BY western standards, spending as much as €434 a night on a hotel room is expensive – by Thai standards it's astronomical.

On average, Bangkok is a much cheaper city than others in the first and developing worlds, and high standards of living can be acquired for very little.

It costs about €7.66 (300 Thai baht) a month to run a mobile phone, while domestic calls from fixed landlines, no matter how long the duration, cost about seven cent.

The price of food is unsurprisingly varied across Bangkok and guides will tell you that a meal can cost anything from €4 for a modest two-course dinner without drinks to €28 at the higher end.

However, the bill at most up-market establishments tends to be between €7 and €14. By comparison, a burger and fries at McDonalds will cost about €2.30.

According to online price listings, designed to give a sense of Thai living costs, a medium coffee at Starbucks will come in at about €2 and a foot-long Subway sandwich about €5.

But these are brand names. In supermarkets, customers could expect to pay less than €3.80 per kilo of meat, about €1 for 80cc of milk and anywhere from 66 to 89 cent for a can of beer.

While it varies, petrol costs around 50 cent a litre, a one-way trip on the city's sky train or subway system will cost between 25 cent and €1, and 4km in a taxi will set you back about €1.30. A movie ticket in a cinema costs up to €3.60.

As for accommodation, the price of renting a normal apartment falls between €100 and €200 a month, and a huge variety of hotel accommodation brings with it a huge variety of prices.