The Dangers of Letting Bangkok’s Delivery Apps Take Over [S7.E37]

Greg 00:00:05 On this episode, we discussed the pros and cons of using an app to get everything you need to live delivered to your front door.

Ed 00:00:12 So even if you've maxed out your credit card without even leaving your house, you'll find lots to love on this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg 00:00:36 So what's up? And welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 because I tried to use Tim Hortons coupons at a Canadian Tire and the Mounties got all up in my bidness, so I left for fairer lands.

Ed 00:00:51 Damn. Well, now you got Tim Hortons here, dude. You can finally use your Tim Hortons coupons.

Greg 00:00:55 Once a Canadian Tire opens here, then the the circle has come full circle.

Ed 00:01:01 And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract 24 years ago, fell in love with how Thais pronounce English words, so I never left.

Greg 00:01:12 Which one's your favorite?

Ed 00:01:13 Well, it's funny, the I. I don't know why.

Ed 00:01:16 I have a theory. I always think of the word computer, a computer.

Greg 00:01:23 Computer.

Ed 00:01:24 And I think that the reason this is talking to my head is my second day in Thailand, when I was actually. God. No, it was really my. It was within 24 hours of arriving in Thailand. I, I got taken to my office so I didn't have any leeway. It's like I, I woke up and a guy from my office, like, knocked him into work, knocked on my door and took me to work. And, I think in so my first day in Thailand, they were explaining everything to me. And one of the office girls who, you know, I'm not used to the Thai accent, you know, I'm just. I'm fresh off the boat, literally. And she said computer. So I think that's why it sticks in my head. That was my first borrowed word. Classic. But it's it's classic. So it's just it's just cute.

Greg 00:02:19 My favorite is not pronunciation, but it's the wrong use of the word.

Greg 00:02:22 It's the wrong phrasing that when people say toasts, how many toasts do you want? I think it's super cute.

Ed 00:02:27 Oh, there's so many. that's a whole. We could do a show on it. All right. English like English. Quaint, quaint. Tie. Incorrect usage of English. Like that. Cute tie. Mistakes in English.

Greg 00:02:45 You know what? The biggest one for me? And this is tangent right off the beginning of the show. I know, but is when when people who are pretty good at English but not really fluent and they they shorten the phrase I will as Has I'll. And in some instances it's correct. But if you said, who wants to, go and buy some milk, you can't say I'll.

Ed 00:03:11 Oh, you can't stop. You can't say I'll. Right. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Greg 00:03:15 You can say I will, I will, but you can't say I'll. Good point. And I, it's probably beyond my linguistic know these.

Ed 00:03:23 Fine know these, these fine points are absolutely true. And it just I've learned that, you you basically can never sound like a native speaker 100%. You can't. Right? You just can't. It's too many fine points.

Greg 00:03:38 Anyway. That's my my derailing the show right off the bat.

Ed 00:03:41 All righty. We want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early, behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world. But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics. On this week's bonus show. We chatted about a video Greg took of a bike ride with his new Ray-Ban metal glasses and the dangers in underestimating digital technology, the way in which Asian culture somehow breaks down social barriers between younger and older generations in a way that simply doesn't happen in the West.

Ed 00:04:29 And Greg's current headache of dealing with a broken washing machine as dirty clothes begin to quickly pile up.

Greg 00:04:37 Let's just say we're glad. We're glad we're doing this online. Because you could smell me. That's pathetic.

Ed 00:04:42 I don't want to. I don't want to visit. Let me know when you clean that up. And I'll. I'll head over to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 700 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg 00:04:59 Totem goats and hey, quick shout out to someone I met on the train the other day. I was, on the train coming home and this guy walked up to me and he's like, do you have a podcast? And I said, yeah, I do, actually. I said, do you listen to it? And he said, yeah, it's in the back of the podcast. Anyway, it was one of our patrons, our friend Daniel, who. Yeah, I've chatted with him quickly before via Patreon and it was very nice to run into him.

Greg 00:05:23 He was only on the train for one stop.

Ed 00:05:25 So you never had met him in person before?

Greg 00:05:27 Never met him in person? No, but he recognized me from my photo, and, but, he said he he was a professional poker player. Oh, wild. What he does, that still blows my mind because a I don't even know how to play poker as an amateur and, be just to be able to make a living at it. I mean, I know those high stakes guys who do it, but highly competitive.

Ed 00:05:48 Let's just say that. Yeah.

Greg 00:05:49 Yeah. Well, anyway, shout out to Daniel. Thanks for coming up and saying hi, my friend. And, yeah, you know, if you're out there somewhere and you see me or Ed walking around, come up, say hi. We love talking to people.

Ed 00:05:57 For sure. For sure.

Greg 00:05:59 All right. On this episode, we want to jump into the era of convenience by discussing ways in which the multitude of delivery apps have changed the lifestyle of the average person in Bangkok.

Greg 00:06:10 Now, I think grab is probably the biggest one, but we've also got Foodpanda, lineman and all the other individual ones like Lotus's 7-Eleven, Villa and more, which means you can order pretty much anything a human needs to survive without ever leaving your sofa. While Bangkok's geography and lifestyle makes this ultra easy to do, and it is super convenient, but this ultra convenience also comes with a few downsides, which we're going to discuss as well. I think this is a pretty relevant topic yet, because it seems like every couple of months there's a new super app where you can order whatever you want from wherever you want, and it just is becoming so easy to do. I haven't really jumped into this with both feet yet. I still like going out and physically getting stuff. But I know a lot of people who only use this stuff, so I want to learn more about it.

Ed 00:07:00 Well, I'll tell you this. I wouldn't say I'm 100% in these waters, but I think it's really changed my life.

Ed 00:07:08 You know, you and I were. You and I were chatting before the show about just how our lives have changed since we've moved here. And, you know, back in the day, of course, there was delivery. There was. But as you mentioned in the intro, it's just it's just now become so common. I feel like you can just order anything, like literally anything you want, any type of product, even services you can order. But I mean, and I've mostly embraced it, like, you know, you know, you have not embraced it quite as much as I have. But now I, I just go out a lot. I mean, I go to work and then I go out for my social life, but I basically don't shop anymore. I just don't shop like everything. And I remember, you know, growing up, if I wanted something, you have to go to the mall, you know? So yeah. Yeah, going shopping is been a part of my whole life.

Ed 00:08:03 And then my first ten years in Bangkok, I if I needed something, I went out, I went to the mall and I really I've realized that I've embraced the delivery lifestyle. Like, I just don't I just don't do it anymore. Like, I can just order practically anything I want.

Greg 00:08:22 Yeah, I've I've jumped into this wholeheartedly in a couple of ways, but not the everyday stuff. But like, for instance, a few weeks ago I had to order. I forget what it was. It was somewhere around here. Is it? It was a little thing. A little thing for the bathroom to, like, screw onto something and clean something. And I didn't know what to call it in time. I barely knew what to call it in English. It was like a little attachment thingamajig that went like this and made this sound. so I just went to Lazada and I searched for it and I ordered it with one click. And, you know, 3 or 4 days later, it showed up.

Greg 00:08:52 So instead of me like getting into my car and driving to the mall and trying to find a store, I clicked a button and some dude in a warehouse in China put it in an envelope and put it on a truck, which put it on a plane which came to Thailand, which put down another truck, which dropped. And I felt it's ridiculous. I felt lame and guilty because.

Ed 00:09:12 I know I'm with you 100%, I okay. In a way, this is, I feel like this might belong in in a video on maybe the wonders of capitalism because it is kind of amazing. It's kind of amazing, even though it's hard to believe that it's profitable. But I'll give you just a specific example. So, you know, I'm a I'm a camera gadget guy. I've got a bunch of lenses, I've got like Panasonic lenses. A canon lens is like Fuji lenses. And they all they all have different, like rear, like the mount is different. And so there's a cap that goes on the back of the lens.

Ed 00:09:49 So you need like a Fuji cap or like a Panasonic cap, whatever. And you know, I lose them and misplace them. But then, as you pointed out on Lazada, you can find like okay, a Panasonic rear lens cap and it will cost like 30 baht. It's like a it's a $1. Right. And then and then for 15 more about $0.50, they'll ship it from, from China to, to Bangkok.

Greg 00:10:17 It's outrageous.

Ed 00:10:19 So the whole transaction is like $1.50, and somehow in four days, it's at my door.

Greg 00:10:27 Yeah. It involves three airplanes, nine trucks, and, you know, 65 people. You're just like how in a chain of of manual labor.

Ed 00:10:34 Like what? Like, did it cost them one penny to make it, like, who's making money here? Like, I'm spending a dollar, I'm spending $1.50. And there's, you know, it's getting put on a pallet and it's, it's part of like a cargo ship. It it's just amazing.

Greg 00:10:50 It's ridiculous.

Greg 00:10:50 especially since we're living in a sinking city. I'm only here like, hey, thanks for the carbon you spent to deliver me this nine grams of plastic. So.

Ed 00:10:58 But but I have basically embraced it, like, I just I'm just whether it's a primarily I use okay for this type of product. Not not food. It's basically Lazada, Shopee and then sometimes AliExpress. So those are my big three and I can buy almost anything. I mean I mean we already have given some examples of like hyper specific products, but one of the pros of the delivery lifestyle is just the specialization. And what if you, you know, some of my, some of my gadgets and stuff? It's like it's a very specific part. I mean, just like just I don't I don't want to go into the details, but it's just some hyper specific like or like a non standardized like nut or something. Just like. Right. It's just like the the most thing and then bam, you could just find it on Shopee and hit the and boom and hit, you know, send.

Ed 00:11:56 And then and then it's at your door and it's like, like back in the day I would have to go to the mall, find a specialty shop, like talk to some guy. He'd be like, oh, we don't have that. That's and it might take you weeks to find the this other.

Greg 00:12:12 Store across town. Oh, I get in my car, go across town. That's right.

Ed 00:12:15 That's exactly right. I mean, it could be days, days or weeks. And to finally find the part and you're looking in some old catalog and it's like a replacement thing. Yeah. Right. Right, right. And now now it's a click. I mean, I feel like I'm part of an advertisement, but it's basically a click away. Yeah.

Greg 00:12:36 It's it's it's weird too because the language barrier also plays a part. And also I like to say that non standardized nut, that's what my teachers used to call me in high school. But like like I bought these things recently and it was, it was a little square about the size of a, twice the size of a deck of playing cards.

Greg 00:12:50 And it was a, it was a screen, and you put it over your bathroom drain to stop hair from going down your drain.

Ed 00:12:56 Oh, shit.

Greg 00:12:56 Okay. So yeah, how do you explain that in Thai if you don't speak Thai, how do you say a little at a self adhesive screen that you put over your shower drain? I wouldn't don't even know where to begin.

Ed 00:13:05 Yeah, right. Right, right.

Greg 00:13:06 And it's just so much easier to go online and get it. But again, it's a ridiculous little thing that weighs as much as a, you know, as your watch. Right? And I mean shipped from China.

Ed 00:13:16 So in terms of okay, let's just since we're on the pros, let's just do the pros. So one obvious thing we've already mentioned is you could just find anything. And then the other thing is, I mean, you you like to drive in Bangkok. I don't, but but it's not just about driving. It's also just about dealing with traffic and people.

Ed 00:13:41 So sometimes there's something that's not even specialized, that it's not even that hard for me to get. Like, I could probably go out and get it and be back in less than an hour, right? But then I still think, well, why should I do that? You know, it's like, so it'll be it'll let's say it'll be something like, I don't know, whatever. Like, okay, I need like a new SD card and it's actually not that hard for me to get like when it comes down to it. But I still think, why? Like, why make the trip? Like why there's still I'm still going to have to in my case, I don't I don't own a car these days, so I still have to flag down a taxi, do whatever. And it just I don't need the SD card in the next hour, so why not just click again on Lazada or Shopee and then it's great, right? Right. And a lot of times stuff like that is sometimes it's one day that I order a fair amount of stuff that shows up the next day if I ordered early enough.

Greg 00:14:41 Well, this is interesting because I think that's actually a negative. That's one of the downsides of doing this, because, you know, it's just it's one more step towards being that person who I've made fun of on the show before, and I think we've all met them at some point. These sort of like people here on the high, high cost expat packages who go from their, you know, condo to their chauffeured car to the mall to eat their American food, and they never interact with any Thai people. They never learn the language. They never explore the city because it's so easy not to. So letting letting this kind of lifestyle sort of creep too far into how you operate. I think it's, you know, like, I think there's real value in going out and wandering the markets and walking around the malls and figuring out how the city works and finding the shit. You know, you're right.

Ed 00:15:30 I mean, I'm basically going to plead guilty because I've. So for me, I don't see it.

Ed 00:15:35 Okay. Your example would be more like it. Can it can you can slide into the ex-pat bubble where you don't interact with Thai people. So I think my situation is different because I've been there so long and, you know, I've been married to a Thai woman and I work at a Thai university. So for me, it's just more it's more about I end up being becoming a homebody. Like, it's weird because I'm not a homebody. I do socialize. I just don't shop. So maybe I'm. Maybe I'm missing it, like, I. I've never really liked shopping, going to the mall and all that kind of stuff. And so now with new technology, I just don't have to do that. Like I leave the house to work and I leave the house to go see my friends. And then basically, I, I, I order in a huge amount of food. I mean, basically now I'm a single guy and I do. I go through phases where I like to cook, and then that phase lasts for a couple of weeks, and then I'm like, I don't even want to like, pour myself a Diet Coke at home.

Ed 00:16:34 I'm just like, you know. So I go through phases where I just order in all my meals, you know?

Greg 00:16:40 And so let's talk about that for a second, because I've never done this. And when you say you order in food, do you order it from restaurants or do you order it from grocery stores?

Ed 00:16:47 I do only.

Greg 00:16:48 Restaurants. Listeners who don't know, like you can order the grocery stores like Villa Market. You can order your groceries and they'll deliver like your your meats and your.

Ed 00:16:56 Vegetables and your as you know, I happen to live immediately next to a Foodland. And so that's the only thing where I'm luckily I haven't gotten that lazy. So I'm one minute away, so I do. I do all my grocery shopping in person, and the only exception is occasionally I've needed something very rare that they don't even have it a Foodland. And then I then I'll order it online. But yeah. So food, groceries, I still do in person, but man, I, I do a lot of food delivery when I'm not in the mood to cook a lot.

Ed 00:17:30 I mean, even, even things like breakfasts where I want to eat something before I go to work if I time it right, it's probably like 2 or 3 days a week where I'm where I'm getting food for breakfast delivered. Really?

Greg 00:17:45 You get food for breakfast delivered straight up.

Ed 00:17:47 Yeah. No, I'm.

Greg 00:17:48 Dude, what time do you leave in the morning?

Ed 00:17:50 The dealer? well, I'm usually up by seven and out the door by 815, so I mean, if I, you know, if I time it right, you know, I can. I can make it all work. dude, I'm telling you, the delivery lifestyle, I've embraced it like I, I'm ordering. I probably have cheese when I think about it. Okay. Out of seven days a week, there's probably. Okay. I'm going to say 4 or 5 days. I'm receiving something by delivery, whether it's food or a package. I'm constantly ordering stuff constantly.

Greg 00:18:27 But why? Why is ordering food to your place more convenient if you're about to head out anyway?

Ed 00:18:33 Well, it's mostly because, where I mean, in the case of particularly in the case of breakfast, there's just not anything around my university they don't want to eat.

Ed 00:18:43 it's It just. It just works out. And it's just weird. A lot of it is just moods, like. So sometimes I'm in a mood where I want to go sit in a restaurant. Sure, I want to be out. But I'm telling you, man, over the years, I've become more of. I don't want to leave my place unless it's to do something specific, like, oh, my friend is having a house party. So then okay, then I will leave my house. But I don't want to. I don't want to leave my house to just go by some random thing. Even though. Even though that's how I grew up. But I don't want to do that anymore. Like like why? Why would I go to the mall to buy stocks when I can just order them online?

Greg 00:19:23 That makes it. That's a good point. That's a good point. And is for something stupid like that. You almost feel like a tool going out anyway.

Ed 00:19:29 Like, no.

Greg 00:19:29 But that's how I get some furniture polish.

Ed 00:19:32 Yeah, seriously? Exactly. No, that's exactly right. Like in the past, if, like, you needed to buy furniture polish, you're like, well, I gotta go. Gotta go to the mall, you know? Right.

Greg 00:19:41 Yeah. I need a better reason than that.

Ed 00:19:43 Yeah. So now I'm just. I've embraced it, man. So. Okay, so there's obvious convenience avoiding the stress of just going out. It's very specialized. But I'll tell you this. Another advantage is the actual cost of delivery in Thailand is low. It's cheap. Yeah.

Greg 00:20:03 Like like a couple of bucks maybe.

Ed 00:20:06 Yeah. So I mean it's just I think I just don't even think about it. Whereas when I'm home, like when I was back in the States, I'm looking at like, you know, I'm ordering something that's $75, but then it might be 12 or $15 to deliver it. And I'm like, oh, shit. Like that's, you know, it's like, you know, it's not like $3, like, you know, whereas here I feel like I'm buying something for $30 and it's going to be $2 to deliver it.

Ed 00:20:33 So I just, I.

Greg 00:20:34 Just don't think a no brainer. Right?

Ed 00:20:35 Yeah, I just don't I'm not factoring. I'm just I feel like over here I'm just not factoring in delivery cost?

Greg 00:20:43 No, I never even think about it. It's not even worth writing about.

Ed 00:20:45 That's right. So? So that matters. And then check this out. What do you think about this? In the States there is a problem of, you know, Amazon is ridiculously popular, right? But there's a problem with when people get packages in the States, depending on where you live, you know, and how sequestered you are. There's a lot of theft of of deliveries in the States. So pirates. Yeah. There you go. Porch pirates. So I think depending on where you live, you have to factor that in. Like you have to be careful about ordering too much stuff and having a guy drop a package in front of your place. But as far as I know, that is not a thing in Bangkok.

Ed 00:21:28 So where I live, I'm not far from a main road and people, just random people walking actually have almost direct access to my front door. I'm Not on a higher floor in terms of where you enter. And but I get deliveries all the time. And, you know, sometimes there's someone there who can receive it, even if it's not me. But I would say again, it's I would say at least once a week I come home and there's a package either usually if they can, they put it on top of the mailbox, but if it's bigger, they just lean it against the door. But I mean, I'm telling you, it's a what, 6 or 7ft from a public space, so. Right. Anyway, anyone could anyone walking by could grab the package. And I've been doing it now for. So I've been in my current location for what, six years? And I've never had a problem just so I don't even think about it. So people are leaving boxes of reasonably valuables.

Ed 00:22:29 It could be camera equipment and they're just leaving it leaning against my door, and I don't have to worry about it.

Greg 00:22:35 That's really interesting. I don't I wonder why like, is it it's Thai culture? Is it just considered like not even something that people would think about here? I don't know.

Ed 00:22:45 You know, it's funny because we've had.

Greg 00:22:46 Someone who's watching.

Ed 00:22:48 We've talked about before. There's a fair amount of pickpocketing of foreigners like you. You know, I, I usually tell my friends visiting, you don't have to worry about being mugged violently. But I tell my friends, you do have to watch your belongings like that. Foreigners get. They do get robbed. Like it's.

Greg 00:23:05 I've been pickpocketed twice in my time here. Yeah, it's.

Ed 00:23:07 Like it's typically not violent, which is great, but it's not like you don't have to worry about theft here. But at least, at least the porch pirate thing. I mean, maybe we shouldn't talk about it. Maybe some Thai thieves will hear about it, and we're going to give them ideas.

Greg 00:23:22 The light bulb. Ping! Hey. Yeah. You're right. It is easy to steal them right off. Yeah.

Ed 00:23:25 Why aren't we. Why aren't we just walking around and looking for packages on people's porches?

Greg 00:23:30 Have you ever watched that? The videos by Mark Rober. He's the guy that made that glitter bomb for Porch.

Ed 00:23:35 Pirates, man. No. That's another, you you and I both love, YouTube black holes, but man, the anti Porch pirate black hole on YouTube is great.

Greg 00:23:46 Can you imagine a glitter? Not a glitter bomb, but an anti porch pirate bomb that like explodes fish sauce all over them or something like put a nice Asian twist on it. That's a great idea.

Ed 00:23:56 Fantastic man. The anti porch pirate stuff is great because like I like some of them. They have like a glitter bomb. But they've actually you know they've embedded the camera in there. So it's like you can watch the whole thing and you can see the actual thieves. Right? It's a great.

Greg 00:24:12 This robber guy.

Greg 00:24:13 He also put in like the fart spray. Yeah. So he's got like so they lift the lid up and then glitter explodes all over the place. Then it's like, that's right, fart spray comes out, but tastic. But yeah, that is an interesting observation. There's there's there's not not a lot of that here. So it's much less to worry about.

Ed 00:24:31 So I think I think delivery culture here might even be it might be more accessible than back home, like with the reduced cost, with the decreased chance of theft, with the fact that traffic is worse than home. I feel like the delivery lifestyle is it's it's more of a Bangkok thing. Like, I, I think I'd back home, it would be easier for me to hop in a car and go to the mall than here.

Greg 00:24:56 You might be right. You might be right. Yeah. And also here there's just armies and armies of motorcycle delivery. That's right. You don't have all the vans and stuff.

Ed 00:25:03 Yeah. I'm a I'm a I feel like I'm a promoter of this lifestyle.

Ed 00:25:07 Okay. But okay. But we have to be clear. There are cons no doubt. So definitely so one con I think we mentioned already is it can turn you into like a couch slug. And it is it can be just kind of lazy. Like I said. Luckily I still walk two minutes to the Foodland next to my place, but even they'll be okay. I basically got deliveries from Makro and I have a macro five minutes for me. It's basically across the street, so. So but I've gotten deliveries from because I've been like.

Greg 00:25:46 From the.

Ed 00:25:46 Macro. I have, I have, you know, because I've been like, well I have to go there and you know, macro is big. So it's probably for me to go to macro and come back. It would probably take me 20 to 30 minutes. And if it's something I don't need, you know, I'll just be like, well, I'll just get it tomorrow, you know?

Greg 00:26:04 That's so funny.

Ed 00:26:05 So yeah. So one disadvantage is, okay, you can just turn into a home body.

Greg 00:26:12 And another disadvantage. And this, this this sounds like a minor thing, but it actually is not. It's actually a big thing. And like, I came home the other night and my wife had ordered like, I don't know, like nine packages downstairs that I had to like load up and carry upstairs. but and again, it sounds like me, like a husband complaining about his wife, but my wife orders a lot and a lot and a lot and a lot, but nothing ever gets thrown out. Oh, you know, we live. We live in it. We live in a small condo. And that math doesn't work out. And like, again, it sounds like just a generic complaint, but it's something you got to do. It's like a logistical issue now. Like, it's so easy to just order stuff that's so cheap, and pretty soon you're going half a room full of stuff and you're like, shit. Now what do I do with it?

Ed 00:26:58 Well, I was going to say, I do think the the ease and convenience it it does create a bad habit of just buying too much shit.

Ed 00:27:07 I mean. Exactly.

Greg 00:27:08 I don't know, that's a very good way to put. It's a bad habit.

Ed 00:27:10 Yeah. I don't know what to call it over buying or it's just wasting money and I'm, you know, I'm I'm bad at managing money to begin with. And so this and I'm also a gadget freak. And so the fact that I can just like scroll through like computer gadgets and cell phone stuff and, you know, audio equipment, I mean, this is I mean, it's in a way, this is capitalism at its worst in that right. There's always going to be something I want like to always something I want to upgrade or this part or this component. And so I definitely overbuy and I basically I just waste money. That's a simple truth. It's like I just at my computer, I just have so much power in in choosing what I want that I think it is. It's dangerous. I mean, you could luckily, I'm not into credit cards anymore, thank God. But I mean, you could easily, like, just spend your way into debt if you were putting all this stuff on credit cards.

Greg 00:28:09 Totally, totally. I have a story. I was actually telling the story to a friend the other night. And there's the the most horrifying credit card story I've heard is what I think it was my wife's friend or my wife's friend of a friend someone. But she was just so obsessed with buying stuff, buying stuff and buying stuff. And this may be speaks less to the the, the app thing we're talking about than to just sort of like the general consumption lifestyle.

Ed 00:28:31 Sure, sure.

Greg 00:28:32 But her the minimum payments for this woman's credit cards were eventually became more than her salary every month. Oh, Jesus. Like, how do you spend yourself into a hole that deep?

Ed 00:28:43 No, I mean, no, it's no, I mean, I, I could relate to it in that it's just so convenient. And then if you're not going to tracking it, I mean, luckily I've moved, I've moved beyond credit cards, but I could totally understand it. It's so convenient. And and you can, you know, a lot of it is, I mean, what I don't really get into the psychology of it, but a lot of it is just like your social life, your emotional life.

Ed 00:29:06 Like if you don't have anything else going on in your life and you know, once you have the internet, it's just a window to a million things you could buy, right?

Greg 00:29:14 Then you're stuck in Requiem for a dream like that woman addicted to television. Who? Yeah, that's right. Let's say that the better.

Ed 00:29:20 Anyway, I have to mention this because another downside that I want to point out is that delivery in Bangkok. It's one of those things that works 100% 80% of the time. You know what I mean?

Greg 00:29:35 That's cool. From from anchorman, right? Yeah.

Ed 00:29:37 Well, whatever it is, it's just. Yeah, I think whatever where it comes from, but it just it just seems to work perfectly. And then all of a sudden, it's a ridiculous pain in the ass. You know, it's like. So I get it's so funny, you know, I get deliveries from, like, Burger King, no problem. And then the next day I'm ordering from Burger King and the guy can't find my place.

Ed 00:29:58 And his English is bad and my tie is not good enough. And I'm just like, just go to the blue dot on the freaking. Just look at your phone. You know. And so it, it's, it can be oddly frustrating out of the blue you know it's like so I want to point this out to listeners who whether you're I don't know, even as a tourist, like, you know, the bottom line is what I'm realizing is, even if I was a tourist in Bangkok, this whole delivery thing could make your life a lot easier, like if you wanted to. I mean, the bottom line is, even as a tourist, you could be ordering food in, you know, and I think as a tourist, you're not you're not necessarily thinking about that.

Greg 00:30:34 No, no. Well, I think it'd be kind of lame if you went to a new city and stayed in your hotel.

Ed 00:30:38 Depends on what you want. Like more power to you. If you don't, you know, if you want to chill in your hotel, you could still order food in.

Ed 00:30:44 But. But the thing about the whole the world of delivery in Bangkok is that it can be quite frustrating, where sometimes it's just they don't understand your address. And okay, in my particular case, just to just to give a specific example, for some reason my exact address is not on Google Maps. Oh geez. It's just a weird thing where no matter where I move the pin, it it's just not there. and so what ends up happening is I have to I have to use, like, the nearest thing. Right. You know, which is like next to where I live. So the food.

Greg 00:31:24 Lab you order to deliver to macaroni, I do, I just order them delivered from Makro.

Ed 00:31:29 I do it, I order stuff to Foodland. I'm not making this up, I do this, I just I just did this, yesterday to, I ordered some vegetarian, burrito burritos from Taco Bell, and it just the way their app works out, it's just like I they just delivered to Foodland, and then, like, I meet the guy out in front of Foodland.

Ed 00:31:49 So. So there's these weird quirks. And then sometimes, you know, just because of, of of, you know, the language barrier, you can just get in frustrating circles of miscommunication, you know, and, you know, you had a story on the last show a couple of weeks ago, but but so it's just something worth pointing out, like delivery in Bangkok, it doesn't always work and it can be very frustrating.

Greg 00:32:16 Well, yeah, exactly. And I think I told the story already on the on the bonus show a few weeks ago, but, recently I was driving home and I, I, ordered, some food on an app as I was driving, which is not recommended. Safety first, you should always keep your eyes on the road. But as I was driving, as I know the app really well, a couple of clicks. Boop boop boop done. And I got home and the guy called me and he's like, yeah, I'm here, but I don't know where you are.

Greg 00:32:41 And I was like, where are you? And he said, Ranma three.

Ed 00:32:44 Oh, right. It's an old it's another.

Greg 00:32:46 This is a no no. It was an old address because when I was, when I ordered, I forgot to choose my address. And I chose your location.

Ed 00:32:53 Oh, right. Exactly.

Greg 00:32:54 That's right. I'm flying down the highway on Rama three.

Ed 00:32:57 Oh that's right. Yeah.

Greg 00:32:57 And so there's this motorcycle guy with my little bag of food, like miles away from my place.

Ed 00:33:02 I know exactly what you're talking about. Yep.

Greg 00:33:03 Yeah. So, I mean, totally my fault, but I told the guy, like, actually, can you come to my house here? And he's like, I could have just got here. His eyes roll like, oh my God, you idiot. It's like. So I gave him a big tip when he showed up, but still, like, you know, it can be frustrating. And when you hit a little snag it.

Greg 00:33:20 Just then my son was hungry, and I'm hungry and I'm waiting downstairs. It just sucked.

Ed 00:33:25 That's right. I mean, it it logistically, it just. Another problem I have is when someone wants to make a delivery, and I just want them to bring it to my place, whether I'm here or not. Like, and I can never figure out how to specify. Again, I'm not worried about porch pirates. So whether I'm home or not, and I really would like to be able to tell them, like, don't do a conformation call, don't call me because I'm usually working. And so I'll be I'll be in the middle of a lecture, and I'm afraid if I don't pick up the call, they won't deliver it, you know? Right. And so it can be quite annoying. I just want them to come and drop it off because, you know, and, and so and then I'll be trying to communicate with them in Thai and they don't understand what I'm saying, and I'm trying to tell them, like, just leave it, just come, you know, and they'll be like, are you home? And I'm like, no, I'm not home.

Ed 00:34:19 But it doesn't matter, you know? Right. So but but the truth is, I really think it 80% of the time it works 100% of the time.

Greg 00:34:29 It's I love that 80%. That's fantastic.

Ed 00:34:33 But it's like something you got. You got to be willing to put up with the miscommunication and logistical issues.

Greg 00:34:41 Well, before we go, just one more quick story here. I read this tonight as I was poking around the internet looking at this topic. But in the US, the trend of ordering with the apps has become so widespread, especially after Covid, that now there's these ghost kitchens, right? So they don't have a storefront or a place to sit down, but you can still order their food online and it gets delivered to your house. Okay. But it says this thing says, some US customers felt fooled or catfished when they learned that they ordered from what they thought was a small restaurant that instead turned out to be a big chain using ghost kitchens. So, like, people are feeling like they want to get out and they want to experience the place in real life now.

Greg 00:35:23 So they drive to this place and they find out it's like it doesn't exist. Oh, like an industrial kitchen or something like that. And there's no charm, there's no atmosphere or anything to it.

Ed 00:35:32 You know, in theory, like food wise, it shouldn't matter if there's a if there isn't a walk in place, like so what?

Greg 00:35:38 Right, right, exactly. But I think people maybe, maybe there's like, starting to see a little bit of a, a pushback against it because they're so used to just getting all their stuff's at home now. They want to actually go out into the world, but their favorite places do not exist in the world. They only wonder if.

Ed 00:35:54 You know, it's a good question. It's like my favorite delivery pizza in Bangkok is pizza mania. But I've never I don't know if it's an actual restaurant you can go to.

Greg 00:36:06 There you go. Interesting, interesting.

Ed 00:36:08 I mean, maybe like some I've noticed that a lot of, like, pizza companies, it, you know, it'll be a tiny thing and they'll have like, three shitty tables, right? Yeah.

Ed 00:36:18 Yeah. You know, so you could, you could eat at pizza company, but I'd.

Greg 00:36:22 Rather just get it delivered.

Ed 00:36:23 That's right, that's right, that's right.

Greg 00:36:26 Well, interesting discussion. And, boy, that went longer than I thought it would. But I guess there's a lot, a lot to discuss about this. But hey listeners, let us know if you've got any of your favorite apps that you order stuff from. I'm always happy to add a few more to my phone and increase my convenience. That's right. Yeah. But yeah, it's easy to easy to get anything you want these days, but maybe not always in the best.

Ed 00:36:45 You can never have too much delivery. I'm embracing the delivery lifestyle.

Greg 00:36:53 All right, let's get into some lovely weather. Live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discussed to decide if it's something we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept as something that we just have to learn to live with no matter how we feel about it this week.

Greg 00:37:07 Ed, what do you got for me?

Ed 00:37:09 All righty. I got a variation on an old topic. So, you and I have talked before about, kind of localization of of product flavoring. And in general, I'm not I'm not into it, like the tom yam goong potato chip thing. It's not. It's not an Ed thing. Not a big fan. Okay, but I got a variation. What do you think about alcoholic beverages that incorporate local ingredients? So they might not be unique to Thailand, but it could be, you know, like lychee flavored beer or I've just seen a whole bunch of different things like cocktails with different Thai herbs or Thai spices. So it's just localized. But it'll be something that I think it'd be very unlikely to find back home.

Greg 00:38:07 Interesting. generally, I am totally, totally love on this because like when we go to chit beer, there's often like they have like a lychee sour or like a mango cider or something like that. And we've discussed before I'm all about the girly fruit, sweet drinks.

Greg 00:38:26 So the more the merrier, man. Bring them on. I usually love them. Yeah, like I already love rosé. Hoegaarden. The raspberry. Hoegaarden. Whichever one makes fun of me for drinking. But I don't care because I'm bigger than they are, so it doesn't matter. But if they figured out, maybe they is out there, but I have yet to find it a Roselle beer like I'm crazy. The the the red sort of nature's Kool-Aid, I call it like. And I'm grouchy up here. Dude, I would suck that down like water.

Ed 00:38:54 I'm with you. You know, I gotta say, I, it's weird. back home, I don't feel like I'm. I'm into, you know, weird cocktails with weird ingredients. I know there's a whole world of mixology, and I feel like it. I'm not that into it. But when I go to a bar or again, like, at Chit Beer and there's something about Thai ingredients, you know, I'm much more likely to try, like a lemongrass cocktail.

Ed 00:39:23 I don't know why. But I just think it's I just think stuff that uses local ingredients is cool. I don't know why.

Greg 00:39:32 Yeah, I think I think it's part of the whole, you know, the mad scientist chemistry of, of alcohol. And I think it's cool. I'll always try the new flavor or the new thing, but I like the idea.

Ed 00:39:43 I like the idea of Thai people just taking advantage of of the ingredients they have and then making some semi new thing or a variation. I just like it. And usually it sometimes like they don't actually sound like it would be that good, but I'm usually surprised that it's not actually bad.

Greg 00:40:04 This goes way back to years and years and years ago in Canada, when I mixed some strawberry liqueur into scrambled eggs, telling you, man, it was real good.

Ed 00:40:11 All right, I don't know about that. I'm not going to I'm going to go I'm going to go loathe on that, but I'm going to go.

Greg 00:40:17 I'm going to go love on this one.

Greg 00:40:18 I like I like the local twists on things with local flavors. Yeah. Huge fan.

Ed 00:40:22 Agreed.

Ed 00:40:23 Love, love.

Greg 00:40:24 Yeah. Nice.

Ed 00:40:25 Alrighty. A final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online or Bangkok podcast on social media Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg 00:40:52 Oh yeah. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. You can send us a voicemail through our website that will feature on the show. Find me on Threads at BC. Greg, thank you for listening. Everyone. Take it easy out there. Stay dry for the end of the rainy season. We'll see you back here next week. No doubt.