|
I'm travelling South Asia and South East Asia for four months. Looking for advice on a few - South Korea, Okinawa Islands, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Malaysian Borneo. Quite a few of the countries below i've been to before, some many time. Not looking to collect countries just explore. Appreciate any ideas about places i'm missing. I've been to quite a few places - image map below just for reference (not humblebragging just don't want people to suggest places and me to say 'been' - I have time so happy to revisit)  - Sometimes i'm taking weird routes (Like Japan to Nepal) but this is to burn some air miles I have. I'm picking expensive routes and burning the miles and I need to get to countries while the weather is good. - Start of the trip is a bit squeezed after Bali as I have to meet friends in South Korea - My only must-be places are Bali for the first 3 weeks, South Korea and Japan. Total trip in my head: Bali Malaysian Borneo Taiwan Japan Okinawa Islands South Korea Japan Sri Lanka Nepal Philippines ??????? Bali for flight home code:Vanilla fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Feb 18, 2020 |
#
?
Feb 18, 2020 19:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 12:10 |
|
|
Honestly you've travelled enough and been to SEA before that I doubt you're going to find any "general pointers", I think you'll have to ask way more specific questions geared towards precisely what type of tourism you enjoy. Normally I don't reply in any of the Asia threads since I've never been to Asia outside a couple small trips to Japan and China, but coincidentally the one book on my desk right now is the "Asie du Sud-Est" guide from Gallimard, a translation of Insight Guides' Southeast Asia book. No idea if the photos are the same, but I really like the Gallimard versions. https://www.insightguides.com/shop/product/insight-guides-southeast-asia/9781789198003 I find the Lonely Planets to be almost worthless for "generic trip ideas" as the have minimal photography and way too much focus on practical details, and I don't think DK has a SEA book. I used the Gallimard guide for a 4 month trip through South America a few years ago and it was super handy for picking the general itinerary, and by then I knew enough to leave it at home when we flew out. Interestingly we have almost the same travel map except I've been to more of Africa and I've never been to SEA or Oceania. Right down to how we both have been around basically all of Western Europe but almost none of the east. More as an aside, I hate how those maps are always country based, I wish there was an easier way to just highlight areas you'd actually been, instead of "All of Russia" because you spent a day in St Petersberg. I have a file in Adobe Illustrator that I color myself just for fun. It sure makes your travels look like a looooot less when you go from a country-version map like yours, to one that shows where you've actually been.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2020 16:01
|
|
|
Saladman posted:Honestly you've travelled enough and been to SEA before that I doubt you're going to find any "general pointers", I think you'll have to ask way more specific questions geared towards precisely what type of tourism you enjoy. Normally I don't reply in any of the Asia threads since I've never been to Asia outside a couple small trips to Japan and China, but coincidentally the one book on my desk right now is the "Asie du Sud-Est" guide from Gallimard, a translation of Insight Guides' Southeast Asia book. No idea if the photos are the same, but I really like the Gallimard versions. https://www.insightguides.com/shop/product/insight-guides-southeast-asia/9781789198003 I find the Lonely Planets to be almost worthless for "generic trip ideas" as the have minimal photography and way too much focus on practical details, and I don't think DK has a SEA book. I used the Gallimard guide for a 4 month trip through South America a few years ago and it was super handy for picking the general itinerary, and by then I knew enough to leave it at home when we flew out. There are always great pointers! Most of my itinerary above was made when I showed people and they said 'why not go to Nepal if you're going to be in Sri Lanka? Did you go to xyz in the Phillippines?' I agree on the country map side of things. I'm not out to collect countries - I've been to thailand 10+ times and this will be my fourth time in Bali times because I like it. I'll happily do the same routes again, visit the same places, etc. On this trip the only new countries for me are Sri Lanka, South Korea and Neapal! Vanilla fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Feb 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2020 18:50
|
|
|
I always forget to check the actual subforum here as I'm subscribed to the threads I can give advice in, but I can probably help you here if it's not too late. For Borneo, unless you're magnetically drawn to Mt Kinabalu I'd head to Sarawak (Kuching specifically) instead of Sabah. Kuching is a great city with some beautiful heritage, architecture, food and nature. Orangutans nearby, beachfront jungle national parks etc. The difference really is that Kota Kinabalu was bombed to oblivion in WW2 whereas Kuching was comparatively unscathed, so KK is just ugly concrete buildings everywhere while Kuching has some nice colonial stuff too. If you have time and budget, consider heading to Gunung Mulu National Park, up near the border with Brunei. Beautiful and remote spot, and home to some of the largest caves in the world. I'd personally skip Brunei if you're going elsewhere in Borneo. We spent about 36 hours there after Kuching and that was more than enough. You can't see any of the sultan's palaces or anything, so the place really ends up feeling like an 80s tropical Dubai. Where were you planning on spending that "Palawan" week that wasn't at Coron? El Nido? They are both fantastic in different ways, though the six hour boat ride between them is a bit annoying. I wouldn't stress too much about Puerto Princesa as it's a pretty forgettable town. Likewise for Manila, I wouldn't worry about spending more than a couple of days there: Intramuros and Rizal Park, Makati, Bonifacio Global City and that's about it. Maybe consider heading over to Bohol as well? There's some cool stuff there like beaches, the Chocolate Hills and the Tarsier sanctuary. I personally wasn't impressed with Boracay though I think it's been cleaned up a bit since I was there. I notice on your map you haven't visited Laos, I'd definitely recommend going there. Start in Luang Prabang for a couple of days, and get over to the Plain of Jars. Just bear in mind that it takes forever to get anywhere in Laos, the country's official name is People's Democratic Republic of Laos or Laos PDR, which realistically stands for Laos, Please Don't Rush. In South Korea, make sure you do a trip to the DMZ and include the Joint Security Area (aka the famous spot with those blue sheds). Most tours don't include that bit as it requires an army escort, but it was definitely the highlight. We even got to see some North Koreans escorting a couple of Chinese tourists on the other side! 
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2020 07:51
|
|
|
Oh and excuse the double post, but both of you guys might be interested in https://nomadmania.com. It's a travel tracking website, where they've divided the world into 1281 regions based on country, tourist appeal, population and so on. Usually it just uses administrative divisions like state/provice etc, but then there's sometimes further divisions as well, eg California is split into North/Central/South while Nevada and Arizona are just single locations. I find it's a pretty great way of tracking where you've actually been at a much more granular level. I also find it irritating when people spend 3 days in Paris and say they've "done" France. As I'm sure you guys can appreciate, the longer you travel in a certain country the less homogeneous it seems. Here's my profile if you're interested in having a look: https://nomadmania.com/profile/14930
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2020 08:04
|
|
|
Agreed on Kuching, it was great, be prepared for cat statues. They're everywhere. There's amazing architecture everywhere, and you can see a lot of it if you do the boat tours on the Sarawak River. I did that during a microburst storm at sunset and it was incredible. If you do want to head for Mt. Kinabalu, Ranau has some interesting war history, there's outdoor baths/hot springs/waterfalls, a forest canopy walk on rope bridges, and Sabah Tea Resort has a monument to a young Australian soldier who died there during the death marches in WWII. You can also rent a room in a bamboo longhouse at Sabah Tea, but that might be for everyone because it's a mattress and mosquito net on a bamboo floor. But I loving loved it and would go back in a heartbeat. I thought it was amazing that you can hear critters scurrying around underneath you because the building is on stilts.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2020 00:47
|
|
|
webmeister posted:I always forget to check the actual subforum here as I'm subscribed to the threads I can give advice in, but I can probably help you here if it's not too late. For Borneo, unless you're magnetically drawn to Mt Kinabalu I'd head to Sarawak (Kuching specifically) instead of Sabah. Kuching is a great city with some beautiful heritage, architecture, food and nature. Orangutans nearby, beachfront jungle national parks etc. The difference really is that Kota Kinabalu was bombed to oblivion in WW2 whereas Kuching was comparatively unscathed, so KK is just ugly concrete buildings everywhere while Kuching has some nice colonial stuff too. If you have time and budget, consider heading to Gunung Mulu National Park, up near the border with Brunei. Beautiful and remote spot, and home to some of the largest caves in the world. Thanks, this answered a big question - the south or North of Boreno. Guess the south wins. I was going to see a friend in KK so I was going to do Brunei as I passed through - just spend a day. quote:
I've been to Puerto Princesa before and I agree - boring. I got chased out of there by a typhoon years back when I was originally heading to El Nido. I was going to fly into Manila and get one of the direct flights to El Nido. The direct flight is just easier than flying to Palawan and sitting on a bus for 6 hours. I'll spend some time there and then get this boat to Coron: https://bigdreamboatmancoron.com/ It's a 4 day, 3 night trip where you get to see lots on the way. You're holed up on some pretty remote places some of those nights. From Coron i'll plan my next step quote:
Yeah I just never made it to Laos even though i've been very close many times. It may be hard to get there this time when I have so much more of the Philippines to explore!
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2020 22:10
|
|
|
Picnic Princess posted:Agreed on Kuching, it was great, be prepared for cat statues. They're everywhere. There's amazing architecture everywhere, and you can see a lot of it if you do the boat tours on the Sarawak River. I did that during a microburst storm at sunset and it was incredible. Thanks, Kurching sounds like it has everything I need considering the trip length. Will probably spend 5 days total there, then head up to see a friend in KK and maybe see Brunei along the way. Wish I had longer but i'm trying to squeeze in quite a few places i've always wanted to see before I have to be in South Korea to meet up with friends
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2020 22:14
|
|
|
It's a pretty aggressive itinerary, but not crazy or anything. Which you know, of course. The only thing that jumped off the page at me was the weighting of time in Sri Lanka. No reason not to, but there are a number of other countries on the list that are larger, with more ground / culture to cover that I'd probably favor personally. Also, I lol'd (and agreed) with one day in Brunei. You can do all the late night coffee, roti and theme parks necessary in that time period. I'm sure.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2020 00:09
|
|
|
Another +1 for Kuching here. It's a really cool place - there's loads to do in the city and nearby, but it's also a great place to use as a base to check out places like the Gunung Mulu National Park if you're interested in hiking but not interested in climbing Mt Kinabalu. Re: Taiwan, I've only been once, ten years ago. I spent a fortnight in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaosiung with trips to Taroko Gorge, Sun Moon Lake, etc. You could also spend a week or more exploring Taipei and surrounds without getting bored. I can't wait to go back.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2020 02:42
|
|
|
Taiwan is undersold for natural beauty, some of which you can get to from Taipei itself. I haven't spent much time there at all, but a friend lived there for decades and had a condo at the foot of the mountains and has shown me the lay of the land out there. You can pretty much walk out the door on the edge of town and be in mountain trails with tea plantations and jungles and streams and so on - all of it not-for-tourists. Really beautiful. I feel like Taiwan is sort of the hidden gem of these countries. Doesn't attract a ton of tourists, doesn't support a ton of expats, there's no huge international draw and it feels very chill. Not the most exciting place on Earth from what I gather, but not a boring place from what I can ascertain, either. The people I do know who live there long-term are almost invariably pretty even keeled, which is not something we can say about our compatriots in Thailand, heh. There's only One Real China. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Mar 1, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2020 03:13
|
|
|
Heh, in the ten years since I've been to Taiwan I think I've only met a handful of other Australians who have been. I loved the place so much that I seriously considered spending a year or two there studying but wasn't able to pull it off. It's got the perfect mixture of ultra-modern cities and spectacularly gorgeous nature, and it's incredibly friendly and easy to explore. I like the bit how it's theoretically possible to go snowboarding in the morning, surfing in the afternoon, and scuba diving later in the day. I wasn't there at the right time of year to try that theory out, but... how cool is that? And the food is fantastic.. but Beer Taiwan is the only beer I've ever tried where the hangover happens as you're drinking the third beer, not the next day after a dozen. That's probably the worst thing about the place.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2020 03:34
|
|
|
Seven days in Nepal is kind of quick. Also, you are going to hit the beginning of the monsoon in May, which means flights will be delayed/cancelled and roads will be slow. Expect a full-day travel between Kathmandu, Pohara or anywhere worth trekking.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2020 05:17
|
|
|
webmeister posted:Oh and excuse the double post, but both of you guys might be interested in https://nomadmania.com. It's a travel tracking website, where they've divided the world into 1281 regions based on country, tourist appeal, population and so on. Usually it just uses administrative divisions like state/provice etc, but then there's sometimes further divisions as well, eg California is split into North/Central/South while Nevada and Arizona are just single locations. Sorry for the OT, but just getting back to this. That's a cool site, but good god is it slow. I've tried several times now on different connections on my phone and laptop, and every time the editing feature is almost unusably slow on their "old version" and actually unusable on their new version. Hope they can get some decent servers at some point. I'm always wondering when TripAdvisor is going to kill their travel map feature, since they haven't updated it in many years.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2020 19:48
|
|
|
Yeah the old version used to be fine, but when they released the new version both of them seemed to take a huge performance hit. Hopefully they can get it sorted!
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2020 23:16
|
|
|
Cheesemaster200 posted:Seven days in Nepal is kind of quick. Also, you are going to hit the beginning of the monsoon in May, which means flights will be delayed/cancelled and roads will be slow. Expect a full-day travel between Kathmandu, Pohara or anywhere worth trekking. At the moment everything from South Korea onward is in the air because of the Corona Virus. Still going to Bali / Borneo / Taiwan / Japanese Okinawa. I may just stay in that area and go straight to the Philippines When I made this post CV was just kicking off, now it seems to be stable in Asia and screwing Europe, so a good time to go assuming I can get my flight out this wedensday
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 12:08
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure most of Southeast Asia just isn't doing a great job of testing, heh. It's steadily trending everywhere, it's just that the spikes are moving to new places. Generally speaking, the majority of the countries in Southeast Asia are put-up-a-good-show-then-no-news-is-good-news places, not detailed, thorough response places. Singapore, as always, being the exception. But I'm guessing this stuff is spreading steadily across Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, etc. If you follow the WHO database (here) you would have to believe that Thailand has only gone from about 20 cases when I flew out a month ago to 75 today, which is absurd given the flow of tourists and also the huge influx of Chinese right before their internal travel bans - all while Japan and South Korea, two countries with a similar amount of contact with Thailand and China, have jumped into the hundreds and thousands. This is Thailand:  This is Japan:  One of these things is not like the other! The main reason I'm delaying my return is at some point Thailand's government always realizes it can't control the lie anymore, because realty is outrunning its limited capacity, so then it sometimes freaks out to try to show it's doing something. Whatever that is, if it does it, I don't want to be around for it, heh.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 12:59
|
|
|
Personally I'm a bit in the same boat... We just left Europe for a year long trip before the CV really hit, currently in Nepal and planning to do SEA next and South America afterwards. Nepal doesn't seem to be doing any testing, and there are no containments measures (eg stores closing, etc), it seems to be similar to SEA. I don't think we'll have trouble getting to Thailand next month, but I'm afraid that once the full extent of CV in SEA becomes public we won't be able to travel onwards... Let's hope there's some positive change in the meantime 
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 14:11
|
|
|
I'll hide you in my banana plantation when the purge starts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 14:20
|
|
|
ReindeerF posted:I'll hide you in my banana plantation when the purge starts. Thanks, glad to know that I have a plan B! Hopefully it doesn't involve indentured servitude to stay hidden
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 15:22
|
|
|
Just some light field work!
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 15:33
|
|
|
According to government statistics from Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia alone, they are monitoring more than 10,000 people for the virus and over 4000 are hospitalized (Thailand last week said about 5000 people monitored and 1500 hospitalized). So yea. Monitoring without a test doesn't count as a case.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 18:20
|
|
|
"There is no problem and we are look to the problem. Anyway, do not you worry as we are in charge."
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2020 03:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 4, 2024 12:10 |
|
|
I put the trip on hold. Cancelled my flight. Bali is locking down this Friday. Closing shop. I would have made it in but my friend would have been turned away as she arrives a few days after. I'd rather isolate at in my own home rather than face who-knows-what in a foreign country.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2020 11:47
|
|