|
Oh and next week is a long holiday in Hong Kong, I’m super craving for Thai food and durians in Bangkok You guys up for a weekend meet?
|
#
?
May 1, 2019 05:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 02:57 |
|
|
Yeah I can do a thing.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2019 07:28
|
|
|
I am in America performing economic colonialism on behalf of Thailand's manufacturing sector, sadly, so I won't be around.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2019 14:55
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:I am in America performing economic colonialism on behalf of Thailand's manufacturing sector, sadly, so I won't be around. Will you be back soon??
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2019 15:01
|
|
|
I shall return, but it'll be weeks, na ka. There is much economic imperialism to perform on behalf of Thailand.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2019 22:52
|
|
|
Cheesemaster200 posted:Quick question for all of you who Americans who have done longer term travel in the past. How do you handle health insurance abroad? I am going back and forth between COBRA and a travel insurance plan. In the past I have used World Nomads, but I was also a lot younger and stupider with this stuff back then. Did the World Nomads Explorer plan for my 5+ month sojourn into the SEA region, and glad I did. Covered my doctor visits and all that when I got pretty sick in Vietnam. Have purchased but not used their Standard plans twice since then for other trips. Worth the peace of mind IMO. Also punk rebel ecks good, I'm glad to hear all of that. Cambodia is worth the trip for many reasons.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2019 23:53
|
|
|
Anybody know a place where I can stream the Thai coronation? I’ve moved on for now and am down in Kuala Lumpur, but I saw some of the preparations for the river parade and it seems like it will be quite a sight.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2019 03:11
|
|
|
I think there are official streaming on YouTube.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2019 06:57
|
|
|
Anyone here tried training Muay Thai in Thailand? Wants to share some experiences/stories And do we have any Thai goons here? Kun Thai yu ti nai?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 09:28
|
|
|
My cousin runs an MMA gym near Phuket, and his girlfriend is there with him too. They aren’t Thai though
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 11:34
|
|
|
webmeister posted:My cousin runs an MMA gym near Phuket, and his girlfriend is there with him too. They aren’t Thai though Thai or gtfo. jk  That’s awesome. What’s the name of the gym?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 14:06
|
|
|
Looking for some guidance on an upcoming trip. A good friend is getting married in India this December, and my SO and I are inclined to extend the trip while we're on the other side of the world (~3 weeks total). We already have at least a week of India stuff on tap, so are exploring other destinations. The India portion is likely to be a bit hectic so more mellow time in a tropical beach region would give us some good balance. I've previously been to southern Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Singapore. She's been to Nepal, Bali, Thailand, & Myanmar. We aren't opposed to returning to places one or both of us have already been, but new adventures are more appealing. My first instinct was northern Vietnam paired with Da Nang/Hoi An beach time, but where else should we research? I saw the post (from nearly a decade ago) about Manila being terrible, what's the rest of the Philippines like? Are there standout beach spots for diving/snorkling etc? Parts of Indonesia other than Bali worth looking at?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 19:53
|
|
|
I think we have the Thai goon discussion on the last page or so, there's only one that we know of. Could be more. Bienvenidos y mabuhay a Thailand po ka lah! (sorry for speaking Thai here)
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 19:55
|
|
|
My wife is from Thailand but not a goon (that I'm aware of). I can be an honorary Thai if I have Thai in-laws and speak a little bit of Thai, chay may?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 20:21
|
|
|
poo poo, I was trying to find this old Bangkok Post opinion piece titled Farang Cannot Know Thai-ness, but they pull a lot of stuff retroactively. Anyway, NO. CANNOT.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 20:49
|
|
|
One thing I didn't like about Cambodia was that the nature was pretty unimpressive if not ugly. At least in the areas I went.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 22:28
|
|
|
Yeah, you have to like plains and fields to like most of the country. Up toward Vietnam and Laos it gets much prettier, like in Rattanakiri - also down by that whole Bokor - Kep - Kampot greater metropolitan area. That's why I tell people in Phnom Penh to take the Naga ferry across to Areyksat and rent a bike, then bike around there. Really pretty little delta area with lemongrass fields and banana plantations and temples and cattle, etc etc. Also, the stuff within the Angkor preserve in Siem Reap is really pretty, but they're Nazis about the park boundaries, so if you want to get into any of it you pretty much need a ticket. Friends of mine live there and go running and biking and tell me no matter how remote a section of the park, someone shows up and catches them just if they're crossing through a couple of trails, heh. I'm from the Gulf Coast, so scrubby, flat areas don't bug me, but the endless open fields are mind-numbing, especially if you're running or riding.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2019 23:07
|
|
|
bawfuls posted:Beaches ain't poo poo... quote:Agreed that relaxing is hard to find in VN. When I want relaxing, I go to Con Dao, and island in the south. Served only by an obscure subsidiary of VNA called VASCO. Very quiet place, but Vietnamese flavor. As a bonus he can visit the prisons where the French and Americans tortured captured VC, or whoever else the corrupt southern regime chose to send there. The Vietnamese don’t like it much because they say there are too many ghosts.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2019 01:38
|
|
|
<= Thai here. There may be others, but I have not seen them.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2019 01:50
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:poo poo, I was trying to find this old Bangkok Post opinion piece titled Farang Cannot Know Thai-ness, but they pull a lot of stuff retroactively. Anyway, NO. CANNOT. Hey my wife and I did a second wedding ceremony in Thailand (because her grandparents wouldn't have considered it a legitimate union otherwise), that has to count for something right
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2019 02:00
|
|
|
Not same your country!
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2019 02:02
|
|
|
 I now have an IRCTC account and can book these loving trains online Don't get me started on how aggravating this was.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2019 22:18
|
|
|
Cheesemaster200 posted:
What's your booking fee if we want to book through you?
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2019 22:39
|
|
|
If you thought that was aggravating, just wait until you actually try and book a train  It’s incredible that it won’t check for availability until after you’ve paid for the tickets. Oh and I hope you don’t need to book more than five tickets in a month, otherwise you’ll need to do the whole registration process again in your wife’s name! 
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2019 23:19
|
|
|
Still looking for any beach-heavy recommendations in Indonesia (non-Bali division) or the Philippines
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2019 23:30
|
|
|
bawfuls posted:Still looking for any beach-heavy recommendations in Indonesia (non-Bali division) or the Philippines What's your beach interest? Surfing (Siargao), whale shark watching (Donsol), snorkeling (Cabilao or Anda), island-hopping (Coron or Caramoan), diving (Coron), or partying (Boracay)?
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 00:07
|
|
|
Mostly snorkeling, some diving maybe, and just chilling on pretty beaches
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 02:50
|
|
|
For snorkelling head to Coron or El Nido
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 03:40
|
|
|
Currently planning out the India portion of my trip. My current plan is to do Kathmandu->Varanasi->Agra->Jaipur->Amritsar->Delhi. I can do this all via train travel, but I would have a very long day (10h on train + 4 hour layover in Delhi) between Jaipur and Amritsar. Doubly so since I would have to change train stations in Delhi with our bags. I could also just take a 90 min direct flight for $42 on a SpiceJet puddle jumper. All logical reasoning would be to take the flight, but I have this romantic initiative in my head to go overland from Beijing to Delhi, of which I am accomplishing up to this point. Flying breaks the chain, but it would just make so much more sense. Tell me I am being completely ridiculous with this.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 03:54
|
|
|
bawfuls posted:Still looking for any beach-heavy recommendations in Indonesia (non-Bali division) or the Philippines Could always head to Gili Trawangan or Gili Air in Indonesia, just get a boat from Bali to one of them, and if you don't like whichever one you go to the other is 30 minutes away. Literally all there is to do there is drink, go to the beach, snorkel and dive.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 03:58
|
|
|
bawfuls posted:The India portion is likely to be a bit hectic so more mellow time in a tropical beach region would give us some good balance. The beach paradise part of the Philippines is called Palawan. I recently did a 1-week trip there, so here are my thoughts. Palawan is one big island plus a few smaller ones on the left side of the country. The main tourist town is called El Nido - most of the tourist life is centered around that. There is also the city of Coron, on its own separate island accessible via a 3-6 hour ferry connection (ugh). Coron is way smaller than El Nido, both in size and number of tourists. They say this is where all the fun diving stuff happens - I have no personal experience with that, though. Lots of wartime wrecks in the area to explore, supposedly? The beaches in El Nido and Coron are full of boats though. To get to actually enjoy some beach time, you need to go a bit further from the city. At least I never found a good local beach that was not a parking lot. Plenty of tours for island hopping, switching to a new beach every few hours. For tours and activities, you can get a lot of good info about the recreation possibilities from http://www.philippinestravelpackage.com. This site has quite a few knowledgable people behind it but their prices are definitely on the expensive side. After talking to them, I decided to book my tours via https://www.e-philippines.com.ph/ which did it for much cheaper. You can also sign up for any activities when on-site There are a few "island resorts" in the area. Basically various types of hotel/huts/whatever on the smaller islands. If you want to spend more money you can stay in one of these and just chill on the perfect beach all day long, taking a boat to the mainland when you feel like it. On the main island on Palawan you will also find the city of Puerto Princessa. This is a local town, not much tourist stuff happens there. They hype the "Puerto Princessa Underground River" a lot - everywhere you see ads. It is a total waste of time and several hours van ride away in a completely different part of the island. Don't waste your time or money. All those 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor are just buyer's remorse, people trying to tell themselves they did not just waste 700 pesos on nothing. All in all, you can definitely find good island beach vacation around Coron and El Nido. If you want less tourist crap and more local life, check out the beaches in Ilocos. Currimao beach is great and has mostly locals around it. Some cool resorts on the beach. Hmmm I should maybe do a fuller trip report post of my 3 months in the Philippines. EssOEss fucked around with this message at 05:25 on May 15, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 05:07
|
|
|
Cheesemaster200 posted:Currently planning out the India portion of my trip. My current plan is to do Kathmandu->Varanasi->Agra->Jaipur->Amritsar->Delhi. I can do this all via train travel, but I would have a very long day (10h on train + 4 hour layover in Delhi) between Jaipur and Amritsar. Doubly so since I would have to change train stations in Delhi with our bags. I could also just take a 90 min direct flight for $42 on a SpiceJet puddle jumper. Any particular reason you're doing Amritsar between Jaipur and Delhi? Seems like Jaipur -> Delhi -> Amritsar would make more sense. To be honest the Indian trains aren't too bad, provided you're in the slightly more expensive seats. AC chair car trains are basically modern European carriages - no wifi but you'll have air con and a comfortable seat. The two-tier AC cars are okay, three tier AC gets a bit cramped and I wouldn't go below that unless you're on a serious budget. I will say as well - the landscape up around the Ganges plain area is boring. Endless flat rice fields with the occasional decaying concrete village surrounded by trash and cows. I'm not saying don't do it, but the romantic reason might break down after 20 minutes when the Indian businessman sitting opposite you snores like a chainsaw. Also, there are websites you can use to gauge the on-time running of trains. It can tell you historically how late a train usually arrives, as you might need more than a 4-hour layover depending on the route! We had one journey where I'd planned for a four-hour connection, and although we had no problems, if we'd done that journey a day earlier we would've missed the connection. Train #1 was running about 4.5 hours late, and even train #2 running 30 minutes late wouldn't have been enough.
|
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 08:35
|
|
|
webmeister posted:Any particular reason you're doing Amritsar between Jaipur and Delhi? Seems like Jaipur -> Delhi -> Amritsar would make more sense. We are still going to be on a train from Gorakhpur-> Varanasi -> Agra -> Jaipur and then from Amritsar -> Delhi. I am not worried about missing scenery. We are likely flying out to Bangkok from Delhi, which is a nice cheap, 4h flight. If we fly out of Amritsar with a connection in Delhi it becomes an 8-10 hour flight with a large layover. I've already been to Delhi, so trying to limit our time there. To be honest, we are probably going to be trained out by the time we get to Jaipur. We have two overnight trains in AC1 and AC2 respectively. Then CC from Agra to Jaipur. This is on top of the 40h trip from Beijing to Lhasa a few weeks before. Ultimately this is all tentative too. We may decide to arrive in India sooner, or limit our time there. I just want to book something as a fallback given how hard train reservations can be. Also, might avoid Jaipur altogether. Thoughts on that city? Cheesemaster200 fucked around with this message at 19:45 on May 15, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 15, 2019 15:51
|
|
|
I quite liked Jaipur, though it was the only city we visited in Rajasthan so other places might be better. The whole "old" (19th century) core of the city is painted this odd shade of salmon pink, because apparently it's the colour of hospitality in Rajasthan and they wanted to spruce things up when the Prince of Wales visited in like 1886 or something. And they've just kept doing it. There's also the Amer Fort just outside town which is really cool, though if you've seen Agra Fort I'd probably do one or the other. In town there's also the Jantar Mantar, which is a 19th century astronomical observatory which has these huge instruments for keeping time, tracking stars, predicting eclipses and the change of seasons etc. The sundial there is the world's largest and supposedly accurate to within a few seconds. And yeah that does sound like an awful lot of time on trains. I enjoy train trips, but I'd be close to my limit with those! Up around Amritsar it might be different, but yeah the Delhi/Agra/Jaipur area has precious little in the way of scenery to watch from a train. Also, this might be preaching to the choir but sacrifice the hour it takes to get an Indian SIM when you arrive (remember they want your passport, visa and a photograph!!). Having easy access to Uber and Ola in basically every city in India was a massive life-saver. Beats the hell out of dealing with the taxi mafia and tuk-tuk scammers every time you arrive in a new city. Even if you don't take rides with Uber/Ola, you can at least use the app to get a sense of what the actual price for your ride should be, not what the taxi guy says it should be.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 01:16
|
|
|
So our plans have changed again. Proposing to do Varanasi->Delhi (nicer, quicker train), then do a day trip to Agra using the fast trains. I have already been there, so it is mostly for my wife who wants to see the Taj Mahal and would otherwise prefer to skip India. This also makes hotel logistics a lot easier. From there we can do a back and forth to Amritsar (again using the fast trains), and maybe another trip to either Shimla or Jaipur. We might even decide to go Delhi->Mumbai over a number of days with stops in Jaipur, Udaipur and/or Jodhpur before flying out.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 03:13
|
|
|
Anyone have a favourite stopover city? My trip to Vietnam is pretty much set, but since there are no reasonable flights from Canada that don't contain a 8+ hour layover in another city anyways, I'm considering sticking around for a few days in Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. I'm into stuffing my face, urban exploring and nature hikes and I'm too old and solitary for more than a little nightlife. Gravitating towards Hong Kong.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2019 16:01
|
|
|
Hong Kong and Singapore are best in my opinion. Easy metro links to the center city, and there is a lot to do/eat.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2019 16:07
|
|
|
kuddles posted:Anyone have a favourite stopover city? My trip to Vietnam is pretty much set, but since there are no reasonable flights from Canada that don't contain a 8+ hour layover in another city anyways, I'm considering sticking around for a few days in Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. I'm into stuffing my face, urban exploring and nature hikes and I'm too old and solitary for more than a little nightlife. Gravitating towards Hong Kong. But HK looks extremely cool. And everyone was wearing New Balance shoes.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 02:03
|
|
|
Agree on HK. Very accessible, very interesting. Bangkok is also an obvious choice, but if you're coming from North America it has to represent a second stop already. Your usual choices coming from North America in terms of volume of flights are, if I recall correctly: - [A Bunch Of Cities In China] - Tokyo - Hong Kong - Taipei - Dubai - Seoul - Manila - Singapore - KL Depends on where you come from. Check Hong Kong Airlines, by the way. They just opened North American service and the tickets were crazy cheap recently. They're flying A350s on that route, so it's not a total shitshow as you might expect from Hong Kong Airlines normally. Of those, I agree with the above on HK. HK, you can do modern Western, old school Eastern, everything all in one city. Singapore, to me, is pretty boring, but if it's your first trip over here it might be a good waystation since it's basically EPCOT Asia. I usually do <1 day layovers both ways on my trips (if you look, you can almost always find a 16-18 hour stopover at the bottom of the list) and have done that in Taipei, HK, Tokyo and Dubai. They're all great places to stop in for different reasons, really. HK is probably the one I would recommend, though, if I had to choose. Then there are the cities in China, but I dunno if I'd pick one personally. As a tourist, I mean. Unless you specifically wanted to see China. Nothing wrong, it's just places like HK are set up as waystations historically, so they're sort of there for people to pop in and do things. The Chinese cities, if my experience was representative and if what I hear is correct, are like huge versions of Memphis or Charlotte or something. Sure, there are things to do, but the cities are not purpose-built to welcome and entertain tourists unless something has changed and/or I'm hearing things wrong. Probably a few like Hainan Island / Hainan Airways would be an exception? You'd have to ask cabe or the China goons, I haven't been to China in 15 years, heh. Only Hong Kong NOT CHINA and Taiwan THE REAL CHINA. Ahem. tl;dr: Hong Kong EDIT: Also, if you get really creative, I think you can do Air France direct to Vietnam or Cambodia with a stopover in Paris, but I haven't checked that in a long time. It used to be an easter egg allowing a stopover in Paris, but it was never cheap (also lovely AF service!). EDIT: There's another reason not to fly the Chinese carriers, which you will find out after spending ##+ hours in the plane, heh. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 03:24 on May 21, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 03:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 02:57 |
|
|
kuddles posted:Anyone have a favourite stopover city? My trip to Vietnam is pretty much set, but since there are no reasonable flights from Canada that don't contain a 8+ hour layover in another city anyways, I'm considering sticking around for a few days in Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. I'm into stuffing my face, urban exploring and nature hikes and I'm too old and solitary for more than a little nightlife. Gravitating towards Hong Kong. Hey on my way back from Vietnam to Canada I had an 11 (i think) hour layover in Seoul. However, the airport offers free tours and excursions to layover passengers and I was able to go on two of them. The first tour I did was almost 4.5 hours and included a lunch for a small fee. Pretty cool.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 03:47
|
|
