ASIA: Travel tips and tricks.

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Leper said:
No worries. I'd be concerned about the electricity thing too - how do they keep the beers cold? Koh rong sounds a pretty cool place to chill out. The old "thailand 20 years ago" cliche. I'd never heard of it before.
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Was there at the end of February with a couple of mates. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been to! It is very basic living with electricity turning off in the early morning until about 8am and occasionally running out of water (not drinking water). There are no roads and the main tourist strip is right along the beach with about 20-25 guesthouse/hostels. There are plans unfortunately to develop the island and there's an airport and golf course being built at the moment so within the next couple of years I feel its going to lose a lot of its charm.

If anyone goes there, its worth heading to Long Beach on the other side of the island. Its about a 40min walk across the island along a track through the jungle and the beach there is incredible. I'll post a couple of photos later when I'm on my phone

Also drinks are pretty cheap, happy hour you can get 3 beers for $2US in one place and 2 for 1 cocktails for $3US
 
James_Blues said:
Was there at the end of February with a couple of mates. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been to! It is very basic living with electricity turning off in the early morning until about 8am and occasionally running out of water (not drinking water). There are no roads and the main tourist strip is right along the beach with about 20-25 guesthouse/hostels. There are plans unfortunately to develop the island and there's an airport and golf course being built at the moment so within the next couple of years I feel its going to lose a lot of its charm.

If anyone goes there, its worth heading to Long Beach on the other side of the island. Its about a 40min walk across the island along a track through the jungle and the beach there is incredible. I'll post a couple of photos later when I'm on my phone

Also drinks are pretty cheap, happy hour you can get 3 beers for $2US in one place and 2 for 1 cocktails for $3US
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Did you stay at Koh Rong or Koh Rong Salmoen?

We stayed at Salmoen, lazy beach. Pure bliss. Got chased by monkeys on the beach early one morning after getting too close to a juvenile. Scared the s**t out of me.
 
The Dice Man said:
Did you stay at Koh Rong or Koh Rong Salmoen?

We stayed at Salmoen, lazy beach. Pure bliss. Got chased by monkeys on the beach early one morning after getting too close to a juvenile. Scared the s**t out of me.
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Stayed at Koh Rong, from what I can tell its a bit more of a party atmosphere than Salmoen.
 

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James_Blues said:
Stayed at Koh Rong, from what I can tell its a bit more of a party atmosphere than Salmoen.
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Yeah that's the impression I got too. Although the eastern side of Salmoen is Saracan Bay, we want for a walk and it was full of usual backpacker types and dirty. Not as bad as Sihanoukville but still. Shame as they have a beautiful bay there. Lazy Beavh on the western side was perfect. Clean great diving and a private beach type feel.
 
Any suggestions as to per day costs for a cheap as backpacker, willing to stay in pretty ratty places, in some quieter areas of SE Asia? Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, some Vietnam mostly (Trying to get to East India, Bengal area).

Want to avoid the big cities for cost reason only. Have a couple of grand and planning three months.
 
Dagless said:
Any suggestions as to per day costs for a cheap as backpacker, willing to stay in pretty ratty places, in some quieter areas of SE Asia? Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, some Vietnam mostly (Trying to get to East India, Bengal area).

Want to avoid the big cities for cost reason only. Have a couple of grand and planning three months.
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Just been to Laos and Cambodia. I'd say daily costs would depend on whether or not you prefer a private room or dormitory. In a dormitory you can easily pay around US$6 for a pretty reasonable place. A useful tip would be to not book ahead anywhere and ask to look at the rooms before making any commitments. If you have any issues with rooms then use that as a bartering point to knock down the price. Also if you plan on being in the town for multiple nights you can also get a better deal. Food is always very reasonably priced as are drinks.

Your major issue with costs probably won't come from accommodation as its all very reasonably priced around but flights between cities/countries can be quite expensive. For example, we wanted to get from Vientiane to Siem Reap but flights were around US$300 and we had time constraints so we didn't want to spend 40 hours on a bus travelling all the way down. So in the end we caught the train to Bangkok (for roughly $30) and then organised a bus for around about the same price.

Place's I'd recommend going to would be Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng in Laos. As well as Koh Rong in Cambodia. If you want any more information on those places, just let me know
 
James_Blues said:
Just been to Laos and Cambodia. I'd say daily costs would depend on whether or not you prefer a private room or dormitory. In a dormitory you can easily pay around US$6 for a pretty reasonable place. A useful tip would be to not book ahead anywhere and ask to look at the rooms before making any commitments. If you have any issues with rooms then use that as a bartering point to knock down the price. Also if you plan on being in the town for multiple nights you can also get a better deal. Food is always very reasonably priced as are drinks.

Your major issue with costs probably won't come from accommodation as its all very reasonably priced around but flights between cities/countries can be quite expensive. For example, we wanted to get from Vientiane to Siem Reap but flights were around US$300 and we had time constraints so we didn't want to spend 40 hours on a bus travelling all the way down. So in the end we caught the train to Bangkok (for roughly $30) and then organised a bus for around about the same price.

Place's I'd recommend going to would be Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng in Laos. As well as Koh Rong in Cambodia. If you want any more information on those places, just let me know
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How about Phnom Penh? :rolleyes:
 
Anyone been to Krabi? Thinking of spending a week up in September. What should I expect weather wise?
 

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The Dice Man said:
Slip Koh Rong and Google to Koh Rong Solemn. Stay at lazy beach.

Be sure to tell your bank you will be traveling in these countries. 4 of our 5 credit cards wouldn't work outside phnom phen, the only one that did was the one I had told the bank. We had 3 Australian cards and 2 French.
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Want to go back on this with regards to money... Any suggestions on how to handle it? Planning to take a couple of hundred Australian and then convert once I land in Thailand as I've heard it'll be a better rate. Other than, load up travel card?

ANZ ATMs floating around conveniently
 
Dagless said:
Want to go back on this with regards to money... Any suggestions on how to handle it? Planning to take a couple of hundred Australian and then convert once I land in Thailand as I've heard it'll be a better rate. Other than, load up travel card?

ANZ ATMs floating around conveniently
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Thailand, we didn't find to be a problem... Cards worked everywhere. If your going to Cambodia then we had a lot of trouble once we let Phnom Penh. They like US DOllars too. Speak to your bank and let them know your travel arrangements... It saved us being cashless in Cambodia.

I don't know what rate we got from ATMs, but you save so much on the cost of being there. Just research and don't get conned. You will need cash but I don't remember our rates. I do know we spent aud 2,000 dollars over 3 weeks for 2 people staying in the above average kind of places and not worrying to much about money.

You couldn't stay in Australia for that kind of money for that kind of time. Relax. Enjoy, and forget money. It won't cost you much.
 
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Doing a China/Asia trip with the boys next month.

Does anyone have any recommendations on where to stay in Macau? Looking online some people are saying the best place is the Cotai strip but that means your out of the Macau area. We like to drink, party & have a gamble so we want to be in the main area for that.

Also any advice on where to stay in Hong Kong?

Thanks in advance
 
calaisking said:
Doing a China/Asia trip with the boys next month.

Does anyone have any recommendations on where to stay in Macau? Looking online some people are saying the best place is the Cotai strip but that means your out of the Macau area. We like to drink, party & have a gamble so we want to be in the main area for that.

Also any advice on where to stay in Hong Kong?

Thanks in advance
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Have only ever done day trips to Macau so cant help there but go regularly to HK and usually stay in the Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) area. For us its the most Central location.
Sha Tin and Tsuen Wan are a little further out of the action but only a short trip on the MTR and have very resonable priced accom. Over on HK island id recommend staying in the Sheung Wan region. Brilliant transportation so your never too far from anything in HK.
 
Macau - Cotai Strip is pretty good. All of the casino's are within walking distance of each other. All of the casino's have free shuttle buses into town, and Macau is so small that Cotai is only a ten minute Taxi ride away anyway. Not too much in the way of nightlife in Macau. Outside of the casino's, the NAPE area is you're best bet for bars. For Accomodation, just take anywhere that is reasonably priced. some frightingly average hotels charge some extortionate prices for rooms

Hong Kong - Try some of the 3 star hotels around Mongkok and Prince Edward. Some bargains to be had there, and a great area to be in. for the island, I will second Sheung Wan, however also some decent and reasonably priced hotels down towards North Point. Not a bad area either
 
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