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Post by Kimby on Jan 12, 2011 17:37:51 GMT
Don't overlook Hong Kong, tod.
I neglected to mention that we visited there twice, both times before it was turned over to China, but loved the mix of modern city and alley lifestyles. As our very first trip to an exotic locale, it was a perfect choice. I would guess it still is.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2011 18:07:48 GMT
I've been to Hong Kong about a dozen times and Macau twice. I don't really feel comfortable there, but I keep going back because it is all too fascinating. I have not been back to Macau since it passed Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world. The casino expansion was just beginning the last time I was there. (Speaking of casinos, has anybody seen the new Singapore casino that was just inaugurated? That city-state is really beginning to shed its Puritan ways.)
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Post by tod2 on Jan 12, 2011 18:34:24 GMT
We have been to Hong Kong as a family only once - sitting on the piano are cheap china plates with our very well taken photos to prove it ;D This trip was in the days when your jumbo jet did a hair-raising u-bend coming into Kai-Tak airport, just missing the laundry blowing in the wind of the nearby apartment buildings...... Whew, I never want to do that again! Kerouac - Thanks for that photo!!! I'm blown away - and heading straight there after checking into our hotel
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2011 18:52:36 GMT
Kai-Tak was a definitely white knuckle experience.
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Post by Kimby on Jan 13, 2011 5:49:43 GMT
I loved being able to look INTO apartment windows as you glided in for a landing.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2011 5:55:41 GMT
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Post by Kimby on Jan 13, 2011 7:12:13 GMT
Can you imagine living below the flight path?
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Post by tod2 on Jan 13, 2011 8:04:15 GMT
Boy did that take me back! I have this strange feeling the (kamakazi) pilots were grinning ear-to-ear as they jockeyed their steeds around that bend and headed down the straight to the finish! An eavesdropper in the hotel bar or Pilots Club would most likely hear a conversation something like this......
"I say Ponsomby old chap - did you hear about that Lufthansa chap catching his girlfried having it off with that darn goodlooking bloke from SAA! Gawd, they should have closed the curtains at his apartment! Rotten luck for the dear boy!"
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2011 18:21:25 GMT
I bet that property values have skyrocketed in the Kai Tak area since the new airport opened.
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Post by tod2 on Jan 14, 2011 14:56:32 GMT
Ooh boy, am I finding great stuff on the Asia board! I love the photos - everyone has something different to mention about the same places. Great travel tips and because there is SO MUCH stuff out there I have decided to print out the experiences and open an old fashioned file for each country. This way I can high-lite sentences and eventually by the time I'm ready to book will know a little of the things I definitely want to see and do. A travel tip was to book sightseeing excursions only upon arrival at ones destination. Just book flights and hotels - we were told the package deals usually put you in a so-so hotel whereas you could get a higher grade for the same money if you did your own bookings on line. This in noway means I am only into 5 star accommodation but it must not be a scraggy tourist hotel with hardly time to clean the room before the next guest. Anyway, I'm having fun reading stuff from last year and getting excited at the weird and wonderful things waiting for me out there
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Post by tod2 on Jan 17, 2011 11:33:19 GMT
I need a little help with planning an efficient/cheaper airline route between Hong Kong - Shanghai - Seoul - Tokyo - Ho Chi Minh - Phnom penh - Singapore - Hong Kong
I will have business class seats on the longhaul between South Africa and Hong Kong. It's the flights (as little as possible)/ rail/ bus inbetween. I am totally green here and need a few pointers. Thanks!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2011 11:50:54 GMT
Aren't Air Asia and Dragon Air the most reliable low cost carriers in the region? I confess that I have no experience with either -- I have almost always used Cathay Pacific or Thai, but then again I don't pay real prices.
Of course Saigon-Phnom Penh is just a minuscule bus trip. I think it also exists as a boat trip.
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Post by onlymark on Jan 17, 2011 13:15:39 GMT
tod, you may need a travel agent to help when it gets complicated. I'll give you a bit of something to do though to pass the time. Using the following website, and with no idea what dates you might want, (I've used March this year) and with an overland route between Saigon - Phnom Penh as mentioned by Kerouac, I've come up with a cost of 1500 Euros for all those flights. No doubt with some fiddling around it can be cheaper, or more expensive. But it's a start point and you can play around with all the combinations till your hearts content. You can't purchase these flights through this web site but they can be printed off and taken to a travel agent who will book them or you can do it yourself. This is just to get a general idea of what there is. It also includes Air Asia and Dragon Air matrix.itasoftware.com/view/details?session=29f0104b-e775-4b29-815a-a5dc02fd8f26Start from here, if you can be bothered, no problems. - matrix.itasoftware.com/search.htm?session=29f0104b-e775-4b29-815a-a5dc02fd8f26I also use Google Maps just to get an over view of where the places are so I don't backtrack too much.
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Post by onlymark on Jan 17, 2011 13:18:19 GMT
I'm not sure if the links work with all the information filled in properly on another computer, it depends on the cookies. Let me know if not.
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Post by ilbonito on Jan 17, 2011 13:40:39 GMT
Air Asia is perfectly comfortable and reliable and VERY good value if you book in advance - it follows the European budget airline model. The earlier you book, the cheaper the flight. I use them whenever possible and I'm consistently impressed with the service they offer for the prices they charge. Much of their network operates out of Kuala Lumpur so there is the issue of having to constantly backtrack to KL before heading on to the next place though.
There is also Tiger out of Singapore, and starting next year Thai Tiger. Air Asia also uses Bangkok as a "secondary hub".
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Post by tod2 on Jan 17, 2011 17:25:30 GMT
THIS is what I need...Thanks so much, it's a very good start! I can't remember who, could have been Ilbonito, but I have an incredible link "Japanese Guest Houses" - this also gives you "The Joy of Trains in Japan". Wonderful! I can see us spending far more time in Japan than anticipated. Sorry if I haven't given the correct person credit!
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Post by ilbonito on Jan 18, 2011 14:26:13 GMT
No, it wasn't me... btw a Chinese discount carrier is offering a super-cheap flight from Shanghai to Ibaraki ( three hours out of Tokyo) for 4000 yen. Called Spring Airlines. I've never flown them, and don't have any other info but definitely worth a bit of googling... Other than the Australian airline Jetstar and now Air Asia, I don't think there are any other budget carriers flying into/out of Japan. Its always expensive to fly there.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2011 14:52:05 GMT
Now that Air Asia flies to Paris, it has really cut fares to SE Asia quite a bit. I was looking at April and saw that a return ticket to KL is only 524€, taxes included. An onward connection to say, Phnom Penh, can be snagged for as little as 20€ (although 55€ is more common).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2011 19:19:40 GMT
Amazing photo at number 31, Kerouac. Hong Kong fascinates me, probably due to my family history.
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Post by gertie on Jan 24, 2011 17:41:09 GMT
Getting back to the topic of some people wanting to see Asia and others not, I find people give different reasons and excuses. For example, my grandfather fought in Asia during WWII, and has what amounts to a prejudice against Asians out of it due to things that happened to him during that. He had a really bad experience in all his contact with the people there, and one can understand not wishing to repeat that, though I suspect he also fears the flashbacks and dreams he might have if he tried to go there. He used to have horrible problems with those, and post traumatic stress was not at all understood in the way it is now. Personally, I love to travel, want to see the world, but had Asia low on my bucket list of places I really want to see. It wasn't anything like concerns over poverty or dirt. It wasn't even really the strangeness of the place. It was the language. While I don't speak Spanish or German, I do understand a few words, and the language looks like ours. It uses letters I recognize. Over in Asia, they use a completely different system. I wouldn't even know how to find the bathroom in a restaurant! So there you have it, my fear of Asia. Finding the bathroom. hm. As it turns out, my daughter wants to see Japan, and that is her only wish for her graduation trip. I've been studying. I can now say a few words in Japanese, and I have learned Hiragana and started working on katakana. I'm still very intimidated by kanji, though I have picked up a few along the way. I think a lot of people are like me, just overwhelmed by the completeness of the differences. Now that I understand a little, I'm really looking forward to the strangeness of Japan. hwinpp, if you ever make that trip to the US, do give a shout. If you've never been here, we have about as much weird as Japan. We just aren't freaked by it because it seems normal to us.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2011 19:19:23 GMT
Gertie, I was kind of lucky visiting Asia for the first time. I wasn't going to "Asia" at all, but flying from Paris to Nouméa (New Caledonia) in Micronesia. However, as an airline employee flying standby, I was dumped in Singapore (I wrote about this somewhere on the 'travel tales' branch.).
Even back then (more than 30 years ago?), Singapore was a paradise for Western travellers -- the impression of Asia in a Western package. I still love it, but now I just about consider it to be a part of Europe or Australia with excellent food -- but there is not much else other than the vegetation that is Asian about it.
Nevertheless, after that first experience, I was emboldened to visit other parts of Asia. Strangely enough, I found places like Japan and Korea to be scarier than the other countries. Japan and Korea are major countries that more or less ignore us -- they have their own fantastic culture and interests and do not feel any need to fawn and flatter us. So sometimes, things can be difficult.
On the other hand, places like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia or Indochina bend over backwards to cater to our every need. They make a lot of mistakes, but when they do, they consider it to be their fault rather than ours, which is a big relief (even when it is our fault).
I have been scared shitless at certain moments, when doing something for the first time. I remember once in Bangkok, freaking out as I was about to board a flight to Hanoi. ("Hanoi? What the fuck are you doing flying to Hanoi?") It was more or less the same the first time I flew to Rangoon or Vientiane. ("How can I possibly fill out all of the pages of this immigration form before the plane lands?")
Oh, but the rewards are so spectacular! The sights, the smells, the incredible 'niceness' of the people everywhere. There are variations in style in each country, but they are so happy to receive us (and our money). English will be sufficient just about everywhere, Gertie, and you will be amazed at how well it is spoken in most places.
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 25, 2011 11:40:50 GMT
Right now, at this very moment, I'm quite pissed off at Asia. 16 degrees and it's been drizzling all day! My shoes are wet through and I'm drying them with the hair dryer, too cold to wear my trusty slippers. More to come when I'm back in Phnom Penh. Gertie, noted
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Post by tod2 on Mar 8, 2011 14:32:30 GMT
When I turned on my computer a few days ago, one of the headlines that came up was "North Korea threatens to attack the South leaving Seoul in an inferno of flames". Well, thats got me thinking about our planned Asia trip at Xmas time and the main reason for going East was to visit Seoul and maybe do a little business whilst there. Now I'm having grave doubts about everything. I so wanted to be in Singapore for a third Xmas there and of course we would fly via Hong Kong, then fit in the other parts of Asia we have not been to. Am I being neurotic? Would you go?
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Post by mich64 on Mar 8, 2011 15:39:26 GMT
I would go. But that does not matter, it is how you feel and how comfortable you will be. We travelled to Europe 12 days after 9/11 and it was one of the most difficult decisions to make. It was my feeling that I was not going to let the threats from others control my life. Mich
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2011 16:49:57 GMT
Seoul has been living under such threats for more than 50 years and doesn't seem too impressed by them, even though certain precautions have been taken -- wait until you see how far underground the subway system is!
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Post by tod2 on Mar 9, 2011 8:19:42 GMT
Mich & Kerouac I appreciate your comments very much. I too, don't want to be told when & where by some head of government but am also not looking to run into obvious problems on the other side of the world. I suppose the right decision is to get our visas etc. and abort that part of our trip if things get really bad or dangerous. But as you say Kerouac, its been an ongoing saga of threats for half a decade. Thanks again!
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Post by Kimby on Mar 11, 2011 17:27:53 GMT
Unless you have family members who will be unduly alarmed at your travel to a "risky" part of the world, evaluate the risks yourself and you will probably conclude you'll be safer than in a big city in the Western world.
And airlines, in my experience, can be quite forgiving when there is an earth-shaking event (like 9/11) affecting your destination, and may very well allow you to rebook without penalty.
(It does help to have a backup trip in mind. We were able to switch from India to Costa Rica after our Northwest Airlines flights into Delhi were cancelled -and they wanted to rebook us onto a different airline - because they didn't want to fly American-badged equipment into that part of the world. We had less than 3 weeks to arrange our new trip, but it worked great.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2011 21:10:35 GMT
Today the Sunday New York Times Travel section is completely devoted to Asia. Asia Up Close 2011. I have read only a few pages thus far.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 11, 2013 14:42:26 GMT
This is such a varied and interesting thread, which abruptly ends two years ago.
What happened next?! Tod, how much of that trip did you all achieve? Has anyone been to previously avoided countries in that time?
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Post by tod2 on Apr 11, 2013 15:08:37 GMT
Bixa - Nothing came of it because of the sunami that hit Japan. It has put me off for the time being especially now that N.Korea is rumbling like an old volcano. Travel is difficult for us at the moment but I would love to spend Xmas and New Year in Singapore. Sigh....
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