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Last I heard, Vang Vieng was back up and running, just not as outrageous as before. Sounds like you like nature and exploring, so you should have plenty to do for a few days.
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Aug 19, 2017 07:31
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I was good on Vang Vieng after about 3 or 4 days. Go hike up the weird karst hill just on the other side of the river, maybe do a tubing trip. I didn't find a whole lot else going on, but they do run a lot of tours to go do silly poo poo like ride in a ghetto dune buggy and stuff like that from there. I'd sooner add the time to Luang Prabang and that region, or to Vietnam.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:30
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kru posted:Okay, so - Hey sorry I never responded here but wanted to thank for the offer of help. Ended up taking a pretty nice small 1 bedroom around Little India. Got it for 1600 but I definitely should have lowballed a bit more on my offer haha. I really wanted a place a bit closer to the center of the city with decent late night food etc and so far this place seems to fit the bill.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:14
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Lemme know if you end up in Luang Prabang. I stayed there for a few months, and can point you towards the better food/shopping options.
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Aug 22, 2017 07:33
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Cheers to Thai goons and Ganguro King. Found some nice gin bars and would love to try Some Southern Thai food next time Im in BKK
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Aug 22, 2017 09:59
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I've spent a week around Luang Prabang before. Enjoyed my time there but wanting to spend more time in Vietnam instead. Thanks for the advice all. I'll just do 4 days 3 nights in Vang Vieng.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:59
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caberham posted:Cheers to Thai goons and Ganguro King. Found some nice gin bars and would love to try Some Southern Thai food next time Im in BKK On the Southern Thai, it's not as good in Bangkok for sure, but my relatives are from Southern Thailand and I've been a number of times and love the food - an easy recommendation would be Baan Ice, which has the original outlet by Chatuchak and a newer one on Thong Lo, etc. They've been hit or miss on dishes, but overall the best mix (much better than Kua Kleng Pak Sot). There are mom and pop joints scattered across the city with the best kanom chin this and the the best gor kleng that, for sure, so I'm not suggesting it's the 100% best option for every Southern option, but for a single place with the best spread (and aircon, heh) I'd say Baan Ice is the best choice. It's also easier to navigate as a foreigner which is helpful. Unfortunately, they were so good that they've entered an expansion phase when the younger generations took over for grandma, with that second location at Thong Lo and now one at Paragon, so quality will suffer, but traditionally they were my favorite and last I ate there I would still swear by a few dishes.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:26
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Is it possible to meet a middle-aged western expat male who isnt a) a hopeless alcoholic, or b) a conspiracy theorist? Why the gently caress do I get cornered by so many conspiracy theorists in Thailand?
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Aug 23, 2017 08:34
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Goooooons
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Aug 23, 2017 09:21
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I'm only a hopeless alcoholic by some metrics.
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Aug 23, 2017 11:07
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LimburgLimbo posted:Hey sorry I never responded here but wanted to thank for the offer of help. Awesome. Give me a shout if you want to meet up for a few beers or so - I'm goon verified! 
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Aug 23, 2017 11:57
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Kru is cool. Will drop by next time I'm here
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Aug 23, 2017 13:20
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kru posted:Awesome. Give me a shout if you want to meet up for a few beers or so - I'm goon verified! Off on a business trip for a couple weeks from this Friday but definitely down for beers when I get back
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Aug 23, 2017 15:42
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJAXRFlB_vM
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Aug 24, 2017 06:45
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Bardeh posted:Is it possible to meet a middle-aged western expat male who isnt a) a hopeless alcoholic, or b) a conspiracy theorist? Why the gently caress do I get cornered by so many conspiracy theorists in Thailand? You can usually spot it coming too. Always an unusual amount of effort to establish eye contact. Making sure to read the paper and comment loudly on the stories. Then, out of nowhere, "Sooo...." directed at you.
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Aug 24, 2017 06:49
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At one of the schools I worked at we had a Brit employee in the computer department or something who took it upon himself to publish a 8-12 page newspaper every week or two (along with his fellow bog monsters over there) with the school's name on the top front of it that mostly contained the kind of poo poo you see on 4chan these days about the Indian conspiracy to invade and conquer Britian through immigration, how negroid skulls are more like gorillas than true men, how the wretched Siamese are stuck in an 1800s colonial slave mentality due to the jungle heat, etc We all looked forward to it because it was so out of control insane, especially for back then, this would have been 2006 or something so that kind of poo poo wasn't just everywhere online already. Eventually we did have to run it up to the administration to try to get them to stop it just because of the personal damage it might do to us by association.
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Aug 25, 2017 20:31
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There was this American guy, Texan maybe, and he was a loving riot. He wanted me to invest in Snuba (it's the next big thing dude, don't miss out!), he knew that the Nazis had bases in Antarctica, he once took a piss next to John Wayne whose flaccid penis reached down to his knees, and his girlfriend was in the 'Thai FBI' but she couldn't be there this weekend she was busy doing FBI poo poo. He also used to swig from a bottle of some sort of opiate medicine that, after a few beers, would leave him pretty much comatose. And he was completely oblivious to any sort of social cue that told him people didn't want to talk to him, or be anywhere near him, so he'd hover around until he got so wasted he couldn't stand up anymore, then sleep on a table in the bar till morning, or till he got kicked out. Every weekend. E: Oh, and he was a big proponent of someone called Jessie Ventura. I think this was around the time of Obama's reelection, but he would always be talking about Jessie Ventura and how he was gonna be president.
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Aug 25, 2017 23:05
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I ain't got time to bleed... khap.
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Aug 25, 2017 23:41
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Bardeh posted:E: Oh, and he was a big proponent of someone called Jessie Ventura. I think this was around the time of Obama's reelection, but he would always be talking about Jessie Ventura and how he was gonna be president. Former independent governor of Minnesota, because Minnesota has the weirdest political landscape in America. Ventura is a conspiracy nut that occasionally threatens to run for president to "put a wrestler in the White House". Trump has effectively beaten him to it, though Ventura would likely be a more effective executive given he has actual government experience.
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Aug 26, 2017 02:51
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Bardeh posted:There was this American guy, Texan maybe, and he was a loving riot. ReindeerF spotted!
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Aug 27, 2017 06:25
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That's not me, I'm too young to have peed next to John Wayne, but the rest is accurate, yes.
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Aug 27, 2017 06:30
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Ok so we are looking at doing 6-8 weeks in SE asia, leaving Oct 1st. We've already taken the time off so we're kind of set on this. Haven't gelled the plan yet. Looks like $320 one way in to Bangkok. So that's easy. Girlfriend wants to spend 5 days in Chiang Mai to the north for meditation reasons. I'm thinking I want to see Hai Long Bay in northern Vietnam. Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and then go do a week long bender on a white sandy beach somewhere, ideally where there are those little $13/night cabanyas. It seems like it's going to cost a couple hundred dollars to go see Hai Long Bay from Bangkok, is it worth it, or could I spend $250 on going to another island in central Thailand by train instead? I feel like Hai Long Bay is probably swarming with tourists at this point, but maybe not? We're in our early 30s and have both already traveled quite a bit in europe doing the hosteller thing (her = 15 countries, me = 30), looking for more "chill out" places by ourselves, maybe party with the 20-somthing westerner tourists once a week. Where should we go? I think Hai Long Bay is off the table due to it being so far from everything else. Also is getting from Phucket to Singapore reasonable, and is there anything interesting to do there along the way. We're budgeting about $16/night for lodging, $3 per meal (2 x day), and $30/day for random expenses, with a $1000 emergency fund, how low is that compared to what we should be budgeting? Also, I love buses, she loving hates them. I'm thinking we just stick to Thailand with the one trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia? Sounds like flights can be pretty cheap, around $40, vs $25 for a train ticket, so we're ok with throwing down some money without going too crazy. Also would like to hear about off the beaten path locations where we could spend 3-4 days, particularly between chiang mai and Phuket.
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Aug 29, 2017 06:45
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Sounds like a pretty good plan. Just a few minor changes and suggestions. But Oct 1st is National Week Holiday in China, so you will have hordes of tourists. It's going to be a super busy week so stay away from the main areas like BKK/Chiang Mai/Phuket/Angkor Wat. 6-8 weeks gives you plenty of time to plan for things along the way. You can get budget air fare pretty easily but buses are more reliable during National Week. 1. I would skip Vietnam if you just want to see Hai Long Bay. If you want karst mountains, or rock climbing then go to Krabi. It's the other side of Phuket, a lot cheaper, nicer cleaner. Stay in Raileh and it's a relatively clean and nice beach area without costing you too much. Phuket is more for short stay packaged tourists. 2. I liked Chiang Mai, it's super low key fun but if you want to meditate can you go to other places? There's fun stuff to do in Northern Thailand and the food is different as well. 3. You can go to Angkor Wat and then head snake your way South Bound towards Malaysia and Singapore. There's no really off beat places nowadays because of the internet, unless you rent a motorbike on your own then you can go to more remote places. But lesser traveled places suggestions, ISSAN! Ayutthaya - Old Capital got razed Suko Thai Lots of places to stop by. And shout out to BKK goons
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Aug 29, 2017 09:05
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Six weeks is probably enough and eight weeks is definitely enough to add Vietnam even if you're just going there to see that one thing (which you shouldn't, see a couple things or three things). If you go to Chiang Mai strongly consider taking a puddle jumper flight to Mae Hong Son and doing a hilltribe trek from there (3 or 4 days). The flight is nothing and the tribes around MHS don't see four groups of tourists a day coming through their village. You can also do meditation stuff in Bangkok but for some reason women always want to go to Chiang Mai so I guess let your wife go up there. Chiang Mai itself has a very high tourist concentration and surprisingly little for people to do up there, it's become a place to go for really no reason that I see. Not that it's a bad place, but it's become a kind of tourist mall despite having no significant pulls that I can see. Travel in SEA is easy to be very flexible on -- there are always hotels and transport can always be arranged the day of so if you're getting bored somewhere just move on. Your budget is right around what you'll actually spend if you're fairly careful, so if $1000 emergency fund means "we can spend it no problem" then your budget is fine. If your $1000 emergency fund is "we won't be able to make rent once we get back home if we don't have this" then that's another issue. Flights are generally pretty cheap but there are exceptions and one of those exceptions is Siem Reap. That doesn't mean they're expensive all of a sudden but they're not cheap. This may have changed since I last looked though, so if someone else disagrees with me you should listen to them. Sometimes the bus makes more sense than flying -- if you're going to an island for example it's generally very easy to go from the bus terminal to the pier, the airport to the pier not so much. The busses in Thailand are generally tolerable coaches with a bathroom in them so your wife can deal with a couple along the way. If you're going to Cambodia consider flying to Phnom Phen, spending a couple three days there, then going up to Siem Reap by bus. The bus from Thailand to Siem Reap is a pretty big stretch, I did it in the old days before there was a road connecting the two places (these little busted up VW busses would drive through rice paddies and over bridges made out of wooden planks laid across ditches for most of the Cambodia leg) when it was a real tax on your endurance but it's all highway now and reasonably tolerable. Most of the islands are in the South. Consider crossing the border from there into Malaysia to Georgetown to see Malaysia a little bit too. Maybe just a few days in the city there. The food is wildly different and Georgetown is well known for it, it's generally a fairly well loved city by the people who visit it, plus you can say you've gone to Malaysia that way. Plan about two or three weeks on each leg of: Bangkok -- Siem Reap -- Vietnam return to Bangkok or Chiang Mai depending on flights/logistics -- Mae Hong Son return to Bangkok -- a Thai island or two -- Georgetown return to Bangkok to go home Would be roughly what I'd suggest for a first time visit of that length to SEA. Burma is interesting too but it can be pricy and hard to explore compared to the other options, so you would likely swap it out for the Vietnam leg if that was more interesting to you. If you're wrapping things up early or have more time somehow than you planned Laos is easy to add in and cheap. I generally suggest leaving "explore Bangkok" to the last few days of your trip to SEA. It's too much to handle when you're first there for a lot of people, even fairly experienced travelers are often repulsed at first from the difficulty of moving around, incredible heat, and just not being used to the way things kinda work in the region. Saving it for the end also lets you do your shopping at the end so you don't have to store poo poo or carry it around for the whole trip to get it back home. (I almost always have ten or so shirts made when I go through Bangkok but I'm 6'3" and off the rack stuff is a joke for me back home so I may see more value in that than you would). For your islands I would not put Phuket at the top of the list. Even if you fly there go south a ways more to Koh Phi Phi which will fit your desires pretty well. Out of the Bay of Thailand islands I like Koh Phanang the most because it's large and has a variety of things to see (jungle treks, waterfalls, beaches, that big dumb skippable party) and Lighthouse Bungalows is such a cool place to stay for how cheap it is. Koh Tao used to be a diving island now it's a part island for 20 year olds. Koh Samui is very developed. One last thing I would add is that many people do a SCUBA course or some SCUBA diving on a trip of that length in SEA. If you're interested in that ask for more specific advice in the thread. It may be out of budget but then maybe not (a three day course which gets you an entry level cert is about 15k THB last I checked -- about 500 bucks), but you cannot go straight from SCUBA onto an airplane so if you are interested you would want to move the islands to the middle of your trip instead of the end. raton fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 00:18
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Also while you're in Vietnam sign up for the Vietnamese SWAT team https://my.mixtape.moe/yyzcao.webm
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Aug 30, 2017 00:50
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Sheep-Goats posted:I generally suggest leaving "explore Bangkok" to the last few days of your trip to SEA. It's too much to handle when you're first there for a lot of people, even fairly experienced travelers are often repulsed at first from the difficulty of moving around, incredible heat, and just not being used to the way things kinda work in the region. Saving it for the end also lets you do your shopping at the end so you don't have to store poo poo or carry it around for the whole trip to get it back home.
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Aug 30, 2017 00:55
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It's funny to me now that Bangkok seems so easy to get around and well designed when I go after comparing it to places like Manila and Jakarta. Even my first time there, I didn't see the worry about the traffic/polution/whatnot. But I reckon I did spend several years working in the dregs of Africa before ever going. Saving it til the end for a first timer is solid advice.
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Aug 30, 2017 07:14
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Navigating my way around Bangkok was astoundingly easier and more intuitive than getting around NYC my first time there. English is my first language...
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Aug 30, 2017 15:16
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Thanks for the great replies guys, reading these back to the girlfriend now. Manila is easily the worst traffic I've experienced; 90 minutes in an uber trying to get from the airport to Makati on the southern edge of Manila 3 miles away. So some more research, it looks like October is near/in Monsoon season; does it rain fiercely for 2 hours from 1-3pm every day, or does it rain non-stop for six days, dries out for three days, then rains again for another week? Monsoon means different things for different geographies. In texas our "monsoon season" means 8" of rain all in 30 minutes every 2 weeks. It looks like it rains more in monsoon season in southern Thailand than it does up north? Am I headed to the wrong part of the planet for Oct/Nov?
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Aug 30, 2017 17:52
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I want to make a short(4~5 days), cheap trip somewhere in Southeast Asia mid-September ish. I was thinking Bangkok but apparently it is the rainy season? Is it a bad time to go? I just want to take it slow(so probably just one major city), look at some sights, eat a lot of local food, and come back. I have basically only done Singapore and Kuala Lumpur/Penang in the region, which were great. What are the best options for me? *edit*: I forgot to say that since I'm basically going for food and some sights I don't mind rain as long as it doesn't cause flooding or whatever. Should I do Bangkok? Maybe decent hotels will be cheaper? nervana fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Aug 30, 2017 |
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Aug 30, 2017 19:39
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Ok change of plans, found two tickets SFO->Ho Chi Min for $250 each, jumped on that. Looks like we just use the state's visa thing and it's $17 in to the country, and then when traveling in to Cambodia, we can do visa on arrival for $35 as long as we bring along extra passport photos it looks like. Thailand seems a lot more chill to enter. Ok flipping through my passport I have three "visas" pages left, five if you count these pages that Morocco and Mexico decided to put a single stamp on; has anyone actually been rejected for having no entire pages left? Pages 25 and 27 are empty too but they say "endorsements/mentions speciales/anotaciones" on the side rather than "visas" on the top. Morocco decided to stamp one quarter of page 26 because they're terrible like that  With layover in China I have a 72 hour visa (1/2 page), half a page for Vietnam, half a page for Cambodia, half a page for Thailand, and assume another half page for whatever country I end up flying out of (Singapore? Malaysia?) That's 2 1/2 pages. I have ~6 3/4 pages that are potentially stampable, plus one or two empty quarter pages. Looking at the state department website they will no longer sew in extra pages to your passport. Thoughts?
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Aug 30, 2017 20:18
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A month should be pretty sufficient for a non-expedited passport renewal (if you're worried about cost), so just do a passport renewal to be safe, IMO.
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Aug 30, 2017 21:30
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Cambodia puts a big sticker that takes up a whole page, but there is a way around that where you can do the visa online and they just stamp it. Vietnam also gave me a full page sticker. Thailand only stamps. Your gunna need some passport space.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:39
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Hadlock posted:Ok change of plans, found two tickets SFO->Ho Chi Min for $250 each, jumped on that. Looks like we just use the state's visa thing and it's $17 in to the country, and then when traveling in to Cambodia, we can do visa on arrival for $35 as long as we bring along extra passport photos it looks like. Thailand seems a lot more chill to enter. Passport pages: I got hosed with the exact same problem and had to hit up the Embassy in Phnom Penh for a whole new passport. I missed the opportunity to staple extra pages into mine by like 32 days. Get a new one expedited asap. Sucks but thems the brakes. I'm pretty sure that any airport passport control won't just cover up some other half page visa for you, sadly. Thailand's stamps are only a quarter page each, and Cambodia too, but the real deal Vietnam visa takes up a whole page, and then they stamp it for a quarter page as well. Cambodia, same deal like cookie said.
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Aug 31, 2017 00:53
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Hadlock posted:Thanks for the great replies guys, reading these back to the girlfriend now. Monsoon is an hour of rain every day at the same time of day for almost all of Thailand. Down by the Malaysian border is the only part where they get day long rains more than occasionally. Like everybody else said you need a new passport.
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Aug 31, 2017 04:03
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nervana posted:I want to make a short(4~5 days), cheap trip somewhere in Southeast Asia mid-September ish. I was thinking Bangkok but apparently it is the rainy season? Is it a bad time to go? Bangkok is the best option for you and the rainy season hardly matters there. For the most part you get an hour of rain at the same time of day every day for which time you just go get a massage or walk around in a mall or something. The biggest issue is that a lot of the Thais who would normally wait for the bus will instead jump in cabs when it starts raining so if you need to get somewhere while it rains it can sometimes be pretty hard to get a cab.
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Aug 31, 2017 04:06
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CLARPUS posted:Navigating my way around Bangkok was astoundingly easier and more intuitive than getting around NYC my first time there. Said no one ever.
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Aug 31, 2017 04:08
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Lately, the rainy season is basically this: It is hot all day and then rains ridiculously for an hour or so every night, flooding the streets and cooling things off when you don't need it to cool off anymore. Yay!
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Aug 31, 2017 06:27
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Hadlock posted:has anyone actually been rejected for having no entire pages left? Yup, a friend witnessed a girl on his bus getting rejected at the Laos border. He then got to take her place on the previously fully booked out gibbon experience, so he was stoked.
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Sep 1, 2017 11:16
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I'm going to Thailand for two weeks and thought I'd download the Google map of Bangkok for offline use on my phone, however, it says it's not available for download. What do y'all use for navigating the city?
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Sep 2, 2017 01:30
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