He Left Bangkok for Da Nang Vietnam! Tour His $400 Apartment

He Left Bangkok for Da Nang Vietnam! Tour His $400 Apartment

Welcome back. We are in Anong Heart of Dedang, Vietnam for the Costa Living Show. I’m Evan. Today we’re meeting AJ Wallace, Angelon Wallace, a longtime digital nomad YouTuber from Detroit, Michigan originally, so my neck of the woods back home. He worked as a tech recruiter remotely online. He’s also a YouTuber. The channel about 20,000 views. going to talk about living Bangkok versus Da Mang, his two experiences of Vietnam and Thailand, as well as how he makes money earning and living online. So, let’s say what up to him. He’s right here. What’s up, man? What’s up, baby? How you doing, man? Yeah, good, man. Nice to meet you. We can order in a bit, but let’s just start off with like I’m so curious about, you know, your original reason for getting out in America, why you left Detroit. like, you know, I can feel you on the the escaping winters, obviously coming from Toronto, but when you originally made the big move, what was what was the reason? Yep. Well, I left Detroit, man. I I grew up in Detroit during a time where it was really rough and things had started to change recently. I mean, man, a lot of new businesses have came to the city. Um, I think it was like a billionaire, Dan Gilbert. He came and bought up like the a lot of buildings downtown Detroit. and he’s really um you know renovated the city. But when I grew up in Detroit, it was really rough. And then of course, man, I carried a gun in Detroit. You know, I had my CPL license, but it was pretty rough. Like I was just like, man, I’m at Whole Food with a with a gun on my waist trying to buy organic strawberries. And it was just like, you know, man, this is not my personality. I went to school in Michigan, you know, I went to Eastern Michigan University and then I studied abroad. And once I went abroad for the first time, I studied in Oxford, I just fell in love with, you know, I did the whole like Euro uh Interell train and backpacked around Europe and I just fell in love with the whole traveling thing. And then um you know, man, went back to Michigan and you know, when I went back home, it just wasn’t I just didn’t feel comfortable at home anymore. You know, I didn’t feel like I fit in with Americans. I don’t know what it was. had the travel bug but I just changed overall as a person and wanted to start exploring life more you know at the time. Yeah. So when uh when you went back I mean I had a similar experience of starting off abroad in Mexico and Latin America then returning home and just you know feeling out of sorts right like feeling like I wasn’t clicking anymore and that’s when you know that I made the trip over to the east and to Asia. So what how many years ago was this when you went back home originally after your study abroad? I went back so I studied abroad for a year and then I spent like almost 4 months traveling around Europe then I went back home spent my last year uh finishing up my bachelor’s degree and once I graduated I got went through a program called CIE and as a teacher um and I went to go work for free. My mom was cussing me out. She was like, “You just spent 5 years in college and you’re going to go work for free in Spain.” And you know, I was like, “Yeah, I don’t know what I want to do, but this seems kind of cool. It seems awesome.” And it was one of the best experience of my life when I started teaching. I always wanted to become a teacher, but I realized the lifestyle I wanted. I I didn’t I didn’t know if that was going to pay the bills with what I with the things that I wanted to do. So I taught English for one year and then I got accepted to uh University of Sydney Business School and went back to America for one more year and then moved to Australia for like 5 years. So yeah man. Wow. Amazing. So 5 years in Australia. So by the time you relocated to Thailand in Bangkok, right? Like I I know your YouTube channel and think of you as like a a Thailand guy, a Thailand expat, you’ve already been abroad for five, six years. So you’re pretty you’re pretty experienced traveler. Yeah. Almost 10 years really. But yeah, I started pretty young. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And you look, man, you still look young. Uh that’s nice, dude. Okay, so let’s let’s grab a coffee or a drink here. Uh then maybe we can go inside, check out your place, talk about your cost of living, things like that, and get into a deeper comparison of sort of like Thailand versus Vietnam. What’s What’s it like now? Sound good? That sounds good, man. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. I have a uh cappuccino. Um, hot. And what do you want, mate? Uh, can I have a nukan simo? Yeah. Okay. Ice on the back. I’ll get it, man. You got it. We’re talking We’re talking about banking. So, we’re talking about digital banking here and how you can set up through Teemo. And then I was telling you the story of my bank account being locked when my visa expired and I had to leave the country. Well, you tell me your story about Bangkok. Well, yeah. My my bank account actually just closed uh in Bangkok. I had my bank account for almost 3 years. Um I was on a student visa and now sadly enough in Thailand they don’t recognize language schools as official visas anymore and I don’t know why but that’s another that’s Yeah. So if you like you’re saying if you have a student visa and I know other people have done this too. You’re on a student visa in Thailand at a language school. Yeah. That’s not official. It’s not official. You can’t even leave the country with that visa on the technicality. You can’t leave and it can be very extremely difficult if you come back into the country and you know you don’t speak Thai or you you’re not even asking questions. They’re checking your cell phone to make sure it’s legit. So, they’re not really considering that a legitimate visa anymore. And they closed almost I think 800,000 uh accounts like one day and then they closed another 500,000 the next week. But they’ve been shutting down a lot of the foreigner accounts. So a lot of foreigners, this is one of the reasons that a lot of foreigners have started to leave Thailand because you know all their money got closed, frozen and then a lot of people who open accounts in Phuket Paya, they had to come back into the country just to get the money out of the accounts because the money was frozen. Same with my myself. I had opened my account originally in Paya. I had to drive all the way up from Bangkok, 2 hours there, 2 hours back, wait 8 hours, and all, you know, just to take the money out. And then when I took the money out, they still closed the account. So, it’s just kind of like um yeah, it’s kind of like Bangkok is trying to turn into the next Singapore, you know, pretty much. And you know, interesting. So, yeah, here it’s and yeah, I’ll just I’ll tell my flip side of the story. It’s like they’re switching over to a new e E digital everything system, right? Visas, banking, everything has to be digitized. Everything’s been modernized, which I don’t think it’s like a granny state the way China is. Personally, I think it’s more just about the the system they have now is really bad. It’s old school. It’s like paper stamps and whatever. And they need to update it. But like any bureaucracy, there’s like a bunch of hiccups on the way, a bunch of screw-ups. And that’s definitely one of it, right? Like getting people whose visas expire is getting locked out of the account. The account doesn’t necessarily get frozen. You have to showcase issue. I think the other thing they’re trying to do is shut down for locals, people who are sort of like having like a bunch of accounts and like stacking accounts and trying to like, you know, like hide money, do sort of do some shady business. Yeah. Um, ultimately though, it is just another layer, right? Like if you’re trying to move here, it’s another step, another layer. Another layer. Yeah. And I’m sure you heard about the the recent visa changes two days ago. I don’t know if you know what’s going on in Thailand right now. It’s all over the news right now. This is the thing about like the renewal or every day something new. Yeah. I mean, I literally don’t can’t keep up. The Yeah, border runs now. They strict on two. Oh, I have to say take away. It’s also just goes to show you, man, like uh Thailand is like on a whole another level in regards to the type of people that they’re trying to attract right now. Yeah, they’re definitely I mean that’s I I have in the past love Thailand. It’s the first place I came to when I landed in Southeast Asia in 2011 and I still love it. But I do think that they’re clearly changing their system of who’s allowed in, who’s there want in, who they’re attracting, right? like it’s it’s not it’s not the same vibe as it was 15 years ago. I mean, that’s okay. Everything changes, but it’s affecting that. I do love this setup, though. We’re literally like you were staying above this great cafe and it’s like the pool. Everything is walkable right out that front door. And I mean, you get to wake up just a nice cappuccino, isn’t it? Yeah. It makes you feel like uh remember the movie Richie Rich had the McDonald’s downstairs and it and you just come down your room. You come down and get the full service. I was nice. It’s like literally elevator in the cafe. So, how do you find this spot? I found this spot online. There’s a a Facebook group called apartments in uh for rent in Da Vietnam. you can post the status and you know, of course, they also are online other locations, but it’s really easy to just post the status and let people know that you’re looking for a place to rent. Um, and it’s just really convenient, man, compared to um, you know, Thailand is a little all over the place when it comes to dealing with real estate agents. Here, it seems like everybody’s a real estate a 17. Hey, I got a room for you. Hey, baby. You know our crazies. We’re here at the shoot. Oh, thank you. This is my beautiful thing girlfriend. Hey, Joeline. What’s up, Evan? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Yeah, this is a nice vibe, man. So, wait, is this your first time in Daang or No, this is our first time in Daang. We’re still like shopping around. So, this is our first place. We’re still shopping around for more places. So, this our first place downtown and we just love it. We’re 5 minutes to the beach. We’re downtown next to all the restaurants, cafes. Our favorite banging shop is it’s just like 2 minutes away. Yes. 2 minutes away. It’s um we have a coffee shop downstairs. It’s just like we’re located like centralized. Yeah. Yeah. It’s super accessible. All right, let’s do let’s do like a quick peek around and then you guys you guys have a spot. Come on, baby. Do a tour for us. Anyway, so we got a quick uh bathroom mirror and we have inside vanity mirror over here where um does his makeup stuff. He has more. He has more products than me, by the way. And we got the toilet and the shower area over here. Nice. And the bedroom. Just show them the bedroom. Yeah, bedroom. We have a nice uh queen size, well, almost king-size bed. And we got the lights, we got Netflix, we got a screen. Um, only downsides, we don’t have a view, but it’s kind of I think it’s better that way because the club across the street is like a part. It’s a nightclub, so they’re blasting music all night long. So, that’s one of the downsides. I mean, well, good for us cuz we don’t have to experience it, but I think if we were on the other side of the building, we would not get no sleep at all, you know? Yeah. And it looks like it’s got like a little natural light feature thing, right? Like like this window in the bedroom and then the I don’t know what you call that. What do you call the thing out of here in the kitchen? I forgot. It’s like a like a little terrace or like or Juliet something, right? Does this go right down to the cafe? Um, it does. Yeah, it looks right. There’s a big a skylight, I guess. We’ll just call it a skylight. Yeah, we just look we just like the the space. So, you found this place on Facebook. Obviously, it’s like it’s an incredible location, a great spot. Had you been to like we just met, right? Had you been to Daang before? Is this your first time here? No, man. So, we’ve been searching really heavily strong. Last about a year and a half ago, we made the decision. We were living in Pata and we relocated to Patia Thailand. For people who don’t know, it’s it’s only a 2-hour drive from Bangkok or an hour pin fast drive. We moved to Bangkok and we decided it was going to be our last year living in Bangkok. So, we started looking around. Our first choice was Cambodia and we were like locked in. I was talking to agents. I was looking at properties and then the war one first war broke out like the first like fight broke out initial then the second you know war broke out and I was like oh this is too just too much going on. So Cambodia was off the list and then we looked into Malaysia and we just started seeing a lot of uh your videos started popping up and a lot of people start talking about Vietnam and we were like oh man let’s let’s give it a shot. let’s look into it more. And we start seeing a lot more couples, a lot more, you know, uh, married people. And I was like, this seems like the, you know, more our vibe because I think I told you earlier, one of our biggest struggles in Bangkok was meeting other couples to hang out with because everyone, we’ll meet a cool couple. They’ll come and go, you know, we just meet them once, meet them once, and yeah, we had like the best time ever with a couple went bowling, went out to eat, and next week they were already in Phuket. you know, so it’s just like we and then as we get older, you know, we don’t really have the the time to do solo dooo, you know, just hang out with friends separately as we as we’re growing. We’re 3 years into a relationship. So, we’re really, you know, looking for more mature people who want to, you know, just hang, play Monopoly, play connect for. So, we just thought this would be more of a nice vibe. Uh, we actually had a couple’s date last week with a with a new couple, Filipino couple. Yeah. black man, Filipino. So, it was really nice. You know, she spoke to to Gala and you know, me and a black guy talked about black movies, you know. Well, you know, yeah, it was just good. It was good. I was too like I interviewed a couple like older couple America like white American couple originally like Midwesterners from Wisconsin, but they come in here from Miami. And one of the things that struck me when I was talking to them was like the the boat sales people. Yeah. is that it’s like not a sex pad vibe here. It’s just not. And it doesn’t it doesn’t mean there isn’t like a couple dudes out there acting like that or like doing the passport bro thing, but that’s just like not what’s happening in Vietnam. It’s not what’s happening in Daang. It’s just and and and even though parts of Thailand have or maybe the Philippines have like shaken that off or aren’t entirely that obviously everywhere is complex, it’s just not that here, right? And so it’s a very I think for a lot of people who bounced around different parts of the area, done the digital nomad, the slow nomad thing, you come here and it’s like it’s legitimate just a different culture. It’s a different place, right? So you get that new whatever new flavor, new vibe. My my partner, my my friend from America, he came over here by himself solo single person. He hated it. And he, you know, he he like he really hated it. And he was just like, “Man, dating is nothing like Thailand. Um I’m I’m talking to a lot of people. Nobody wants to meet up. It’s a lot of flaking, you know, flakiness.” So, and he was just like, “This is just too much.” Or he was he went on a date with a woman four times in a row and there was no physical anything. And he was just like, “This is just, you know, it’s not it’s not moving fast like Thailand.” And I and I think that we kind of we knew that was what it was here and we like that because it was just like well like I said we’re getting we’re our our relationship is getting more serious and we just want to be around more mature people and we were in Yeah. Cuz we were in PIA we felt like we were a part of a orgy movie you know like it was just every day we would see thongs we would see bras and bikini. I mean literally people were was butt ass naked. I don’t know if I can cuss your channel, but but it was just like it was so raw to, you know, Soy 6. You may want to show a clip like people may not believe, but it’s just it was just so raw and it was just like wo we’re waking up to this and it’s just like this is this is too much for us. And then when we moved to Bangkok our final year, it inflated so high. It became so expensive and it’s like it’s not even like it’s like super expensive now in Bangkok. So that’s let’s transition into that. the cost of living aspect of it because again I think it’s like some people like well we’re all going to Vietnam because it’s cheap and it’s like hey cheap affordable whatever word you want to use it is statistically factually it is a very very affordable country you know like on all the lists whatever 140 countries Vietnam’s like 120 like it is it is super affordable here but give me your personal experience of you know your breakdown of how much it costs you to live in Pata uh in Bangkok and then how how that’s changed or is different in a place like Daang. Okay. Patialia is way much cheaper than Bangkok. Um you can find apartments still for like $2 $300 a month. Um they may be in older buildings. So they may not be in newer buildings but like in your prominity of the Russians live and then centralaya is full of of Indians. They’re starting to call Payya little India now because there’s so many Indians in Paya and the end on the north side of Paya is where most of your Chinese tourists are as well. And so we lived in Proomen. We had a we actually the great thing about you know at the time when we moved to Thailand we had two houses. So we had a house in Bangkok. We had a house in Paya. We got a house in Baya cuz it was super cheap. It was only $200 a month. And we she loves the beach. She wants to go to the beach. I’m black. I don’t know how to swim. I don’t like water, you know. So, but so so yes. So, we just walked to the beach. She’s like, “Let’s get in the ocean. Let’s let’s get our hair wet first foremost. If I get my hair wet, I’m going to be boss.” You know, like we got our feet wet. We put one toe in there. And uh so we we Pati was way much cheaper. We went to Terminal 21, Pier 21. There’s like a food court. Food was like We only spent 200 for the both of us. 200 house in Patia. $200 or $300. What’s the rent in Bangkok? Obviously, I’ve seen the condo tour you did with Isaiah Ashley. That’s a beautiful building right in This is when I was single. So, yeah, this is when I was single and I was a bachelor. So, that that one was,500. That’s 500. Where were the two of you living in Bangkok last year? Last year, we were living in um I want to say downtown Bungalore area. At the time, we were paying about 22,000 a month. So that’s roughly about 600 or $750. Now it’s it originally was $600 but now inflation with the entire it’s about 750 or something like that now. Um so Dungalore downtown still went somewhat pricey but my apartment my original my first apartment in Bangkok in Ecomi was about 40 43 45 if the numbers are somewhat right. So it was a lot I was spending a lot of money at the time I think sometimes. So this this um you know we as foreigners as Americans, Canadians, Australians you know uh British people, United Kingdom, UK people we come over and we have been living such a expensive lifestyle in America that we don’t really know what cheap is. So when we first come here the you know when I first came to Bangkok I thought that the 1500 I was spending was cheap and when and then I started living amongst the locals. I started really immersing myself in the culture and I started realizing I was a stupid foreigner. I was like dumb and you know I was you know when you go back to my video wise actually I was just like I was super arrogant man. I was I was just new to Thailand that video. I was young. I was just like a new foreigner here and I was like, “Yo, this is stupid. I can get four apartments for what I’m paying.” And then we started realizing with our lifestyle, we travel so much, it just made sense to downsize our life and get smaller, get just get apartments in other locations because, you know, we travel a lot and it just made sense for us. So, it was just a smarter situation. And then most importantly, we love to we we love to travel and we just love to go out more, you know, into the city more and do more things. But when I was in uh and then also I was spending a lot of money on grabbing came in my life, she started cooking more. So that was the first time, you know, I actually had a woman in the house cooking like I love rice and you know, now I I’m a Filipino now. And I’m from Lana. Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing. And we uh so yeah, so Bangkok is like when I first moved to Bangkok, it was quite affordable, but now it’s almost $105 per person. And you know, some people in America may say, oh man, that’s that’s not uh that’s not much. And it’s like, well, when you’re eating out three times a day and you But it’s not about the it’s not about the value of how much it costs. It’s about what comes with that value. you. That value comes with a thousand people on a transportation. Jovalene has three guys behind her, three guys in front of her BTS on the BTS train station. It’s it’s it’s no privacy whatsoever. If if you’re a man and you’re in a relationship, you don’t want your woman to constantly keep getting uh smashed by a lot of people and you have we’ll see family. We’ll see u moms bring a whole stroller on a BTS train and sometimes two and then we’ll you know so the so the trains were like yes it’s convenient to have a train in the city. That’s cool. That’s convenient especially being from Detroit. I love it. But when you get on there, you know, especially if you’re claustrophobic, you’re not going to be able to breathe. You’re not going to have no space at all. So, it makes no sense because it’s overpop populated. Also, we have issues with the um you know, so you know, you think about cost. Yes, it’s cheap to take the train, but at what cost? At what risk if you know, everyone um is is coughing, sick, and all up on you. It also feels like Bangkok has not, you know, due to the air pollution in Bangkok, it feels like we’re living in CO 2042 right now. Every time you walk outside in Bangkok, everyone has a face mask on and it turns us off cuz it’s just like, what in the hell is going on? It’s it’s like you’re waking up in a sci, you know, a sci-fi movie and it’s just like, what just happened? And it’s just like, yo, the air pollution is so bad that your whole neighborhood is still walking around with the CO mask. What’s the first impression then of like coming from Patia, which has a rep and a lot of the rep is is earned. It’s real. And then Bangkok, which I think it has a lot of pros and cons. I mean, it’s one of the most incredible cities in the world, but the drawbacks are real. I’d be I am, you know, way more nervous, afraid, tensitive to go there now that I have two little kids and I’ve been there with a kid. I took one of my babies there once. It’s it’s a different city, man. If you have like a a stroller or a baby on your back or whatever. Well, yeah. Traffic as well. Yeah. So, what’s the first impression then? Uh arriving in Daang, Vietnam for Yeah. Yeah, we we well one it’s not you know it’s not overpop populated with the traffic is not the same as Bangkok. No it’s not at all. We in regards to how long you have to wait in traffic you know and I mean we like something that would take us 5 minutes on the BTS it would take you literally 45 minutes in a taxi and that’s how bad the traffic is in Bangkok. You know, we’ll have people come to Bangkok, you know, some of our American friends. Yeah, I’m going to get a big old van and I’m going to drive. I’m like, “Hey, hey, man, you’re going to spend like 7 hours in a whole day in traffic. Do not get a van trying to drive your family around cuz I’m telling you, it’s going to it’s going to make your trip even worse. So, what we love so much is that we don’t have to wait around when it when it comes to getting to our locations. We’re there in a quick second.” Now, do people drive here crazy? Yes. you know, but we don’t have to wait 40. I think convenience and time is more it’s more very important to us, especially when we always have to get up and go like every day. That’s our life. Every day our life is we’re always on the move. And then grab taxis are cheaper. We are spending roughly um 300 to 500 bot usually on a taxi um in Thailand compared to uh we’ve been spending a dollar to one to three one to $3300 to five about 10 to 15 to $15. Yeah. I think if you were in Ho Chi Min or Hanoi cuz they’re bigger. Yeah. It might be $5 to $10. Not not $1 to $3, but it still would be under 10 for sure. And I I mean like a a big AC I can think of you know where my condo is in Ho Chi Min. It’s it’s seven districts away from the airport is far man. You know it’s a city of 12 million people can take an hour 2 hours in traffic. Even that is under $10 US to get a car you know to get a nice SUV car to the airport whatever. Yeah. Um, so what about what about uh we’ll get to the housing, the cost of this apartment afterwards, but what Yeah. What about the food, the drink, the other the cafes, stuff like that? That sort of dayto-day Thailand versus Vietnam expenses. We went out to a fancy Her birthday was recently last week. You know, happy birthday. Uh, thank you. Happy birthday. So, we went 21. No, I’m still learning. I’m still learning. I’ll keep it a secret. Yeah. So, Oh, her age. Yeah. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Uh she’s 10 years younger, guys. Uh but we uh we went out for her birthday. We spent almost over $300, which is a lot of money in Bangkok. That’s I mean we were in Bangkok for her birthday. We did simple things. We just went out to eat. We went to a museum. Um and we went to the the house which is free. Which is free. We went to a little Lions cafe. We spent over $300. We didn’t even do anything. And it’s just like, wait a minute, like when did it become this expensive, you know, for to spend $300 in one day for two people? And, you know, we came here in Daine, you can go to a nice hotel and get a nice meal for, you know, for between $10 to $15. We’re spending, you know, $2 on sandwiches. I mean, the cost of living is crazy cheap compared to BKK. Now, of course, it’s hard to compare Bangkok to the name because Bangkok offers so much more. But after living there for 5 years, like I said, you just it gets overwhelming with the reality of like what’s living like, you know, what like what does a lifestyle really look like if it doesn’t come with convenience? And we just feel that we get more convenience, more uh we’re more relaxed here, I guess, at the end of the day as well. It’s more of a slower pace over here. more. Yeah. Yeah. So, restaurants are somewhat pricey now. We had a huge So, we had a lot of events, national events that a lot that Thailand actually only reports in Thailand and a lot of local news actually don’t report what’s going on. So, of course, I’m sure you heard about the Chinese kidnapping. And then, of course, we had the earthquake last year. We had a mass shooting. We had a plane crash from India to Thailand. So we had so many incidents that has happened. Tourism shot down really really low. So many events. So right now Thailand has been shifting their their their visas. Restaurants have been shifting their prices. It’s it you know like t Bangkok is focusing on foreigner prices but the price of inflation for locals is is at an alltime low compared to what I mean you we see a lot of locals a lot of foreigners are spending the average local salary in a month in one or two days and you know and you know we have a lot of street food carts of course I don’t she loves it but I don’t think it’s the healthiest you know you got to have a own stomach and she has it more than me and you know but a lot of locals are not we never see locals at the at some of the restaurants we go to some of the places we go to we don’t even see them we uh you know we had our cleaner for our house we asked them you know hey man are you going to go to the mall he’s never he’s been living in Bangkok for almost 2 years he’s never even been to the mall he was like I have no reason to go well just the we just the perspective the mindset like we When we want to work out, we go walk around. We walk around the mall for free. Yeah. We just walk around. I think they have already instilled it in their minds that they cannot afford it without even trying to just to walk through the door. They need the idea that there’s a mental barrier. There’s a two two class society, right? Becoming a two class society. I haven’t been to I’ve been to Bangkok a bunch, you know, very recently, but I haven’t been to Kosamui in a long time. probably super 10 15 years since I’ve been there. I was a young, you know, last time I was there, I was a young backpacker, but I interviewed a few people from there and I’ve seen videos from there. And then, of course, I think of that like, you know, the the big Netflix or HBO show, whatever, the White Lotus thing, that idea that it’s like it like Thailand or parts of Thailand like Kosamui, Phuket maybe are like they’re like the model of of that, right, of like tourism that is, you know, is having a negative impact on locals, right? And yeah, it wasn’t always like that way, right? Like it wasn’t that intense or that divided. There’s been visitors and travelers in Thailand for at least 50 years, 60 years without I think that and Yeah, you go ahead. No, no, no. I want I wanted to mention as well the economy has gotten a little I mean over the last few months during low season it got so bad. We got pulled over by a police officer. He asked for almost 2,000 bot which is like almost $75 for a parking ticket which is not really legal you know it it’s only like a thousand bot in Bangkok and it’s 500 bot in PIA if you go to the office if you go to the office a lot of people don’t know this so yeah the cops are trying the cops are constantly scamming foreigners because economy is so bad there’s no foreigners there so whoever they come across they’re trying to get more money out of you usually in in Baya I was just when I get pulled over uh you you know cops would try to take they’ll say hey you can pay me now or you can pay the office. So it’s just like you could pay you could pay me $40 now or you could go pay the office $10 but I’m going to take your bike I’m going to take your keys and you got to wait till you pay your ticket. So that’s how they they do it. So you see a lot of some of the you know some situations where foreigners are getting taken advantage of and you can see some foreigners not still not being respectful or being arrogant or not realizing the power they have as well um in some situations there um at the end of the day as well. Bangkok is I mean so much has happened in Bangkok recently with how many u we were just talking about how Thailand doesn’t even feel like like we don’t even have a connection culturally to it because it’s so modernized like it’s so many McDonald’s there so many Burger Kings there so many like um you know it’s a IKEA now they just built the IKEA downtown so she was just saying like Jolene was telling me how you want to talk about how the name the so um last night we went out, you know, uh we were like uh shopping for food. We were going inside the convenience stores and I was like, “Oh my god, I’m so happy to see this, you know, a small convenience store.” But all of the products that you can see it it has a Vietnam flag on it or a Saigon and Hanoi or the culture of the Vietnam people working. I was like, I love seeing this. Yeah. And then when you go to Bangkok, all you see is Korean section, American section. I’m like, so where is Thailand culture? It’s you don’t see Thailand at all in Bangkok. It’s nothing but Louis Vuitton, Dior, especially like the rich malls. There’s over 100 malls in Bangkok, but you got like your M Cordier, your M Spear, your Imperium. These are really rich malls. And then when you go to like Central Embassy, very like targeted Chinese mall, super rich, like super rich. The Singapore model, right? I mean, Singapore is this wonderful, beautiful, clean city, but and of course there’s it has its own deep history and culture. I don’t want to say it doesn’t, but a big part of the downtown core of Singapore. You you’re there and you can be anywhere. There’s no there’s nothing that makes it special, right? Of course, I know there’s real Singaporean culture, but you know what I’m saying? There’s that big chunk of the like Singaporean banking, big money, whatever world that is just like, what the [ __ ] is this? This is just a CBD, right? It’s a it’s a CBD that doesn’t have anything unique special about it. And I like a lot of parts of Singapore, especially some of the older hawker stands and stuff that have that cultural significance, but a lot of it is like that. It’s just uh westernized or gentrified or whatever. Do you guys want to move to another cafe or restaurant in part to be kind to your neighbor, but then also we can talk a bit more about uh less about the cultural comp comparisons and jump into digital nomadism and being a tech recruiter and how the two of you live like logistically earn money, how you make money online, visa stuff, all that business. So, let’s head out for a drink. We’ll see a little bit of this walkability of the man. I got a couple buddies. That’s their favorite cafe. those those chairs right there on the sidewalk. Yeah. Um yeah, but tell me about I’m interested this about Nia both being digital nomads. You’ve done it for damn near over a decade, but also this idea that you’re traveling with your partner girlfriend who you met here and she’s also, you know, working online. So tell me about how that that whole earning online setup works for you. Yeah, when I first uh met Joby, she was working for Comcast. She was like the top salesperson at her company. But sadly, somebody say overpaying. She don’t like to brag. I was thinking this right here. Let’s do it. It looks nice. Yeah. Uh but sadly enough, they were underpaying her in the promise area. She’s from a small town and she was being super underpaid. I think the salary is like a dollar an hour. You want to pop into this lock in here maybe? Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, I’ll cut. Yeah. you tell me about your business, the tech recruiter thing that you do online, and then you can tell me about what you do. So, I met Joby, uh, you know, our love story. We’re doing another love story video tomorrow, but you know, we met online and we talked for 4 months before we met, actually. Uh, we talked every day, uh, literally all day long, morning, afternoon, night. And that’s how I met her. I was struggling with dating in Thailand. So, I met Joy and after her 4 months, I tried to fly her over and she was offloaded. And for people who don’t know what offloading is, offloading is when uh immigration thinks that the person is either being like sex trafficking or they’re doing something illegal, you know, illegal. So they they won’t let you fly. They won’t let you fly, which happens for millions of Filipinos every year actually as well. It’s really difficult for Filipinos to leave the country. But anyways, you know, you know, I should jump in there and say that happened to my wife. My wife’s a marketing executive. That happens when she travels to Singapore. She travels solo to Singapore. They pull her over and treat her like she’s uh Wow. What happens to her? Yeah, it’s happened to her when you know she’s she was going to, you know, the like advertising awards like the can Leon awards or whatever. So they do a version of that in Singapore and she was literally like on the way to receive an award for being being like a young emerging marketing exec. And she got Yeah, she is a badass, man. Her wife is a badass. Shout out to your wife. and she got she got pulled over, you know, for that for they’re saying offloading for and it’s, you know, she has all the paperwork. She has everything and they just give her the once over. So, it’s it’s disappointing that there’s such a double standard here still. Yeah. No, so yeah. I mean, it’s really sad. Joby was working at Comcast and being in the province area, she was definitely being underpaid. I don’t know if this music is going to uh cut into your copyright or monetization, but I’m just I’ll still talk. But, uh, she was being underpaid. And, um, what happened was, uh, I just told her like, well, you know, what you’re making, you might as well just quit and just come work with me full time and we just work on you starting your own business. So, um, she tried to keep her job for a little bit and then after that she eventually decided to let it go cuz they had told they actually found out she was working abroad when she working from Thailand. Yeah. Which was I didn’t know was against the company P. So, they found out um using my VPN that I’m outside the country working. So, they kind of So, they kind of gave me a what do you call it? Just hold it. Yeah. You can hold it. Yeah. So they kind of gave me a deadline like you know if if you want to keep your work you need to come back. So I was like yeah it was like a no. We were we’re in love with each other and I’m like you don’t need to go back for no for no $1. Uh you know and it was commission based. She was getting like a dollar hour plus commission but roughly like $200 $300 a month. And I’m like hell no. You know we were like deeply in love with each other. I’m like, “Just come live with me and we’ll make it we’ll make it work.” Would you have been able to live well in the Philippines on that pay though? Like on what was you know what I mean? Your monthly pay you were getting out of that job in the Philippines. Did you have a good quality of life at home on that amount of money? Um I’m sorry. Oh, with that salary in my city, I would say that that is an average. You you cannot really call it like a lowpaying job if you’re in my city. Um what do you call I’m sorry. It’s the average salary, but she was uh you know with that No, I don’t think you can in in her area. He’s trying to see like could you afford to have your own apartment, your own house on that salary? Like no. So like you know like could you afford to you know compared to the lifestyle we have now? So it’s like it’s not it wasn’t realistic at all compared to what she was making. And it was extremely hard. I remember like when I first started traveling abroad, I was super arrogant, super naive as a foreigner. I thought that everyone had savings. And then, you know, like when I first time went to I went to Brazil, someone had like a very expensive car. She was paying a car note. And she had, you know, a lot of uh people in these province areas or small towns, they work 7 days a week. You would think that they would have savings and they they don’t have it at all. They don’t have anything. you know, as soon as they get their check, it’s literally gone to so they can’t save at all. So, when Joby first came to me, we start developing a lot of her technical skills and we start developing a lot of her digital nomad skills. I already had set the expectation that we were going to be traveling abroad and we’re going to be living a laptop lifestyle for a while. This is my life. So, she started learning how to edit videos and became really good. She start she went from a $1 hour job in in a province area to making $50 an hour editing videos, you know, and then she started picking up a lot of different projects like $25 projects, $45 projects um as a virtual assistant online, you know, cuz a lot of people are constantly trying to hire Filipinos. Um and to getting job offers at managing property. So Joey like her level of digital nomad skills just transformed and we just started to help each other. As I was, you know, I’m still young. So as I was dating a lot back before I met Joby in Thailand, a lot of the dates in Thailand just felt very transactional. And Joey was the first woman that came in my life who really wanted to contribute to my lifestyle and help me help us both grow together and make money together, you know. How has your life changed since you left Philippines? like how is it quality of life everything just how has your experience been leaving home like obviously you two are living abroad you’re a digital nomad now right how has that changed your life after how many years you’ve been in Thailand um like 2 years two and a half roughly what’s it been like so you know uh before before I came over to Thailand I was just like always in my home I was working from home as well so I was just like always in my home or if I would go out it It’s just going to be like um once a week type of go going out. And then when I came over, we were like would wake up at 4:00 a.m. 5:00 a.m. and we would go like every day. That is our life. We would go out at 5:00 a.m. from our house. We would come back 10:00 p.m. 12:00 p.m. It was like working. Yeah. Yeah. Just working every day all day. Out to eat, restaurants. It’s like it’s like a movie. It’s At first it was overwhelming because I I am not a morning person. Now I admit that I was arguing that I I I I am but now I admit that I’m not a morning person. And then when I met him that had to change it. I just had to change. Yeah. So it was a complete shift of change uh regarding with the quality of life and the lifestyle like living every day. So yeah. Yeah. It’s good. Yeah. And are you excited to be here in Vietnam? H are you excited to be living in Venom? Yes. Yes. So um before before we before we came over here, he was watching videos of the nang every day and he would forward it to me or we would watch it um together. Uh because I was in the Philippines, he was in Thailand. I had to I had to visit my family for a few months. So um we were watching researching a lot of things about Daang because we were planning to um relocate here. So we were watching a lot of videos and I was like, “Oh my god, I’m so excited to see this.” And then when we when we got here, we were we were on a dragon bridge and we saw the we saw it. It was like, oh my god, it’s like this like, you know, I was just we were just watching this on a video and now we’re here. It’s like it’s crazy. I I love it here. I love it here. You got the even with the rain. Even with the rain. All right. So So nice. Thank you for sharing that. Um, well, let’s do a little breakdown of like how you actually set up your business logistically to earn money online. So, back in uh Australia when I graduated from University of Sydney Business School, I started working at a recruiting company as a technical recruiter. Uh, my niche was in geospatial. So, I specialize in placing or recruiting uh machine learning engineers, computer vision engineers, geospatial engineers. So, I’m essentially a recruiter. you know, I help employers find candidates for jobs. I was really successful at my job. I was like the top salesperson. Um, and I was working like six, seven days a week. I was losing my hair. Uh, recruiting is just like real estate. You know, you have to go out, find your own clients. You got to find your own candidates. So, I moved back to Detroit. Uh, true story, man. I like I wanted to start my own business. So, when I first got back, I needed capital. I did Door Dash, you know, man. I got me a Hooptie, a shooter. Like, hooptie is a bad car. And I was joining Door Dash for a minute. I was teaching English to uh H1B1 uh uh H1B1 visa students uh for business um interviews. And then my old job took me back as a manager at a bank. So once I made my first sale recruiting, my first sale was like $22,000. Uh I decided to quit my job and I went full in made first another couple sales for 40,000. Then I became a full-time recruiter. I went viral on YouTube for what I you know just talking about one day what I was doing. Then I start selling a course and start teaching people how to do recruiting and staffing as well and got a lot of testimonials, a lot of students that do it now. Also also I make money from my ebooks. I do have like three ebooks. We have our YouTube channel sales. Joby has about four to five projects. So we’re bringing in multiple streams of income and I still trading in the stock market as well, you know. So I’m still learning but I’m trading in the stock market as well. So, multiple streams of income um at the end of the day as well and I got a few properties back home as well in America. All right, thanks so much for watching y’all. I appreciate it. Cost living abroad show. Next, you can watch this interview with the Duffrains Canadian couple that brought two teenagers and four Chihuahua from Costa Rica over to the Daang Vietnam or this one with Nick, an American veteran retired early in Daang, Vietnam. You can check out his $600 condo on the river. If you need help moving to Vietnam, click the links below for my move to Vietnam master class. Has housing, banking, visa, dating, all the basics in 16 minutes. Appreciate you watching.

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He Left Bangkok for Da Nang Vietnam. Tour a $400 Month Apartment in Da Nang Vietnam. He Brought His Filipina from Bangkok to Da Nang Vietnam

0:00 Intro to cost of living abroad
1:00 Why AJ Left Detroit Michigan to Live Abroad in Southeast Asia
4:30 Bank Accounts being Closed & Visa Changes in Thailand
9:00 Finding an apartment in Da Nang Vietnam
17:00 Cost of Living in Vietnam vs Thailand in 2025
23:30 First Impressions of Da Nang Vietnam
32:00 “Thailand is so modernized, we don’t have a connection”
34:45 How do you Earn money online as a digital nomad?
44:00 How do you see USA after living in Asia?

▶️ Watch next:
• Inside our $800/mo Da Nang home → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9-R2lA0TF8&t=321s

• Leaving Thailand after 10 years? → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjX_gtvZvk&t=2s

• Retired at 45 in Da Nang → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sOPuDzmoic

• Veteran retired early in Vietnam → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6EEOHPWNYc&t=8s

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He Left Bangkok for Da Nang Vietnam. Tour a $400 Month Apartment in Da Nang Vietnam. He Brought His Filipina from Bangkok to Da Nang Vietnam

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🇵🇭 Moving to the Philippines?
• Only dating website I would recommend to meet Filipinas: → https://christianfilipinadating.com/EvanCF

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