liberty wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:16 pm
This is a great journal! I also plan to retire in a cheaper countries. Do you have health insurance? Or maybe you can just go with the flow and pay cash if you get sick because it's so cheap there?
I had health insurance in Germany, since it's required, plus treatment could be more expensive, but otherwise, I have been self-insuring. Even in Germany, when my sister had intestinal worms and went to the doctor uninsured, it all came out to only 22 euros. And in the Philippines, my girlfriend had a bad urinal infection, and with seeing the doctor, blood, urine, and stool tests, and then antibiotics and 2 months of iron pills for anemia, it came out to $20.
But I do also have a sort of "insurance of insurance" since my girlfriend and I got married at a 24-hour Vegas drivethrough last year. In a pinch (let's say cancer), I can go to Spain, where I have full national healthcare. As a German citizen. I've also always had the right to move there and start paying into the system, regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Indonesia
As for updates, while in Penang, we took a two week trip to Indonesia. It is a very culturally rich and varied country, but it was probably our worst experience. Foreigners (called "bule" = albino) are incredibly exotic, and even in Jakarta, random teenagers would come up to ask for (or just take) selfies with us. In some places, it could be a constant stream. Worse, people tried to cheat us relentlessly, and travel is made intentionally difficult for tourists outside of the major cities - Uber and Grab are banned, but also metered taxis, since prices are more controllable, and buses are not allowed to enter the city limits.
Our biggest saga was getting to Denpasar from the ferry port in Bali, which involved escaping from a tout's empty tourist bus, slipping in the back of a public bus after being lied to that it was full, being told the price was 3x the real price, arguing/negotiating loudly in Indonesian (with yelled input from most of the passengers) while already on the road, managing to settle on 40% of the original price, everyone being kicked out of the bus 1 hour from our listed destination and surrounded by aggressive private drivers who followed us to the highway, where we desperately jumped into the first shared van (which grossly overcharged us), still arriving 20 minutes away from the downtown, forcing us to get a Grab, whose driver was so scared of being attacked by the driver mafia that we had to wait at an intersection, and hop into his car as it passed.
But I did like Yogyakarta, the cultural center of Java, quite a lot, and could see it as a place to live. We also had the cool experience of being invited to a small village on the outskirts of town, where they were performing traditional theater (in Javanese - at least I could have understood something in Indonesian). Basically the entire population of the village was out to watch, and it was a big party. We were the guests of honor (as probably the first
bules to ever visit), and were given a big feast with the actors, then front row seats (with more tables of food and drink), then actually brought up on stage to perform and dance. We were each asked to give a little speech, and the the two MCs/comedians did fake interpreting, which got a lot of laughs (who knows what we were supposedly saying!). Denpasar in Bali is also definitely livable. It has all the Western (and Australian) comforts along with local charms, but remains surprisingly cheap in general.
We also had a funny experience in which a Facebook post of ours (intentionally) went viral and was shared tens of thousands of times, we were in Indonesian newspaper articles, had thousands of friend requests per day from Indonesians, etc.
Indonesia also gave me a great chance to practice a lot of Malay/Indonesian, often while trying to ward off scams, since people actually speak it there, unlike in Penang. In the end, I'm a little disappointed with the level I reached - I can make myself understood in all daily situations, and have a basic chat with an Uber driver, but I never practiced enough to really be able to have a conversation at normal speed, understanding accents/slang etc.
Borneo
After Penang, we took a trip within Malaysia with my girlfriend's younger sister (who first visited us for a month in Peru when she was 11 years old, came with us for a month to the US, and visited us twice in Berlin!), and two cousins. We visited Kuala Lumpur and Malaysian Borneo. I liked Kuching, which is a little bit like a mini-Penang. We also stayed in a cool place with cabins (or treehouses) in the jungle at a national park, but also with beaches, and by the side of a volcano. We camped on the tiny coral islands in the harbor off Kota Kinabalu, which were truly beautiful. If you look for "Sapi island" in Google images, those colors are with no filters or photoshop, believe it or not, although they vary with sunlight. And of course it's exciting to spend the night alone on a desert isle.
Philippines
Then we headed off to the Philippines for about a month. We didn't enjoy this too much - the food was very mediocre, and it didn't really interest us culturally. It's very Americanized and Spanishized in the worst ways, mall and consumerism and fast food dominated by Catholicism. The beaches are very nice, sure, but we're not big beach people, and that doesn't hold our interest very long. On the upside, the people are incredibly nice (and honest!), certainly the friendliest in Asia, and rivaling Colombia for the friendliest we have met in the world. And also, things are easy because the level of English is pretty good. We did enjoy the tiny island of Malapascua off Cebu, since we mingled with the locals a lot, and it's a quaint place with no cars and tiny alleys, 12000 people living on a mile-long island. But after that we got a little desperate, moving around trying to find a place we liked (Bohol and Puerto Princesa we did not). The cities (Manila and Cebu) were not nice: poor, dirty and overcrowded. However, the trip was saved a bit with El Nido in Palawan - as touristy and cliche as it has become, it is still an amazing place.
Korea
It was still definitely a relief to get back to the first world. We really enjoyed our month or so here, although communication was more difficult than in any other country, even after learning to read Korean script. The food was good, especially in Jeonju, the people were friendly (even when speaking rapidly to us in Korean), and Seoul especially was a very interesting city, ultimately more so than any one Japanese city, I think, with the mix of historical and traditional with new and vibrant. Busan was also quite a livable-seeming city. Love motels proved a great option for lodging. Even though they are generally rented by the hour, for a night, they are clean, large, cheap and with a lot of amenities (separate modem and computer in each room - dunno how Koreans have sex), and even free coffee and popcorn. We stayed for five nights at the same motel, which I'm sure was a new record!
We also had a great time Couchsurfing with a Korean family in Gwangju. We were originally scheduled to stay for 3 days (and even that seemed long at first, because Koreans traditionally sleep on blankets on heated floors, not beds or even futons!) But we got along so well that we ended up staying for 6 to be around for a traditional Korean memorial service. We cooked Korean and Spanish food together with them, went twice to endless feasts at the family seafood restaurant, and they (a TV producer and a wedding photographer), even did a Korean wedding for us, with traditional garments and the various rites. And, skipping ahead, just this last week, the family came to visit us in the US as part of a two-month world tour, planned slavishly, we discovered, based on our guidance (they even bought the exact same backpacks and laptop)! Unless one has a passion for the language,
Korea is probably not a great place to live, though. Not that cheap, communication is difficult, and it's not convenient in general - e.g. there are very few supermarkets, most banks don't accept foreign credit cards...
Japan
We stayed about 3 months in total in Japan, including 1.5 months in a studio apartment in a gaijin (foreigner) house in Osaka. Osaka is a great city, lively, but amazingly tranquil a couple of blocks away, manageable size, delicious food at every budget, relatively affordable, and right in the middle of all the major historical sites in Japan (Kyoto, Nara). Long-term it would be borderline for our budget, but it's much cheaper than one probably thinks - lodging is really the only problem, and one can sacrifice size (and we did!). And in general, it had all the conveniences that Korea lacked, better English, and even sculptures of all the food at restaurants. I was gung ho about Japanese for a bit, and it was easier than I thought (definitely not to say easy), but after a point, I decided to concentrate on learning a few languages well and gave up. I did find it hard to make Japanese friends, though. I was surprised to discover that a large portion of the young foreign males living in Japan (especially Americans and French) are alt-right types, but that's a topic best left for another day. Kyoto would be option #2 for living there, I think. The first time I went, i didn't like it much, but spending a week or so there outside of the tourist zones, its charm really grew on me. It is a beautiful place, maybe the only city in Asia I would really describe that way, and very quiet and livable. Tokyo was a bit of a surprise, much less frenetic than I had imagined, but I can't say I loved it, although I was certainly far from exploring it, and we had a nice sojourn at the Five Lakes by Mount Fuji. We also went to Okinawa, which I didn't like much, a little bit like the Philippines with the American influence of all the bases. Very suburban and the cuisine is disappointing. One other thing that is expensive in Japan is travel between metropolitan areas. Long-haul buses tend to be quite expensive, and trains are prohibitive. Osaka has a low-cost airline, Peach, which is very cheap, although getting to the airport is almost $10 alone, and for non-Osaka connections, options are often limited.
Vietnam
Our last brief stop was Vietnam for a couple of weeks. Hanoi is a really nice city, one my girlfriend said she could imagine living in, though I'm not sure. It has a lot of pretty architecture and pleasant neighborhoods, and a lot of street life. The weather is also much more moderate, and the winter is actually pleasant. It was a big contrast to Saigon, entirely modernized, ugly and chaotic (and relentlessly hot). In both, traffic lights are entirely ignored, but when there are eight-lane roads like in Saigon with hundreds of motorcycles, sometimes going the wrong direction, crossing really becomes a hazard. In general, I liked the food a bit less than I expected, definitely a notch below Thailand, and surprisingly a bit more expensive than in other places, despite the country being cheaper. The Bahn Mi in Hoi An are delicious, though!
The Final Financial Tally
Traveling is more expensive than living, and we went to some pretty expensive countries, but in the end, in our 10 months, we did pretty well. Our target is 600 Euros/month, and we hit 628 Euros/month. This included:
Travel Thailand: 643 Euros/month
Travel Penang: 462 Euros/month
Live Penang: 371 Euros/month
Travel Indonesia + Penang fixed expenses: 975 Euros/month
Travel Borneo + KL: 638 Euros/month
Travel Philippines: 788 Euros/month
Travel Korea: 772 Euros/month
Live Osaka: 575 Euros/month
Travel Japan: 947 Euros/month
Travel Vietnam: 627 Euros/month
Currently, because the stock market has done so well, I have about 26% more money than when I retired and started this thread 5 years ago. I actually would have considerably more if I had invested more in the US market, but I was mostly invested in international markets for much of the time (and I don't regret it, hindsight notwithstanding).
The Present
As foreshadowed, we are now temporarily back in the US. We had been planning a longer Asian trip, with more time in Vietnam, a trip to Myanmar, and then on South Asia, even hoping to live in India. But we cut it short for two reasons. First, the pace of travel got to us - we definitely prefer the more leisurely integration of a year in each place. The constant travel planning and instability is stressful, and it's not as rewarding in the end either. Only in Malaysia and Korea did we really make any lasting friends. Second, my father got some heart problems which initially seemed very serious, but now hopefully aren't as bad. He's very dramatic, though, and insisted on seeing us one last time! So we came to the US for about three months, mostly hanging around with the family, except for a week in New York. It's been fun, playing a lot of tennis and relaxing, but we're also looking forward to the next step, which is... after a week in Mexico... and three weeks in Cuba.... and visiting family in Spain... probably going to be...
Italy!