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.

Ancient Town

An Bang Beach

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

1. General: How to get there, a monthly budget, etc. 
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.  
11. My Son: Close to Hoi An is My Son, an ancient Hindu ruin site similar to, but obviously much smaller than Angkor Wat.  
12. Ba Na Hills: This is a combination French and Vietnamese heritage is on full display.
13. 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.

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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.

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.

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.