LIVING ON 1000 BHT A DAY

Abbie Smith
Nov 10, 2017
6 min read

From my Instagram feed (@lifeinlycra_) you'll see that past 2+ weeks of travelling have not been quite the backpacker experience. £10 cocktails in Dubai and dining at Sky bars has not been the #budgetlife - but we had factored this into our spending.

We have lived pretty well and have been able to do a lot. However to ensure we can afford to travel comfortably for the remainder of our trip we've been having a few 'budget days'. When we were booking our trip we found it quite hard to find an up to date blog on how much things cost as prices have changed a lot from a few years ago so hopefully this is useful to someone. After our tour we booked into 'The Small Hotel' Chiang Mai using Hotels.com. It was just under £8.50 a night each including breakfast so the difference in price to a the guesthouse we were previously staying in was minimal. You obviously don't get the same social aspect of a hostel but we were just using this as a couple of days downtime.

The hotel rooms were quite spacious, had a small pool, the staff were friendly, the breakfast was great and there was coffee, a kettle and fridge in our room (saving us more money). I'm also collecting reward nights so every 10 nights I get a free night - anyone from work reading this all those nights in Leeds is paying off - of course I never miss a deal! The only downside to this hotel is that it's on a main road and the walls are quite thin, nothing some ear plugs can't sort though!

We are headed to Bangkok for a few days after Chiang Mai and will be staying in a 4 star hotel for 3 nights for our 3 year anniversary (it was still only £20 a night each but above our budget for the trip which is around £30 each per day) so we thought we better reign it in for a few days!

Below is what we've done/spent during our 4 days in Chiang Mai post our TruTravels tour - we've tried to budget 1000 BHT a day (after accommodation - approx £11.90 per person) while exploring and still having fun!

Day 1 - Check out of SK 2 Guesthouse, riding solo

4 filter coffees at the guesthouse (we love coffee) - 80 BHT

Breakfast: 7/11 - 2 yoghurts, 2 bananas and 2 boiled eggs - 79 BHT

Lunch: We walked to 'The Salad Concept' which was half way between our old guesthouse and new hotel. Build your own salad (105 BHT) and build your own wrap (125 BHT) + water - 243 BHT in total (approx £6.00)

Checked in and took a stroll round by hotel 1 vest top for Josh and a skirt for me 200 BHT total (£5.00)

Mango Smoothie & water 109 BHT (£2.70)

Took a dip in our rooftop pool and then walked to 'Cooking in Love' rated highly on trip advisor as a value restaurant (we did our homework) We had 2 noodle dishes, 2 waters and a veggie side and it came to 230 BHT (£5.75)

We ended the evening with a water and 2 ice creams from 7/11 at 79 BHT (£2.00) Totals for Day 1 - 1020 BHT (£24.30) Day 2 - The day of the Kings cremation On this day in Thailand the late King was cremated one year on from his death. 90% of places were closed including the 7/11's shutting at 2pm so we decided to spend this day sorting our future travel plans and having some down time. We had the free breakfast at our hotel, they offered eggs cooked how you like, toast, pancake, fruit, cereal yoghurt etc We picked up our dinner from 7/11 and headed for a walk around the town. We found 'Dada Kafe' and can honestly say this was one of my favourite meals here. It offered healthy, filling and affordable dishes and the staff were great! We shared 3 dishes of Tuna Bruschetta, Fantasy Salad and Fresh spring rolls and a water and this came to 410 BHT (£10.25).

We spent the evening watching Netflix with our noodles we bought from 7/11 for 81 BHT (£2.00), leftover salad from lunch and sharing a coke from the minibar for 25 BHT (60p) #tragic but felt so good to relax!

Totals for day 2: 515 BHT (£12.25) Day 3 - Ziplining - Jungle flight During our trip myself and Josh weren't very well so ended up missing a day off the itinerary to go zip lining. However thanks to the absolute babes at Tru Travels they sorted for us to go later as we stayed in Chiang Mai. (We haven't factored this into our 1000 BHT as we paid for with our tour). We had our breakfast at the hotel and then went to have some real coffee at 'Two double O cafe' linked to 'Dwell hostel'. This is such a cool little workspace so Josh and I spent the morning blogging and doing life admin. 2 iced coffees at 50 BHT each (£1.20) the dream.

We then went to our favourite place (7/11) and picked up 2 tins of tuna and made some tuna sandwiches with some bread we had bought a couple of days before then headed to the mountains for Ziplining (check out my TruTravels breakdown post for my review on this, spoiler - it was insane).

This included lunch so around 4pm we had some Massaman curry, rice and veggies, the usual. And we bought two soft drinks at 40 BHT. We met a really nice girl from London travelling solo on our bus Ziplining so invited her to join us at the night market (our 3rd visit). We arranged to meet at McDonald's and Josh 'had to see' if their hamburgers taste the same so he got one for 29 BHT (70p) . We then shared some gyoza (50 BHT - £1.20) and sweet and sour chicken (90 BHT - £2.10) and 2 soft drinks (50 BHT -£1.20) And then had a passionfruit juice (50 -BHT £1.20) as we left.

Our purchases *necessities* from the market included (I used my birthday money for this) 2 coconut bowls (170 BHT- £4.00) 5 bracelets (150 BHT - £3.50) Personalised passport holder (80 BHT - £1.90) Clutch handbag (140 BHT - £3.40)

Day 3 spend (minus my purchases with birthday money): 500 BHT (approx £11.90) Day 4 - Our last day in Chiang Mai Our morning ritual of breakfast at the hotel then onto Double O for two iced caps for 100 BHT (£2.40)

We then had a very stressful few hours of finding a hotel for Bangkok for our anniversary for the following day (there was so much choice and nothing seemed to tick all the boxes). So after we finally booked we decided to spend the afternoon having a few chilled drinks at a bar. We picked up lunch from 7/11 for 79 BHT (£1.80) all in to compensate - 'chicken rice porridge' which was like a cup a soup along with some yoghurts we bought the day before and didn't eat. We spent the afternoon at Wild boar Chiang Mai Inn and had the below 3 somersby ciders -297 BHT (£7.00) 1 lime Bacardi breezer (tragic but a cheap mojito) - 69 BHT (£1.65) 1 Large leo - 110 BHT (£2.60) 1 Diet Coke - 40 BHT (95p) 516 BHT (approx £12.30) - just goes to show how easy it is to spend money when drinking! We then hit up the Saturday market before heading to watch the football (yawn) where this blog post was written lol

At the market we shared a bucket of 'skinny mojito’ which was allegedly made with natural ingredients for 200 BHT (£4.80) and some stir fried 'morning glory' which is one of my faves at 50 BHT (£1.20).

We watched the football at 'Johns place' and shared a large bottle of Chang, trying my hardest to like it but I legit put 3/4 Sprite 1/4 beer LOL and shared some spring rolls before having a Hawaiian pizza each (so western) which I wouldn't recommend lol. It was like a Chicago town one with too much cheese. The bar has a roof terrace where the football was shown and overlooked the river so it's really nice for a drink but wouldn't recommend the food (however we only tried the above and it was quite cheap!) Our total bill for here came to 423 BHT (approx £10.00)

Our flight the following day was at 6am so with a taxi booked for 4am we just headed back to our hotel after dinner for an early night. We booked a taxi through our hotel for 400 BHT (£9.50), they told us as its early hours it's super expensive but it was legit 10 minutes in the car so think we got screwed over a little. Total day 4 (including taxi to airport following morning) - 1768 BHT (approx £42.00) Average over the 4 days - 951 BHT (on par with our 1000 budget) We're hoping to have a few days like this while travelling so that when we want to go out for drinks/ splash out on activities etc it will all even out at our £30 each budget per day! *I've used the conversion £1 - 42 BHT as this is what we got majority of our currency at (October 2017)