Thailand vs. Vietnam: Utilities edition

By utilities I mean electricity and water (was that obvious?) and I'll leave out elective things like internet even though I would imagine for a lot of people that wifi is probably just as important as the other two.

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I have lived in both countries although to be fair as far as both is concerned, it is not like I lived everywhere so I can't compare them all but I'm going to assume based on what I have witnessed so far is at least somewhat true for the rest of the respective countries as well.

Furthermore, I am not trying to step on anyone's toes here nor am I trying to say that one country is definitively better than the other. I love both of them for different reasons and will try to be as objective as possible. There aren't many Americans who can claim that they spent a lot of time not just visiting, but living in various countries in Asia so let's just try to have some fun with it.

First we will focus on water:

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First off, you can forget about what the above imagine implies: That you are going to chug down a nice glass of tap water. This is not an available option without relatively massive and expensive filtration equipment and even then, I wouldn't trust it if I were you. Both countries have some level of water treatment but not on the level like we have in the west. If you don't mind dysentery then go ahead and have at it. I will admit I have drank tap water a couple of times in Thailand, but this was a truly desperate situation that if there was any other option I would have gone for it.

Instead, I will focus on the reliability of water resources such as adequate water pressure or whether it is available at all or not. Both countries have some sort of issue with this and therefore almost all houses have some sort of backup water supply such as a reserve tank and a pump (if you have money for this) or for poorer families there is just a giant trash bucket in the corner of the bathroom reserved for the days when the water pressure is non-existent or too weak for a shower.

I'll tell you this: You can't truly call yourself a grizzled native until you have taken a shower with a scoop from water out of a bucket.

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Thankfully, both countries are very rarely cold and while the bucket shower is a bit shocking at first, it is actually really refreshing on a hot day, and we have a LOT of hot days in these countries.

The only reason why I am giving the edge to Vietnam on this one is because there haven't been any days where the water simply wasn't on at all and I have been here nearly a year. This was a regular occurrence in the 4 cities I lived in while in Thailand and can therefore conclude that Vietnam has a more reliable water utilities network. There is also that one time that a beach area claimed to not have enough water pressure for the region so people had to pay to have trucks deliver truckloads of water to fill up massive tank reserves at their own expense. It was later revealed that the owner of the water delivery service had a relative inside the municipal water supply facility and his relative had simply intentionally turned the available pressure to that region way down. He is in jail now, thankfully.

Winner: Vietnam

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Now we focus on electricity

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First off, at least the appearance of the electrical setup in both countries is an absolute mess. The high tension wires at the top that really matter (the ones that will kill you if you touch them) look pretty good in both countries but the parts that actually deliver power to buildings on the lower level are a diabolical mess that I am surprised anyone can figure out.

The other day we were let know that there would be maintenance in our area that would take place from 5am to 6pm so we should prepare accordingly. The idea that we would not have electricity for 13 hours seems awful but given that it is the cooler time of year it wasn't that bad.

When I finally tired of sitting around and reading, which is the only thing I can do in my condo without electricity, I headed out to the streets with Nadi (my dog) and half expected to see an army of electrical engineers working on something major. Instead, try as I may, I found one crew

Now you can't really tell from this picture but there are 2 guys in the cherry picker doing whatever they are doing up there but there were also 4 other people on the ground doing something I guess. You can kind of see the yellow helmet over there on the right. They were all just smoking and watching.

Some buildings and businesses have massive diesel generators to compensate for this and it really doesn't happen that often. I have been here a year and there has only been 2 of these incidents and the first time it was just for about 4 hours in the morning. This 13 hour scheduled maintenance is, according to friends of mine that have lived here substantially longer, very rare.

My building, which is a cheapo building that I really don't understand why I still live here since I can afford better, does not have a generator so I can say the following with certainty: There has NEVER been an unscheduled power outage since February of 2020. When you consider that in the time-span we had 2 rather devastating typhoons, this is really impressive to me.

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Unplanned power outages and problems are extremely common in Thailand and this is the reason why the edge definitely goes to Vietnam in this department as well. It is one thing for there to be some maintenance going on that results in you not having power for a bit, it is another thing entirely to have a highly inadequate electrical grid that everyone knows is going to go down frequently.

Perhaps the "maintenance" that Vietnam performs is meant to prevent the stuff that happens in Thailand on almost a weekly basis. It was exceptionally annoying in Thailand when the power would just go out and then you call the electrical office to find out what the deal is and because so many people are calling and the person on the other end doesn't have an answer for anyone, they simply stop answering the phones.

Winner: Vietnam

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So the clear winner as far as overall utilities are concerned is Vietnam. If you are Thai or living in Thailand don't get your panties in a wad... there are plenty of areas in which Thailand will be the winner and I will detail those later in some other sort of "competition."

How is the water and electricity in your country? I'd love to have some comparison because I haven't lived everywhere.