The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Finance, Food, Hobbies, Keto, Net Worth Update, Spending, Travel, Travel Hacking
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info read my disclosure.

I’m writing this while watching the sun rise over the sea in Phuket, Thailand. I’m gazing at the bright stars and listening to the waves. My bird friends have started awakening – including a rooster in the far distance 🙂 . Welcome to Thailand!

Here’s what I got up to this month:

We Lived In Thailand!

As you might have suspected from the title, we went to Thailand for a month! We travel hacked Business Class seats on Singapore Air on the way to Phuket and Etihad Airways on the way back after jumping through the various hoops that traveling safely during a pandemic require. I wrote about my experience on the longest flight in the world and a new Singapore Air product, and am working on a post about my Etihad experience as well.

I’m also going to write a whole slow travel review on this experience, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but I loved it and was shocked that one month in one city of one island felt short and that I still didn’t get to do everything I wanted. However, it did feel like we actually lived in a country on the other side of the world (instead of being visitors or tourists), which was really cool.

During our month there, I snorkeled with tropical fishes, ran along the beach and ate some delicious and wildly cheap food. My Mom and I also committed to learning some Thai and using it in our daily lives, which was a success! We started with the below lesson if you’re interested, and I was surprised that when I came back to the US, my first thought was to respond in Thai words – super cool!

For written Thai that I couldn’t translate, the Google Lens and Google Translate apps on my Android came in clutch!

I was also surprised with how much of a difference having Google Fi had on my life. In the past, I never bought international data and usually got a local sim card for texting, but that’s it. Landing in a new country and having my phone work regardless of the WiFi situation, was basically magic 🙂 .

I Booked Travel

Basically, this:

I should really have learned by now that I suck at window shopping 🙂 . In case any of y’all want to meet up IRL, here’s where I’ll be this year – anything that’s not booked is pending:

  1. March: CT, NY (BOOKED)
  2. April: Merida, Mexico (BOOKED)
  3. May: Merida, Mexico (BOOKED)
  4. June: Phoenix, AZ and Seattle, WA (BOOKED)
  5. July: Seattle, WA (BOOKED)
  6. August: New Hampshire (BOOKED)
  7. September: Mexico? ME?
  8. October: Mexico? Portland, ME?
  9. November: Buenos Aires, Argentina (BOOKED)
  10. December: Austin,TX?, NY?

I Filed My Taxes

This was another accident 🙂 . I told myself I would just check to see what a site said I would owe in taxes and the next thing I know, my taxes are done.

I previously used and loved the absolutely free Credit Karma Tax , but recently saw that they were bought by Cash App, which sounded sketchy to me. I then learned that Cash App is a company under Square, which I do trust. However, when looking into the new Credit Karma/Cash App tax situation, I saw that I would have to download Cash App to use it – sketchy 🙂 .

After a while though, I was curious if the rest of the experience was still as seamless as Credit Karma, so I thought, “fuck it – I can delete Cash App when I’m done”, and downloaded the app. I then learned that it requires you to scan a QR code on the app to get to the tax section of the website…and it didn’t work. So I was officially out 🙂 .

I then went to the IRS website to see if I qualified for free file options and saw that TaxAct was a new option there if you have less than AGI $65K, which I do. I used to love TaxAct and used them for years until they started using bait and switch cost tactics (e.g. it’s free until you go all the way through and then “JK it’s $40 you clown”) so I bounced.

However, TaxAct partnering with the IRS to help others for free, gave me pause and I decided to give them another chance. I had a good time using them again and they didn’t bait and switch me (though now that might be straight up illegal instead of just unsavory with the IRS involved). After going through all the forms, I even got a refund, which I wasn’t expecting:

In other news, this refund also means I didn’t fuck up my first Roth IRA Conversion Ladder! Now that I’ve confirmed that I’ll start working on the post, I promised about how to do that conversion for anyone else that is nervous about doing it the first time like I was 🙂 .

I Used A GoPro

After I figured out how to use it, I had to figure out how to get the videos where I wanted them. After lots of trial and error, here’s the easiest way I found to get videos from computer to a phone if you have an Android: the Android File Transfer app. I just downloaded that, plugged my phone into my computer, and dragged and dropped my videos.

This was WAY easier than the google drive + hard drive solutions I was trying. I hear that I might be able to use the Quik app from GoPro to do all this in one go, but that’s something to learn for another time 🙂

I Read 4 Books

There’s no judgement in reading, but especially not in Beach Reads! With that warning, here’s what I read this month:

  1. The Vampire’s Bride by Gena Showalter
  2. Drink Of Me by Jacquelyn Frank
  3. Ice Planet Barbarian by Ruby Dixon
  4. Barbarian Alien by Ruby Dixon

It was a lovely month 🙂 . If you’re curious about what I’m reading and my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

  1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
  2. How To Get A Thai Visa & The Thailand Pass Entry Process In The Age Of Covid
  3. Review: The World’s Longest Flight – 19 Hours In Singapore Air Business Class
  4. Review: Singapore Air 737 MAX Business Class AKA “The Throne”

I know what you’re thinking – is this a travel blog now? Maybe 🙂 . As always, I write about what I’m up to and I found so many aspects of my first international trip post-retirement, fascinating that I wanted to share. So in short, deal with it 😉 .

In addition to the above, I was a speaker at an Introvert Writer Summit, which is a free online event you can check out here if you’d like. It goes through March 9th. Someone who was writing an article for Conde Nast Traveler about black women who retired to travel the world, reached out to me so I might be part of that article soon. Cool!

Physical

Sleep

Sleep was impressive this month considering that I lived on the other side of the world for a month. One of the reasons I love luxury flights is because it seriously cuts down on jet lag. On both of my 14-19 hour flight legs, I slept at least 8 hours. Magic 🙂 .

When we landed, I quickly acclimated to the new time zone despite it being 12 hours ahead of home and then went back to sleeping easily and peacefully throughout the night.

Food

There was no keto to be found here, but despite that, I think I lost weight while eating everything Thailand had to offer, which makes no sense 🙂 . What kind of wizardry is this?!

Anyway, it was a month filled with absolutely delicious and shockingly well priced food – we calculated it and it was actually cheaper to eat out every meal instead of buying groceries and cooking.

So I ended up cooking literally ONE TIME this entire month. Ahh – Thailand knows what’s up 🙂 . Now I’m back to keto and calorie counting until we head to our next destination in a few weeks: MEXICO!

Exercise

My Mom had the wild idea of doing a 31 day squat challenge and we actually completed it! In fact, I’m going to continue it through March at least. I went from screaming while doing a few squats and not being able to walk for a day or two afterwards, to doing 30 without even breaking a sweat. Progress!

In addition to that, I started running again without the cold messing with my asthmatic lungs! It took me a bit to get accustomed to the new temperature and running consistently again, but after a while, I was going three times a week and enjoying the gorgeous beach I got to run along.

At the suggestion of one of my Patrons, I started using the Habits app and am loving it! I have trackers and reminders for everything else, so why not my habits? I’ve been using this specifically for the physical ones, so I don’t forget to run, squat, brush and floss etc. It’s one more thing I can let technology take care of for me 🙂 .

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Thailand

  • The US is 19x bigger than Thailand
From Wikimedia Commons
  • The Thai language doesn’t pronounce “h”s in the same way we do in English, which I guess I thought I had figured out from how we say “Tailand” instead of “THailand.” This was humorous when we discovered that the famous “Phi Phi Islands” are pronounced “Pee Pee Islands”
  • Another interesting thing we learned about the Thai language is that it doesn’t have “yes” and “no” like English. We discovered this as a result of a surprise that our intro Thai videos didn’t teach us yes and no, but it turns out that Thai repeats a verb for yes and the opposite of a verb for no. For example, if someone asks “Do you want this?” You say “Want” for yes and “No want” for no. So it’s no wonder a beginner language lesson didn’t get into literally all the verbs of the language 🙂
  • Our hotels and Airbnb in Thailand didn’t use top sheets – just a comforter, which I found interesting because that’s how I used to make a bed, but my partner said that’s not how it’s done. Now I have more data points to show I’m right 🙂
  • We were in Thailand for Māgha Pūjā, which is apparently the second most important Buddhist festival. It’s celebrated on the full moon day of the third lunar month in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
  • After hearing a weird crackling while snorkeling, I learned that a healthy coral reef sounds like popping popcorn. Yay they’re healthy!

Phuket

  • Phuket, Thailand is the size of Singapore
  • Related to the above revelations about the letter “h”, Phuket is pronounced “Pooket” (instead of “Fooket”) and its original name was Jungceylon.
  • Looking out at the sea at night, we saw boats with green lights in the distance and learned they’re Squid Fishing Boats! These lights attract the squid, which are then scooped up. When thinking back to my previous visit to Thailand a few years ago, I didn’t remember these lights on the horizon being green and it turns out that’s correct because they changed them. The lights used to be white and created a lot of light pollution, which confused migratory birds and emitted a lot of CO2. These new green lamps are much more energy efficient, create less light pollution, and actually penetrate the water far more effectively so the squid can see it without being reflected back.
  • My beloved Phuket Pineapples are apparently famous for their unique taste and texture. Local people call the pineapples ‘Ya-Nut’ and they’re said to bring good luck

Astronomy

Our Airbnb was west facing so we got to see a gorgeous sunset every night. We also had the pleasure of seeing the Full Moon while on a boat in the middle of the sea, which along with the bright stars, was a magical experience.

Outside of my personal experience, I learned something wild this month: NASA is going to crash the International Space Station (ISS) into the Pacific Ocean near Point Nemo in 2031. It’s the size of a football field and we’re crashing it to retire it. That’s going to be wild to see.

Birds

Upon arriving in Thailand, I was surprised and distressed to learn that my usual go to bird apps don’t work there and don’t have a Thailand or Southeast Asia pack to download – SERIOUSLY?!? There are so many cool birds there to see and that was disappointing.

Based on a recommendation, I set aside my Merlin and Audubon apps, downloaded Seek by iNaturalist and turned back to using my previous favorite bird sound identification app, BirdNET.

Seek wasn’t great with identification since it basically requires that you upload a clear picture of a moving bird, which is difficult for my phone camera to do 🙂 . BirdNET helped a little, but often didn’t have the birds that I was hearing in their database.

Anyway, despite these difficult challenges 🙂 , here are the birds I identified:

Hooded merganser, Pine grosbeak, Common myna, Black-naped oriole, Violet green swallow, Pacific swallow, Pacific reef heron, Spotted dove, Zebra dove, Koel (these birds sound like they’re saying “hello!”), Sun parakeet, Lineated barbet, Asian palm swift, Great hornbill, Oriental pied hornbill

A Great Hornbill AKA proof that dinosaurs still inhabit the Earth

White-throated Kingfisher, Brown shrike, Yellow vented bulbul, Brahminy kite, Yellow bellied prima, Asian fairy bluebird, White Chinese swan goose, Thai Game Chickens (and baby chicks!), Olive backed sunbird, Thai crane, Eastern great egret, Black shouldered kite, Large flying fox bats (in a cave = creepy!), Eurasian tree sparrow, Little cormorant, Leafbird, Pacific swift

A White-Throated Kingfisher

Flora

There were so many new kinds of plants that I couldn’t keep up 🙂 . Here are some of things I saw:

A Rubber Tree (and it had what looked like maple syrup taps, so I learned that rubber tapping is how they collect latex from a rubber tree), Durian tree (which takes 3-5 months to fruit after flower), Dischidia, Tradescantia Pallida (Purple Heart)

Purple Heart 🙂

Mysore fig, Spanish moss (which often grows on large trees in tropical climates and it’s native to parts of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America, the Southern United States and the West Indies), Madhuca, Candelabra tree (which is native to southern Africa and its milky latex can be extremely poisonous), Red frangipani, Bougainvillea (which is native to Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina), Butterfly pea (which I originally only heard and thought someone was giving me “butterfly pee” tea to drink – no thank you 🙂 . Also this flower makes drinks blue or purple if you add citrus to it. Cool!), Petrea, Cryptanthus, Chinese ixora, Beach Spider Lily, Bromelia, Caribbean agave, Portea

Petrea

Fauna

We saw some wild shit in Thailand 🙂 . Here’s what I saw:

An 84 year old tortoise, Hawksbill turtle, Mini pigs, Common sun skink, Flat tailed house gekko, Giant black squirrel, Macaxyz monkeys, Ray-finned fish, Kho-Lan Thai Cow, Tak bent-toed gecko, Gekko tokehos, Asian elephants, Moon jellies, An unknown jelly with a pink center, An unknown glowing blue jelly, Rabbitfishes, Moorish idol, Indo-Pacific sergeant major, Checkerboard wrasse, Redlip parrotfish, Titan tigerfish, White damsel, Parrot fish, Emporer angelfish, Triggerfish (which bumped me and Mom while apparently defending its eggs, which we didn’t see)

Random

Here are some random things I learned this month:

  • On our way to Thailand, we stayed in the TWA Hotel at JFK and it seemed to have a 60s theme. I went down a hallway that looked like a scene in Catch Me If You Can and assumed it was just because that movie was set in this same time period, but nope: This is where it was shot!
  • On a related note, the actual person whose life that movie was based on, Frank Abagnale Jr. (who now talks about scams on the AARP podcast), apparently lied about his conquests, such as working for the FBI. It made me chuckle that people were surprised that a con artist…conned them 🙂
  • I learned that the word “Podcast” is a combination of the words “iPod” and “broadcast” and that combining words like that is called a  portmanteau. Other examples are “smog” (smoke + fog) and motel (motor + hotel)
  • I ate Lobster on one of my international flights and reminisced about how lobster used to be considered a mark of poverty in the 1700s and then made a complete 180 to be considered a ‘fancy food’.

Creativity

Creativity was flowing this week. I was a little worried at the beginning because navigating living in a new country seemed to take all of my mental energy. I didn’t write for over a week, which was unusual for me.

Luckily, once we settled in, my creative juices started flowing and started overflowing, which you might have noticed if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram 🙂 . I’m happy that moving across the world and getting used to literally the opposite time zone, didn’t have too much of an affect on my creative output.

Emotional

This month has been wonderful emotionally. The sun and sea really agree with me 🙂 . Previously when I lived in other countries, I did experience more anxiety and depression than I did while living in the states, but in those cases, I was living in another country alone – I didn’t know anyone and it was understandably difficult to make friends.

It turns out that if I bring loved ones with me, that transition period isn’t there – I can just move somewhere without worry since I have that support system, which is great! Coming from the cold northeast winter, I also noticed an uptick in my mood so I guess it’s all sunny destinations from here on out 🙂 .

Money

Basically, this says it all:

The world is wild and I’m just chugging along over here while being shocked and surprised at how little life can cost in Thailand. For example:

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in February! It was a wild month where we finally went international after intentionally staying in the US for two years. It was very interesting to learn to live on the other side of the world for a month. I’ll talk more about that in my Phuket, Thailand Slow Travel Review that’s in the works, but until then: I hope you’re well 🙂 .

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly

  1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
  2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
  3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
  4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
  5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
  6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
  7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
  8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
  9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
  10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
  11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
  12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly

  1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
  2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
  3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
  4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
  5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
  6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
  7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
  8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
  9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
  10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
  11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
  12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap
  13. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap

How was your month?

24 thoughts on “The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap”

  1. I too was skeptical about Credit Karma Tax’s sale to Cash App – but went along with it like you did & I can report that yes, it was just as smooth, user friendly, & quick as before, maybe just with a different color scheme along the way. Sorry your QR code at the start didn’t work! That & having to download the app to start are the only differences I can think of. . Thanks for the reminder to delete it now that I’m done!

    Reply

    1. That’s great to hear that it still works well under this new company (outside the app download and my QR issue 🙂 ). Thank you for letting me know and yes delete it!

      Reply

  2. Sounds fun! The real question is, why aren’t there more bird pictures in this post? I can’t believe you saw sun conures (aka sun parakeets) in the wild! 🧡💛

    Reply

  3. I used the new Cash App taxes and my state sent back an adjustment to my refund that was less than what the cash app return told me I should get so… Just wondering if their state forms have been done correctly or not.

    Thailand sounds amazing! I always thought that would be the ideal place to expat but turns out it’s pretty hard and expensive to do that now. A month or two on a tourist visa sounds glorious though.

    Reply

    1. Iiiinteresting. I just dug through their T&Cs and it looks like their “max refund guarantee” onto extends to federal tax returns. I understand that every state can be a little different, but that seems a bit sketchy to me. Or maybe they’re playing fast and loose with the state returns since they’re making it seem like they guarantee accuracy on everything when it’s actually only federal. Anyway, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’m sorry you got a refund adjustment.

      I must admit that it was 😉 . And it’s hard to move there now? I haven’t looked into it myself – just tourist visas for me at this point 🙂 .

      Reply

    1. Indeed I did 🙂 . And I’m so glad you’re looking forward to it! I worked on it some more today after reading your comment 🙂 .

      Reply

  6. This blog continues to be excellent. Travel blog, finance blog, whatever, it’s an INTERESTING blog and wow are those a scarce resource right now.

    Reply

    1. You are too kind 🙂 !!!! Thank you so much for telling me that. I’ll keep it coming 😉 .

      Reply

  7. Oh yes please bring on a more “travel blog” vibe – I really enjoyed reading about your time in Thailand. I’m very much looking forward to the full story – especially the cost of living for a month and how you spent your time.

    Loving your blog!

    Reply

    1. Haha I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! That means a lot coming from you. I’ll definitely keep the travel vibe coming 🙂 . And I’ll keep working on that slow travel review with that info!

      Reply

  8. Was wondering how Credit Karma tax app compares to TurboTax, if anyone’s used both?

    I’ve been using the latter for years but anything that’s cheaper or easier to use might be better. Though my tax situation is in most years isn’t straightforward (K1s, various 1099s, self-employment, W2).

    Also: I’ve been looking at Google FI for a while — seems like a great deal for international. For now, since I’m on a T-Mobile family plan, I get like a 15GB pass across 30 days for $50 (I don’t use that much data and mostly just need to navigate).

    But Google FI seems like if you have 3 people, it’s just a $50/mo flat, instead of $50 in addition to the monthly bill which is great. Will need to see if I can convince some people to switch with me lol.

    Reply

    1. I’ve used both and before it was sold, credit karma it was way better. It’s also definitely cheaper even after the sale at $0 🙂 .

      And yeah Google Fi has been a great deal for us. I think even as a single person joining it’s a good deal – I was planning to do that before my partner jumped onboard.

      Reply

  9. Hahaha butterfly pee!

    Loved soaking up your Thailand vibes and having a mental break from never-ending Québec winter and the world being on fire. Looking forward to more travel posts!

    Reply

    1. Haha yeah it was initially traumatizing because of the misunderstanding 🙂 . And yay! I’m so happy it helped you have a mental break. Woohoo – I’m so glad you’re enjoying them and will keep them coming!

      Reply

  11. Can you link to the habit all you use? I searched “habits” in Google play and got a bunch of options – none of them named exactly “Habits.”

    Reply

    1. I did $5K the first year and $7K last year. To get around Phuket I walked (we lived walking distance to everything) and took Grab (their ride share) to get to farther parts of the island. They also have public transit you can take that’s cheaper.

      Reply

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