1. Lush, Beautiful Landscape

Thailand Burm Laos and China meet in Chiang Rai-known as the Golden Triangle. Bamboo -and teak- covered mountains separate wide river plains to form a lush landscape of thick jungle with hidden cascading waterfalls rice paddies and groves of lychee trees criss-crossed by roads lined with giant red flame trees and bright yellow laburnum.

Chiang Rai - which isthe name of Thailand’s northernmost province and its capital - is Thailand’s most ethnically diverse area and has its own distinct heritage known as Lanna Thai. It is home to a dozen distinct groups living in villages perched on steep slopes high in the surrounding hills. It’s a common sight to see their women dressed in their brilliantly colored traditional costumes decorated with masses of heavy, silver ornaments. They plod along mountain trails with baskets on their backs and pipes in their mouths, selling and buying in the markets and bazaars.

Despite being small, Chiang Rai City has many of the amenities you’d usually find only in larger cities. It’s a growing tourist destination, which means more restaurants and shops geared toward Westerners - even small restaurants have English menus. However, the tourists are just passing through and have little impact on the city’s day-to-day life, which remains geared to servicing the surrounding farming and mountain communities.

It’s cheap. One person renting a furnished apartment could live well on $480 to $720 a month(you could get by, in fact, on half that). Furnished apartments in complexes go for $72 to $120 a month. Houses can be found unfurnished for around the same money, and you can rent a hilltop villa for as little as $480, but supply is limited.

The best option is to buy a plot of land and build on it, and building a house can cost as little as $24,000. That’s including bathrooms tiled in marble.

Restaurants range from French gourmet(the Dusit Thani hotel) to 50-cent plates of Pad Thai(fried noodles) at roadside stalls.

3. Local Diversions

Apart from eating out, nightlife is restricted to watching rented DVDs, satellite TV, or hanging out in one of the hundreds of open-air bars. 

That’s the bad news. The good news is that, during daylight hours, the diversions are many. There are two golf courses, one just minutes outside the city, and others are planned. There are several Royal parks and formal gardens in the region, and riverside trails are being expanded. You can also hiking trails to remote villages and take river trips, pony treks, and bicycle rides. 

Plenty of places to visit and explore, from cave temples to waterfalls (I found 15 within an hour’s drive of our home) and hot springs. Health spas and resorts are everywhere.

Broadband satellite Internet is available in this part of the country, but at $72 a month it’s not cheap. Dial-up connections are cheaper and easy to get, but can be painfully slow.

4. Cheap Health Care

Basic precautions are all you need to stay healthy here. Yes, there are mosquitoes whining around in the rainy season, but diseases such as malaria are restricted to more remote regions.