Accommodation and Transportation

Whatever you desire in terms of accommodation, Bangkok has it. From the executive condominiums and luxury houses to cheap rooms, from guesthouse to hotels - Bangkok offers a huge choice and range of accommodation options.

The nature of accommodation in Bangkok with the city centre full of high rise apartments and the suburbs full of houses, results in most Westerners choosing an apartment as opposed to a house. A plethora of cheap and cheerful apartments although lacking in size are affordable while houses, especially in the central areas, tend to be a lot more expensive; some at ridiculously high levels. Notwithstanding this, houses in the suburbs can be surprisingly price worthy.

Personality of a person and his/her level of comfort are the major controlling factors. But, it is important to remember that in Thailand, payment is mostly made on the last day of the month. Therefore the gap between one’s arrival in Thailand and the first pay pack is often of several grueling weeks. Therefore, one needs to do a rough estimation of how much money can approximately be spent during this time. It is worth keeping an amount in reserve. In Thailand buying clothes is pretty inexpensive in comparison to other places.

Legwork is the best method to hunt for a decent apartment in Bangkok. Decide on an area that you want to live in, preferably near work, and then start treading those streets. It'll probably take a couple of days to find the right one, however the toil would promise the best deal. Location and prices should be checked out unhurriedly while staying at a cheaper guesthouse. Very few teaching jobs provide accommodation, and if they do it is very likely because they are located in the country; that is, in the middle of nowhere.

On finding an apartment, it is necessary to pay one month’s rent in advance and probably a deposit equal to one or two months rent. Fortunately, the essentials for an apartment like fittings, furniture, home appliances, electronic gadgets, home linens are are very cheap in Thailand. Most foreigners prefer apartment over a house because they are more readily available, cheaper and easy to maintain, making them much more convenient. The cheapest apartments start at about 1,500 a month.

Sukhumvit Road area, traditionally populated by westerners is dotted with a lot of hotels, entertainments areas, shopping centres and Western style restaurants and in many ways known as the ‘farang ghetto’ of Bangkok. Putumwan, the area surrounding Siam Square and the MBK shopping centre is close to major shopping areas meaning not just regular shops but supermarkets and restaurants too. There are a number of living foreigners in the area. Although cheaper places exist, you will probably need to spend 3,000 - 5,000 baht to get somewhere very basic and not too far out in the sticks. Three thousand to five thousand baht will fetch you a smallish (about 20 sq. m) studio apartment in the central areas or a slightly more spacious (35+ sq. m) apartment further out.

Further away from Central Bangkok accommodation gets cheaper but even then, and possibly contrary to what you have heard, 5,000 baht will never get you anything great in Bangkok.
Paying around 10,000 baht will get you a reasonable, centrally located studio around 30 - 40 square metres that should be nicely furnished including TV and fridge. You usually need to pay more than 10,000 baht if you want a newish, centrally located place with either a separate bedroom or kitchen or both. As a rough guide, figure around 15 - 25K baht for a pleasant, clean, secure centrally located one bedroom apartment, 20k up for a centrally located two bedroom place. Obviously, the bigger the place, the better the facilities and the better the location, the more you will pay, so these prices should be looked at as a guide and no more.

Most apartment buildings have a limited number of phone lines. Time limits vary between 5 and 60 minutes. Calls from apartment buildings usually cost 5 baht flat rate for a local call. You can get your own direct phone line installed which bypasses the apartment switchboard giving you 3 baht phone calls with unlimited duration. The two most popular companies offering direct lines are the TOT and Asia Telecom. The installation cost of your own line is about 3,000 baht plus you need another 3,000 baht as deposit and the monthly rental charge runs at 100 baht per month. Most apartment buildings have a laundry within the building. Apartment building has a contract direct with the electric and telephone companies whom they pay at the standard rate. The standard power rate as charged by the electric company is 2.61 baht per unit, but many apartment buildings charge their tenants between 3 and 5 baht per unit.

As with any job in Bangkok, bagging a job should be followed by looking for an apartment you that is not too far away from workplace. Bangkok’s traffic is ill reputed but there are ways around the city by using some of the faster modes of transport such as the skytrain, the underground train, the canal boats and possibly even the motorbike taxis. However, a teacher earning 30,000 baht a month will likely not want to use the more expensive forms of transport too often as it could end up costing quite a chunk of their salary. For example, a 20 baht motorcycle ride to the nearest skytrain followed by a 30 baht skytrain fare to and from work each day would be 2,000 baht a month (assuming 20 days worked) and that is a chunk from one's salary. Thus, it really is best to have accommodation as close to work as possible.

There are a number of language schools in the Siam Square area though accommodation in the immediate area is sparse, and relatively expensive. Living anywhere within walking distance of the skytrain or the underground will give you options. Bangkok apartment vacancy rates have fallen from 35% in the late '90s to less than 5% in 2007, and EVERYONE wants to find a clean, modern, affordable place close to the skytrain or the underground! If traffic can be braved, a trip on one of Bangkok's many buses is cheap, going for between 4 and 15 baht. Bangkok's omnipresent air con taxis are also at your beck and call. The meters start at 35 and move up slowly with a 10 kilometer journey costing around 75 Baht.

As a rule, a pay package anywhere less than 25,000 baht will only be enough to survive on - and many people would really struggle to survive on this, and a good number simply feel that such a figure allows a difficult standard of living. Luxuries here need to be replaced with native ways of living.

About 30,000 baht should be enough to live on but without any luxuries in western terms. Western comforts will require an earning of at least 35,000 baht. If you are earning over 40,000 you should actually be able to have an ok lifestyle. Better pampering can be possible for one’s self with higher earnings figures depending upon personal spending habits.