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So I got myself a pretty ridiculous trip coming up! Why? South Africa and SE Asia has been on my to-do list for a few years now. And this itinerary was cheap. Like, very cheap:  While it's a bit more flying in one trip than I would've preferred, it's unlikely that a deal this good would pop up soon, and I had enough vacation days to make this tolerable over the course of almost a month. Destinations I'll have 10 days in South Africa and 14 in Thailand. Dubai and Addis Ababa are 14-17 hours. It really works out quite well as most flights are overnight and except for the flights to/from Thailand, should be jetlag-free as well. The local transportation is separate and I'll try to pick whatever has the best combination of cheaper/faster/convenient/interesting. South Africa is pretty clear - I'll probably stay for a day around Jburg to avoid any more flying and also see something around. Then sightseeing/drinking in Cape Town, and all the animals and other stuff on the way to Durban. Thailand is a bit less clear as I'm not intending to just sit on the beach for two weeks. I'll probably do that for a couple of days and then will try to travel down to Singapore, maybe getting a flight to Hong Kong for a couple of days, and then back to BKK. This would sort out my Singapore visa and also make for a clean itinerary, although the cheapest flights I saw so far were from Kuala Lumpur. Any suggestions for these countries/cities are welcome, of course. I'm mostly trying to keep this as cheap as reasonably possible and would be staying in hostels, but am not against renting a car for a couple of days or spending a bit more on an interesting experience. Visa hell I'm unlucky enough to have a non-US/EU passport and so require visas for most of these places.
Aanyway, while I'm sorting out my visa nightmare, as I mentioned I'll appreciate any tips or suggestions. I'll then do my best to post some updates here, but no promises due to laziness/poo poo internet availability. Update 1 Almost poo poo myself when I went to check my itinerary and the flight out of Dubai was missing. Turns out it was updated so I'll only have 5 hours there anyway, so that takes care of the visa question. The Ethiopian embassy (in Vienna) that I was referred to? It's been closed for a few years now, it's now in Switzerland! Luckily I have a work thing in Frankfurt next week so I'll just show up there in person, instead. mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Apr 25, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 22:48
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| # ? May 17, 2024 21:13 |
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If you plan to go to Singapore via Kuala Lumpur, plan to spend at least a day in KL to see the Batu Caves they are pretty cool and conveniently located right inside the city! In fact I would stay several days in KL it's a really fun place in terms of various bars and such. You will probably want to keep Singapore stay to minimum, its very expensive.
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Apr 25, 2016 21:14
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Thanks, I think that's gonna be the plan for now - stay in KL for a couple of days, then take a night train to Sing and fly out the same or maybe next day. It has a reputation of being kind of boring so I don't expect to be there too long anyway, but I have a couple of colleagues I could meet up with and maybe check out the zoo and what not.
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Apr 29, 2016 07:54
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KL sucks, made a point to avoid it this past trip I took thru SE Asia. Went to Georgetown and had a great time.
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Apr 30, 2016 04:39
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Casual Yogurt posted:KL sucks, made a point to avoid it this past trip I took thru SE Asia. Went to Georgetown and had a great time. Haven't heard that opinion before but I'll consider it! A quick update, as I'm in SA already and most of that conversation is in the other thread. I got the Ethiopian visa within 30 minutes at the Frankfurt consulate, as promised. But they did almost screw me out of 10 EUR by claiming 06:00->00:05 was more than 24 hours so I had to argue with them for a refund, of course. The apparently fuel-dunpes tickets worked fine, though the crew thinks I ordered the special meal which mostly sucks.
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May 9, 2016 00:37
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mobby_6kl posted:The apparently fuel-dunpes tickets worked fine, though the crew thinks I ordered the special meal which mostly sucks. Are you sure it was a fuel dump ticket? Maybe if you order the vegan no-gluten no-nuts no-allergens meals on your flights they give you 80% off because they feel sorry for you.
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May 9, 2016 06:49
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| # ? May 17, 2024 21:13 |
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I'll try that next time, though I'm not sure such a sacrifice would be worth it. I'm done with South Africa and am now in Phuket. SA was great but as I went through it I realized that I should've scheduled enough time to go to Kruger and do the Garden route, but hey that's something for the next time. Cape Town was very cool and some areas might as well be in San Francisco or something, Kloof street and V&A in particular. I found it disappointingly hard to find good African restaurants, so despite my best efforts I did end up eating burgers and steak a couple of times. Durban was almost pleasantly cool in retrospect, I'm really loving dying here now. And unfortunately probably going to abandon the plal to go SIN->HKG->BKK as the land transport is a bit of a pain in the rear end to arrange and the plane tickets aren't *that* cheap, South Africa was way better thanks to Mango and Kulala. So new plan is go from Phuket to Phi Phi, then Krabi and then north to Chiang Rai or something. But I'll see the transport situation in Krabi. The only problem is that I'd have to get a re-entry permit to get back in (1k bhat and a couple of hours).
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May 17, 2016 17:50
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