So You Want To Move To A Tropical And Cheaper Country To Improve Your Quality of Life?

Read this before you decide

Ever since Tim Ferriss wrote his book ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’, everyone’s talking about working just a few hours a week, living a semi-retired life, and moving to a cheaper, less-developed, and especially a tropical country where your Dollar or Euro is way stronger to give you a comfortable life.

Well, it does sound lucrative if you earn in dollars, euros, or in any stronger currency and if you have to spend in, let's say Indian rupee or Malaysian ringgit. You can afford a comfortable and even luxurious lifestyle that would make the rest of us jealous.

But what no one says is all the challenges that come with living in such a place. I was born and brought up in a less-developed tropical country — India. Let me elaborate on the challenges of living in a place like this.

1. It’s not just sun, sand, and sea

There’s way more to it and that may not be a pleasant one.

A tropical country comes with bugs and creepy crawlies. Mosquitoes may look small but can be deadly. From the month of April to the end of November, there’s a great risk of catching Dengue fever, which is a mosquito-borne illness.

Dengue can be as fatal as death.

But it’s not just the diseases like Dengue or Malaria, mosquito bites in general can be annoying. You need to sleep under a mosquito net, keep your windows closed all the time, or use mosquito repellents all throughout the day (which may not be good for your health).

Another problem is the roaches. Doesn’t matter how clean you keep your house, they infiltrate your house from the open pipes, windows, and kitchen sinks.

My worst nightmare was flying cockroaches. Once, when I was a little girl, I was so scared of a flying cockroach that I jumped and threw the chair in front of me which landed on my father’s feet and hurt him badly.

And don’t even talk about the lizards as big as dinosaurs. I needed someone always to check the back of the door in the bathrooms to make sure there weren’t any lizards behind the door.

And they are everywhere. If you are sleeping without a mosquito net, they may fall on you from the ceiling. They may be under the dining table, on the sofa, on your clothes, on the kitchen counter top or inside garbage bags.

The first time I went to the USA, I felt good that I could go to the bathroom without any fear.

Getting safe drinking water without any contamination is quite challenging too. Drinking tap water is definitely not safe, and even filtering is not enough.

If you were not born here or you have a delicate stomach, you would probably need to boil water and store and cool it before being able to drink, which is no mean feat.

Mineral water is safer, however, there’s no guarantee that the bottles are not filled from a tap.

And the food is mostly spicy here, especially for your pallet if you are from north America or western Europe, which causes request indigestion or stomach upset. Eating salads or raw fruits and vegetables isn’t recommended either because of the pesticides.

2. The crime rate is quite high

Let’s face it. India is definitely not very safe, especially for women and children. It’s not just petty crimes like pickpockets or thefts, groping and sexual assaults are quite common on the streets.

If you are a woman or if you have a girl child, it’s way harder. Groping on the road is quite common. Availing of public transport is awful too. Men try to touch you inappropriately all the time as if they have the right and you’re just a puppet.

Delhi, the capital of India is called the “Rape Capital”. Children are not spared as well. I wrote this true story about a 6-year-old child getting raped on a school bus.

You have to be VERY VERY VERY (I can’t emphasize enough this part) careful 24x7.

I grew up with such anxiety, trying to protect myself, ALWAYS, sometimes, even from my own people, that it made me paranoid and I forgot to trust men.

It’s sad. I am ashamed to say this about my country. But this is the hard truth.

It was only after I started living in the USA that I overcame my anxiety about men touching me inappropriately and that took a long time.

3. The corruption and bureaucracy in the government

Nothing happens here fast unless you can manage to bribe someone to get things done. There’s even a song in Bengali that literally means that the government employees come to work at 12.00, go for lunch in an hour and leave by 4.00.

And even bribery doesn’t guarantee results.

I have been trying to get my birth certificate (which I lost along with some other documents) for the past eight years (you read that correctly) but haven’t been successful yet.

I paid over 40,000 INR (which is approximately 500 US Dollars) to an agent seven years ago and still couldn’t procure it. The document has apparently some mistakes in my father’s name and my name and they need his signature, but he has passed away and I don’t really know what else to do.

I live in the Netherlands now and every time I go back to India, I have loads of Bank work and paperwork. Nothing gets done digitally or in one go.

If you go to a Bank or a government office, they will invariably ask you to wait or come another day because the officer responsible is on a lunch break or has gone out or hasn’t shown up yet, or you are missing some papers.

When you go back the next day, some other excuses will be ready for sure.

4. The weather sucks, most of the time

If you are not living in the mountains in the north (remember, you moved to a tropical country), most of the time it’s extremely hot and the humidity at almost 99% is grueling.

The monsoon lasts for over 3 months, when it doesn’t just drizzle or rain, it pours. Floods in many areas are common every monsoon.

You can’t really enjoy a walk in nature or by the beach because you will be sweating most of the time. Your only option to go outside of your air-conditioned home is to use your air-conditioned car to go to a mall.

5. Basic amenities are missing

With your dollar or euro, you can easily buy an expensive car. But where will you drive it?

Potholes in the road make it really difficult to drive. On top of that, no one obeys traffic rules. Scratches in cars are quite common.

Traffic congestion is another problem. My home from my work was just around 17 kilometers (around 10 miles). But it used to take me more than two hours each way.

We spend a significant amount of our lives just commuting to and from work.

And you would be surprised to know that despite the hot weather, air-conditioning at home is still not common. Heating is definitely not there, even in the colder places where the temperature drops down to Zero degree Centigrade (32 Fahrenheit).

So during the colder months, your bed or clothes are always damp. You just suck it up and wear more layers, thermals, or woolens.

There is no hot running water. Some houses have ‘Geysers’ or water heaters that heat the water temporarily for just a shower or so. Otherwise, you need to boil water in the kitchen, pour it into a bucket in the bathroom, and use a mug to shower, quickly before it gets cold.

If you need to shampoo your hair and especially if you have long hair, then that’s a problem, because you would perhaps need two or three buckets of hot water and use them up as quickly as possible, before it runs cold.

Toilet paper is not very common too. And you would definitely not find flushable wet wipes (well I haven’t seen them so far). Most bathrooms just have a mug by the toilet seat. Some use a jet spray to wash their butts after the dump.

And most bathrooms are wet bathrooms, which means there’s no enclosure from the shower. So the bathroom is usually always wet. And most people would still pee on the floor of the bathroom instead of the toilet (just disgusting!!).

At least thankfully, our modern bathrooms are much better and we have bathrooms now inside our homes and even attached to the bedrooms unlike the time I was growing up when there was no toilet inside our house.

Conclusion

If you have read this far, I would urge you to question yourself: do you still picture yourself in a place like this? Are you still convinced that your quality of life will definitely improve if you relocate to any of these places?

Now, I am not discouraging you to move to India, or anywhere else for that matter. I am just showing you the hard reality.

What I am simply trying to tell you is that — don’t come here for the wrong reasons. Don’t come here to save your precious dollar.

Because then you’ll be the one to go back and write yet another article about why living in Tbilisi, Tallinn, or Bali sucks.

Visit my country if you truly want to experience our culture and the diversity it brings — the people, our heritage, and the rich and diverse landscape.

Come here for the right reasons and I can assure you that you’ll have a unique experience that you’ll cherish lifelong.

Thank you for reading my story.

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