I will post how that all turned out, moneywise. And, of course, photos and maybe a video or two.
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