ATIE121231:Indochina Encompassed - Dec 31, 2012

[yasminp]

Hey,
Anyone on this tour?
First time i have traveled to these countires. Would be great to meet the rest on this tour?

Regards
Yasmin

[onyx007]

Hi Yasmin, I'm not on your trip, but I did it in February 2012. You picked the right trip to see this four amazing countries.

I can give you following tipps (if you have any more questions, just ask):

The joining hotel in Bangkok, the "Bangkok Centre Hotel" charges a ridiculous amount for their WIFI, but just around the corner on the main street is a much cheaper Internet Café.
If you arrive early at the hotel and don't have a clou where to go, take the public bus no. 53 (just in front of the "Family Mart" on the main street). This bus will you take for only 6.50 Baht (sometimes for free) direct to the Royal Palace and also further on to the backpacker area of Kao San Road (by the way, on your way back to the hotel, don't take the bus, because the street is mostly jammed and you'll even be faster by foot).

By the way if you arrive at a "normal" time at the airport, don't bother to look for a bus (there is no bus), go directly to the train station and take the regular train, change at Makassan to the subway and this journey will cost you only 64 Baht in total. If you take a taxi to the city it should only cost you 500 Baht. Go with a taxi with meter; a couple paid for their taxi 1500 Baht!

The dinner on your train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai is fine, but you might bring along something for the morning, as our train arrived with a delay of 2 1/2 hours in Chiang Mai (instead of 8 am at 10.30 am).

If your tourguide gives you the option in Chiang Mai to go to "Tiger Kingdom". It's amazing. It's a petting zoo, where you can go in to the paddocks and play with different sizes of tigers (depends on the price you're willing to pay).

In Luang Prapang the “Ziplining” is great fun and the ride and bathing with the elephants is just amazing. Check out the terrace of the UTOPIA-Bar.

In Hue we had the great opportunity to do our included tours and some more sights on a back of a motorbike like the locals are used to ride.

If you’re a shopaholic prepare for Hoi An in Vietnam. They have 400 tailorshops there and some of our group had to buy another bag or even ship their shopping back home. You can even bring along some magazine clippings if you like a dress like a movie star and can't efford it. The bikeride there is great as well; some of us had the opportunity to ride a waterbufallo.

And finally it’s allright to bring your own laptop. In most of the hotels they have free WIFI, even in Vietnam, but there (except in Saigon) Facebook is blocked, but I downloaded something and it worked fine. But they have computers in the hotel lobby as well and on this computers Facebook is available.

[yasminp]

Hi Onyx

Thank for all the detail. This is great!! Will come in handy

I do have a few questions you may be able to help me with:
- Do you recommend obtaining my Cambodian Visa before hand aswell? I am already in the process of getting me Viet Nam Visa as the is a requirement of the tour.
- Also, may seem like a dumb question but i am unsure about traveling with my mobile phone. Do you recommend taking a cheaper mobile phone for the duration of this trip or will i be ok to travel with an i-phone?

Thanks
Yasmin

[onyx007]

Hi Onyx
Thank for all the detail. This is great!! Will come in handy
I do have a few questions you may be able to help me with:
- Do you recommend obtaining my Cambodian Visa before hand aswell? I am already in the process of getting me Viet Nam Visa as the is a requirement of the tour.
- Also, may seem like a dumb question but i am unsure about traveling with my mobile phone. Do you recommend taking a cheaper mobile phone for the duration of this trip or will i be ok to travel with an i-phone?
Thanks
Yasmin

To your first question, no, you don't need to get your Cambodian Visa before hand, just check that you'll have more than enough pages in your passport; a women from the USA had only 2 pages left in her passport and was turned down on the laos border, she had do get back to Chiang Mai to get more pages from their consulate. The cambodian Visa was very easy as you don't even have to fill out the forms as the people on the public bus you'll take from Saigon to Phnom Phen do it for you.

As about your I-phone, it's in my opinion completly safe to bring it with you.
Though I have always a cheap mobile with me just in case something should happen it's not a big loos and on my cheap mobile I have a prepaid abo and on the I-Phone I pay the bills every month, so I'm safer with a prepaid, because than I'm sure that I don't get mugged by roaming taxes.

and no question is dumb.