Rent!

Wanna caught me as I was leaving school, “Shalot, can I speetooyoo fo' one minni'?” She wants to talk to me about paying the family something for my upkeep. Last time she brought it up she said it would be best if I would pay “something for the bill”, which sounded fair. I did ask at the time how much would be appropriate, but she wouldn't give me a figure and told me to ask other foreigners. Well, I've asked around to see what other people's bills come to, so this time I'm prepared. She asks me how much do I think. I tell her that my friend's bills are 2,500 (Casandra's bills are the highest out of everyone I've spoken to), so would that be okay. But no, she says, “oh no, that not enough. I think 5,000, OK?”. Well look, woman, if you had already set the price why didn't you just say that in the first place instead of asking me?!

5,000 a month is actually kind of steep. I mean, I know the family has been very kind to me, and generous, and it's great here, and I have a whole house with hot running water (well, sometimes anyway) and a garden and a maid and everything. But I could get a room for 3,500 all in, and the difference of over twenty quid is a lot of money in this country. I can have a weekend at the beach for that.

All the same though, I'm not going to rush to move out. I know I've got a pretty good thing - with the bonus that if I go travelling during my time off, I have no reason to pay anything except a token amount to leave my things there (which is good, since 5,000 baht is half my wages in those two months!).