I managed to get some cheap flights into Kuala Lumpur in March next year through Air Asia - and while I have someone to stay with while I am there, I don’t want to spend all my time in KL. So, we have a week to play with - and can go anywhere Air Asia, Laos Air or Vietnam Air can fly us (basically want to keep costs low). I am thinking of going to Siem Reap since I’ve been dying to see Ankor Wat - but where else should we go? Answers on the back of a budget airline ticket please.
(Should mention I’ve travelled throughout Vietnam, been to HK, KL, Singa, Japan, parts of China, Macau and Malacca, so keen on somewhere I’ve not been to before).
Well, there’s someone here who will definitely be able to help you. What’s his name again? Bangkok Bob? Thailand Tom? Whatever it is, he knows his way around that corner of the world. I mean, many of his recommendations will probably involve someone sucking your dick, so I hope you remembered to pack that. (I kid.) Anyway, he’d be the guy to ask.
Not sure exactly where Air Asia flies, but if Yogyakarta, Surakarta (Solo), and/or Bali are possibilities for you, they can definitely be done on the cheap.
What do you like? Music? Hikes? Volcanoes? Textiles?
Interested in music, culture, food (especially! - although I don’t eat meat), shopping (as in seeing new crafts and art), nature and photography, adventure activities etc. Not into the party scene, but just want to see something different, leave my world and work stress behind and learn and see something new.
Budget’s not really a factor, I only mentioned it as I’d prefer to spend less on travel and accom, and more on food, activities etc. I will be travelling with Boy from Mars, who is less keen to rough it than me, and who hasn’t really been to Asia before.
My husband and I are heading to Thailand for 3 weeks in November. We chose Thailand because of how cheap it was, and will be focusing on the same things you’re interested in - culture, food, shopping, nature, adventure activities - and trying to avoid full moon parties and sex shows. Some of the activities we have planned:
Bangkok - shopping, visiting the Grand Palace, day trips to ancient cities Chiang Mai - visiting an elephant conservation centre, zipping along the tops of rainforests, white water rafting, bungee jumping, ATVs, trekking, taking a Thai cooking class, visiting the hilltribes Islands in the South - diving, kayaking, island-hopping, lazing on the beach, jet-skiing, kite surfing, visiting national parks
From my research even 5 star hotels are quite reasonably priced (though we will be staying at 3/4 star hotels around $100 a night), and you can eat like kings for dollars a day.
I do hope Siam Sam pops in. I’d be keen to see what he recommends in Thailand!
We arrive first thing on the Sat, and leave midday the following Sat - we have no plans or commitments, although do have a friend we could stay with in KL. So just a week - I’m probably more interested in going to 1-2 places and spending enough time there to soak it up, rather than rushing around - unless you all would advise otherwise.
At this point thinking Siem Reap and Phomh Penh, or Siem Reap and Luang Prubang, although that means awkward travel through Vientianne on 2 days to get there, and back to KL. Alternatively Krabi? Probably not as easy to get to from SR.
Chang Mai could be on the list, but my boss just got back and hated it (having been there lots in the past), says it’s too touristy now, and so they left and headed to Luang Prubang (and back to KL via Hanoi - see, awkward to get to).
Visiting Angkor Wat and thesurroundingtemples was truly one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I went twice on my three-month trip around SE Asia. Due to circumstances beyond my control I only had 1 day to spend there initially and just knew I had to go back. Best decision I ever made. I spent an extra couple of days zipping around from the countryside on the back of a motorbike, exploring the vast, beautiful, ancient ruins, feeling all the time like I was in the world’s greatest adventure playground, a museum where they let you climb all over the exhibits. It’s awe-inspiring, educational, and visually stunning.
I say spend three days there, and a couple of days in Phnom Penh too. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a must, as are the Killing Fields and the Royal Palace.
If you do visit Siem Reap, try to fit in a visit to the Landmine Museum just outside of it. It’s run by a guy who used to be a member of the Khmer Rouge and has dedicted his life to finding and disarming all the landmines that are still lying throughout the countryside. They use the funds from the museum to train their vlunteers (no hep from the givernment) and run an orphange and school for young landmine victims. Amazing place.
Yeah - I think Siem Reap is def on the list! Oh, should also mention there is a small chance I may be pregnant on this trip - we’re currently trying, but given that we’ve been trying for a year now without any success, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the next 6 - still, it can’t be discounted.
Re possible pregnancy - you probably should check malaria incidence wherever you decide to go. Be very careful with any prophylaxis, as many drugs aren’t recommended during pregnancy.
Sounds like you’re off to Siem Reap, so Java or Bali is probably out of the question in a one-week trip. But if you do choose Solo, let me know - I can direct you to some great gamelan (Javanese orchestra - amazing music) playing.
Popping in to say the wife and I must leave in a moment, but I’ll be back with some comments and recommendations later.
I’ll say right off that the North can be great, but yes, Chiang Mai city is a bit crowded and touristy, but there are some beautiful places out in that province, especially as you head north from the city. For the North, I would recommend going just a bit farther and head to Mae Hong Son, where I used to live back in the '80s. Flights there from Chiang Mai are cheap and take only 35 minutes, while the bus is 8-9 hours! Because it’s so mountainous. I’ve also hear Nan province is nice, although I’ve not actually been there myself. Chiang Rai province (note that’s Chiang Rai, as distinct from Chiang Mai) can be nice, but not the capital city so much; instead, the Golden Triangle area can be interesting, where Thailand, Burma and Laos meet, and Mae Sai, which is the northernmost point of Thailand.
Nah, this is Bangkok Bob. But I’ll try to keep the dick-sucking recommendations to a minimum, although … if the OP or anyone else coming here (pun intended) is interested, I could give the names and locations of some of our BJ bars, including one that’s a nationwide chain, with establishments in three cities.
But for more conventional tourist advice, I’d say if the OP has only a week to go somewhere, Siem Reap would be perfect. You really need a minimum of four days to do Angkor Wat properly. There are some tour agencies that offer to take you around them in half a day! Screw that! You could easily spend a week exploring Angkor Wat, especially if you visit the more outlying ruins. If you’re also interested in Phnom Penh, I’d say do four days in Siem Reap and the rest of the time in Phnom Penh. A couple or three days for Phnom Penh are plenty.
For Kayeby, for Chiang Mai city, I can recommend our usual place, the Montri Hotel. That’s where we always stay, and we were just there in May. The location is absolutely perfect, just inside the Pratu Thapae (the eastern gate to the Old City). Decent rooms (renovated recently) with air-con for 850 baht; at the current exchange rate of 34 baht to the US$, that’s only $25. The staff are friendly, professional and very helpful. They charge a bit more if you want breakfast included, but I would suggest you not do that; the restaurant downstairs is only so-so, and there are some very good breakfast options all over that area. The location was always the best, but it’s even better now that Ratchadamnoen Road, which the hotel is at one end of, has been turned into one long street market every Sunday. It gets crowded out there on that day, and it’s nice to be able to just pop up to your room for a break. The Montri does not have a website, but their e-mail is montri_hotal@hotmail.com, and their phone numbers are (053) 211-069, and (053) 211-070 and (053) 418-480. Note that if you’re dialing from outside of Thailand, the (053) part should be (6653) instead. Be sure to specify you want a room toward the back, to avoid the noisy traffic outside the front down by the Pratu Thapae. For us, we honestly would not consider staying anywhere else. (No, we do ot own the Montri Hotel or have any business interest in it.)
I still recommend you go a little farther afield, too, and make the trip to Mae Hong Son. What a lot of people do is take the 35-minute flight one way and then the 8-9-hour bus ride the other. Great views on the bus ride, especially if you take the northern loop, which I recommend over the southern loop. Another advantage of the northern loop is that the towns of Pai and Soppong are good places to stay for a couple of days in their own right. Pai used to be just a sleepy little mountain town, but it’s developed quite a bohemian Thai music scene in the past decade. We just stayed at the Pai River Corner and can recommend it very much. Owned and operated by an Australian-Thai couple. Beautiful location, peaceful. We were there during low season and so got a special deal, 1500 baht a night for a regular room; I believe that’s often up to 3600 baht during the high season! But if it’s a good place to treat yourself. Unfortunately, the regular rooms don’t have any English-language cable, only the higher-priced ones have that, and I always like to keep up with BBC or CNN. But the place is nice enough that I didn’t care about that. They were building a pool while we were there. We had the Thai tennis champion Paradorn Sichapan for our neighbor one night. Pai also has some elephant camps nearby, and we can recommend Thom’s Pai Elephant Camp. You can see the wife and me with one of their elephants here. The bareback rides through the countryside and river are pretty cool. It’s actually possible now to fly from Chiang Mai, but I don’t think it’s worth it. The flight is only 20 minutes, but unlike Mae Hong Son town, Pai is only 3-1/2 hours by bus or van from Chiang Mai, and it’s a nice drive.
In Soppong, there are a couple of good options in town now, although we’ve not stayed there. Back in my days in the province, I spent a lot of time in Soppong but always stayed with a friend who used to live there. There was no electricity at all back then in the entire area around Soppong; now they have electricity and a nice-looking place that even has a pool. Still, I recommend heading for Cave Lodge 8 kilometers outside of town. There’s electricity out there now, too, and the road is even paved now. The owner of Cave Lodge is an Aussie named John Spies who has lived there practically forever and published several books about different aspects of the area. Nice guy, and he can be very helpful with information. He’s quite an expert on the extensive local cave system, and he speaks fluent Shan (the Shan are the majority in the province; Thais are in the minority). Bungalows at Cave Lodge tend to be rather basic but okay and cost anywhere from 200-450 baht.
In Mae Hong Son town, there are a couple of fancy places on the edge of town, but I’d go with the Baiyoke Chalet inside the city. I’d rather be inside town. I was living in the town when the Baiyoke Chalet opened in 1988, and it was super-nice back then, what with the all-teakwood decore. Looking a bit worn now, but it’s still good, and the location is great. I think it’s 1000-1400 baht a night now with breakfast. Ask for a room away from the front and on an upper level, to avoid the noise of the street and the restaurant/lounge. Telephone (053) 611-536. I think there may be some new places in town, too, since we were there last (did not make it to Mae Hong Son town itself on our trip in May), so you might want to surf around to see. But I recommend picking a place in town rather than on the edge or out in the countryside. Pretty little city (Mel Gibson’s Air America filmed there. The movie’s crap, but it will give you a good idea of what the city and countryside look like.)
For the South, I’m afraid I cannot be too much help. We’ve not spent a lot of time down there. When we go to the beach, we don’t care about “activities,” we just want to laze on the beach, so Hua Hin or the immediate area is where we always go. Just a few hours from Bangkok, and the beaches are nice, but there’s not much in the way of, say, snorkeling and diving and such, and it’s not drop-dead gorgeous like other places much farther south. I thik Ale can probably help you with recent information on the South and diving, but Krabi should be good, and Lonely Planet has named Railay Beach in Krabi province as Thailand’s best beach (but we’ve never been there). I’d say Phang-Nga province is good, too. Phuket is very popular, but in my opinion it’s very overrated. On the other side of the peninsula, Samui Island (Koh Samui) is popular, but I seem to hear nothing but complaints about it from people. On the other side of the Gulf of Thailand, off our Eastern Seaboard toward Cambodi, Koh Chang is better than Koh Samet, but Samet is easier to get to; for either island, the farther south you go along its coast, the better it is. Avoid Pattaya at all costs.
The Northeast is an interesting option, too. Fewer than 2% of tourist arrivals head for the Northeast, our poorest region. The drawback is that finding people who speak English could be a problem outside of the larger areas, but it’s a very interesting region. I would recommend the city of Nong Khai, at the end of the train line and sitting on the Mekong River across from Laos. There’s a bridge there for easy access to Vientiane. We’ve not been there for years, though, so cannot give you any specific recommendations.
If you are interested in Laos, I would not recommend traveling overland between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. It does not happen very often, but occasionally bandits or rebels or whatnot will ambush buses out of Vientiane, killing all aboard. And I would never fly domestically in Laos; Lao Airlines has a poor safety record domestically, to say the least. They maintain their international-route planes much better, and we have flown that airline between Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang. I hear traveling to Luang Prabang by river from Thailand is a fun option, too.
For Bangkok, we always recommend the Royal Hotel in the Rattanakosin area, the original Bangkok, “old town” I guess you could call it, but it’s never referred to that way. Great location, and unlike many Bangkok hotels, they do not have double pricing. Thais and foreigners get charged the same, about $35 a night or so if I remember correctly, maybe a little less. Many hotels, especially in Bangkok, charge foreigners a special higher rate. Has a pool, too. The touts outside the door can be a little aggressive but not too bad. It’s not near the Skytrain or subway, as they will not permit the disruption in this historic area that would be needed to extend the lines to there, but unless your main purpose in coming to Bangkok is going on a shopping spree, the Skytrain is not necessarily all that necessary for you. I don’t have any contact info for the Royal at hand, though; Googling it seems to come up with just hotel-reservation websites.
You can find up-to-date info from other travelers at Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Travel Forum. For Siem Reap, indeed all of Cambodia, Gordon Sharpless’ Tales of Asia website is invaluable, and he himself runs the Two Dragons Guesthouse in Siem Reap with his Thai wife.
Also, you mentioned you’d be here in November. November 12 is the date this year for our Loy Krathong frestival. That’s not an official holiday, but it is hugely popular, and the North is the best place to experience it. That means booking ahead is important.
Thanks for the detailed recs Siam Sam! I’m starting to plan our rough itinerary now so I can start booking hotels and flights, and I’m sure your notes will be helpful. Thanks for the heads-up about November 12 - we will indeed be in Chiang Mai at that time. It looks like there are gorgeous fireworks in Bangkok to celebrate - are there any similar festivities in Chiang Mai?
Sometimes I worry about fun tourist experiences crossing over into possible exploitation of animals, so I’m glad to have a genuine elephant sanctuary recommended.
I’ve shortened our time in Phuket to spend a couple of days in Krabi doing rock climbing on Railay beach, and three days in Khao Sok.
Koh Chang, Koh Lanta, and Koh Tao were also on my list but they might have to wait until our next trip because I don’t want to spend all our time on the road. I haven’t been to Thailand since I was a child and I’m getting ridiculously psyched up for the trip!
I’m sure you’ll find that Thailand has changed a lot since then. Some people really like Phuket. Phuket town itself, over on the side of the island facing the mainland, is worth a look for the old Portuguese-style architecture.
Loy Krathong is not really a fireworks holiday. Just double-checked with the wife, and she confirms there’s not much. To tell you the truth, for years louts in Bangkok ruined Loy Krathong by running around throwing firecrackers at people, so we always gave the holiday a miss, but I think the police have tightened up on that. It’s just too darned crowded in Bangkok to really enjoy it, too. The main attraction of Loy Krathong is the floating of krathong, small vessels made from banana leaves (or often from Styrofoam these days) with a lit candle in them. Lakes and rivers are all dotted with the little candle flames. I think the moat around the Old City in Chiang Mai is used. Also in the North, they have a variation where they release these little floating candle bags into the air. (Looks neat, but there have been complaints about fires started when they come down.)
My best Loy Krathong was probably in Soppong, in Mae Hong Son province, back before electricity arrived. There’s a little stream that runs on the edge of town, and the residents floated their little krathong there, and it was really nice seeing them lit up. It’s often cool that time of year, too, what with the high with the high elevation, so there was a bonfire or two on the temple grounds; that and the krathong were the only light sources.
Thanks Siam Sam - that’s exactly the sort of advice I was after. I do read the LP Thorn Tree too, but good to have exact questions answered. One further question -Phnom Penh, is it worth going to? I’ve heard good things on one hand, and also that it’s the ‘wild west’ on the other - unsure as to what we’ll find.
Kayeby, be sure to post about your trip once you get back - we are likely to still be playing around with itinerary, and Thailand is still of interest.
[QUOTE=Siam Sam]
I’m sure you’ll find that Thailand has changed a lot since then. Some people really like Phuket. Phuket town itself, over on the side of the island facing the mainland, is worth a look for the old Portuguese-style architecture.
[QUOTE]
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but a friend of mine has just taken a job at a hotel in Phuket. Is this a place that is worth a visit?
I don’t have the budget for an Asian trip this year. But, I could consider it next year.
I’d never even heard of Phuket until I got his email saying he got a job there. He’s probably doing something like a concierge since he speaks at least 5 languages and usually knows where to go.
