Ongoing PTR for SE Asia

[Aussie Wendy]

Bummer!

 

[zanzibar138]

A couple of small updates for the HK part of our trip.

DH is now considering making a separate trip to visit his friend in Thailand over the Australia Day long weekend, so it's highly likely that he'll be coming with me to Hong Kong.

Now that the doc has given me the ok to start training again, I'll have to fit in about a 15k hike. As it looks like DH is coming with me after all, I think we should be safe to do the trail from Tung Chung - Discovery Bay via Mui Wo (I was a little nervous to do this on my own, especially since I would be starting before sunrise). Based on the location of my hike, and the fact that I still plan to get to DL for rope drop, I was unwilling to compromise on hotel location. I've told DH that I'll pay the difference from my own pocket money if need be, and have booked Auberge Discovery Bay for $240. The good news is, I have applied for Expedia's price guarantee (as the hotel is available at Booking.com for $225 that night), so I should get a refund of $15 and a $50 Expedia voucher to use towards some of our other accommodation for the trip.

So the plan for Hong Kong will be (in a nutshell):
* Arrive late Friday night, take the airport bus to Auberge, probably arriving after midnight.
* Wake up early to start our hike by about 6am. We'll have to get a taxi to the train line anyway since the shuttle buses don't run that early. Depending on the train schedule, we might just get the taxi to take us all the way to Tung Chung.
* Arrive back at the hotel hopefully close to 9am. Have quick showers and change.
* Check out of the hotel and take our luggage with us to DL via shuttle bus and/or train.
* Check luggage at DL - they have storage facilities out the front of the park.
* Hopefully have time to grab a Mickey waffle on our way through to rope drop.
* Head straight for Mystic Manor, then work through my list of priorities for the day. We'll work around the show times for FOTL and Mickey and the Wondrous Book. At some point throughout the day, have my favourite Disney snack, the Minnie ice-cream bar!
* We'll have to leave the park by about 9pm, so I'm hanging out for the opening hours to be released. I'm actually hoping that the park opens at 10:30am and closes at 8pm (so we can make rope drop and have time to see the fireworks before leaving for the airport!). If not, we'll just work around it.
* Grab our luggage back, get a taxi to the airport (to maximise time at DL), check in and head to the lounge for some rest

 

[zanzibar138]

Yay! The price match came through Now to use that $50 voucher to book the next hotel

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Yaay!! Great plans and am looking forward to pics of the hike across from TC to D Bay - I would have loved to have done that one or DBay to Mui Wo. Taxi Tues afternoon cost us about $HK130 I think from DL to airport. I presume your route should be similar?not sure if they charge premium for early morning (being in the after midnight til normal am start period of timing). Good news re price match too. I can't think of anything worse than going all the way to Thailand for a weekend - lol! Crazy DH but glad it means you have his company for the DL part of the trip.

 

[zanzibar138]

I can't think of anything worse than going all the way to Thailand for a weekend - lol! Crazy DH but glad it means you have his company for the DL part of the trip.

Well in DH's defence, he'll be taking the Monday off before Australia Day and making it a 4 day weekend. We've done a long weekend trip to Singapore before, but Thailand is that bit further, especially since DH is coming back via Abu Dhabi lol!

Will make sure I take lots of photos of the hike. Was hoping a taxi would be less than that, but there may not be an option so it's a bit too bad. I suppose we could just do the walk to Mui Wo from DB and then continue towards Tung Chung til we've done the distance and go back the same way. Not sure how suitable that trail would be for a pre-sunrise start though. May have to keep an open mind on that one and see what happens.

 

[PrincessInOz]

*sigh* Back to work.

 

[zanzibar138]

I was back at work last week. Only had the week off between Christmas and New Year. It hasn't been too bad though - it was actually kinda nice last week being so quiet!

 

[zanzibar138]

We've now got our accommodation locked in for the trip. Photos are all borrowed from Google.

In George Town (Malaysia), we will be staying at Le Dream Boutique Hotel. Gets good reviews, seemed to be a good location in the middle of the city, and comes with a whole heap of freebies including car service. It was about $70 for the night. Seems to be fairly industrial style.



Unfortunately there were no photos of the rooftop bar where free coffee, tea, cookies and ice-cream is served until midnight.

I haven't booked our overnight train yet, but it will be something like this.





Unfortunately the first class sleepers are out of action, but these Thai second class ones don't look too bad. DH will be trying them out on his trip to Thailand this week between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. If he thinks I'll have a real problem, we'll consider something else.

In Kanchanaburi (Thailand), we will be staying at U Inchantree Kanchanaburi. This was going to be a bit of a splurge (we usually don't spend more than $100 a night in Asia, and this was going to be $113), but when I actually went to book the accommodation, there was a great special on and we got the 3 nights for about $280. Looks really nice, with a restaurant and infinity pool overlooking the river, with the Bridge over the River Kwai in the background.







And then of course in Hong Kong we'll be staying at the Auberge Discovery Bay. It looks nice, but I honestly didn't really care what our accommodation was like there, just the location. We won't be arriving until midnight or so, then will be off hiking first thing in the morning, and just coming back for a shower before spending the day at Disneyland. It will be really wasted on us!



We don't need any visas or anything for this trip, so that's pretty much everything. Just need to book the train, get our HKDL tickets, confirm the pet sitter, and finalise our daily schedule.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

They all look great espy Kanchanaburi. Pics of Auberge D Bay look interesting cos judging by reports on TA which weren't really complimentary a year ago when I was looking I was expecting something that was less luxurious than the pic looks - will be interesting to hear what you think as no doubt future trips that'll be where we stay as HKDL keeps pricing itself higher.

 

[zanzibar138]

Hmm it must have improved since you were looking. Most of the recent reviews are 4-5 stars. Only one recent 2 star review, and that was because the pool area was closed during winter, and there was no toilet brush in the room (???) lol! TBH I wouldn't have cared if the reviews were just average - it was more about the location and convenience.

Really looking forward to Kanchanaburi though, it really does look awesome!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Looks like you're nearly all set!

 

[zanzibar138]

Not much more to report for this trip really - pretty much all set. We've decided to book the train from Hat Yai (just across the Thai border) instead of Butterworth, as first class carriages are available from there. We'll just get a ticket for whatever seats are available on the Butterworth-Hat Yai section. The train leaves in the afternoon, and will only be an hour or so to Hat Yai, so even if there are only non-airconditioned hard seats left, we should be able to manage.

We've both got our passports ready, no visas required, and I've confirmed our pet sitter. One of the girls at work thinks she might be able to get us discounted park tickets through a family member CM, so I'll wait and see how she goes with that before buying them at full price.

I know we've only just come back from Christmas break really, but work's kinda getting me down at the moment, so really looking forward to this little break!

 

[zanzibar138]

TR is underway

 

[zanzibar138]

Wow I haven't done much here for a while! Time to resurrect this thread and get our Vietnam trip a bit more planned. So far we have just booked the flights - it worked out a lot easier to just fly into Saigon and out of Hanoi, so we'll have to make our own way between them. SIL and her DH are still a little up in the air on their return flight, so that might change. We actually had a hard time convincing him to come along (what crazy person wouldn't jump at the opportunity to go away when they have business class airfares provided for them?!), but I think eventually SIL wore him down. They are considering coming home via Thailand.

DH and his parents will be flying up to Singapore on the Friday in business class on Singapore Airlines, and staying the night in town. They might wander around the Gardens by the Bay, or perhaps have a go on the Singapore Flyer.

Me, SIL and her DH will be flying up to Singapore on the Saturday, also in business class on Singapore Airlines, and meeting DH and his parents at the airport for our connecting flight. We'll all take the short flight up to Saigon together (still in business on Singapore Airlines).

After a week or so in Vietnam, DH and I will fly out from Hanoi on the Sunday, in business class on Singapore Airlines again. We'll leave at about lunch time, connect through Singapore, and land in Bali fairly late that night. We will be in Bali for a week doing a fully inclusive business course, so that needs no planning. I can't remember if DH has booked our flights home yet.

DH has just booked SIL and her DH onto a flight home from Bangkok another week later (so they will be away for about 2 weeks), in business with Singapore Airlines. Once we leave Vietnam, they'll just do their own thing and make their way to Thailand whenever they want to.

MIL and DIL are currently booked on a flight home a few days after that (so they will be away for about 2 1/2 weeks), in business with Singapore Airlines. Unfortunately there was pretty limited availability for this return flight by the time DH got around to booking it, so they will be away longer than we were originally planning, and will have to go through Adelaide. DH is going to keep an eye out for a more appropriate flight for them.

So my job is to plan the week that we all have in Vietnam together, with an itinerary that takes us from Saigon to Hanoi. It's not going to be the easiest trip to plan. We want to spend more time in central/northern Vietnam for MIL and DIL since they weren't allowed in that area 35 years ago. We'd like to show them some things in the DMZ like the Reunification Bridge and maybe some of the war tunnels. We'd also like to take them on the train. However, SIL and her DH would consider that to be a terrible holiday, and wouldn't enjoy it at all. They would be uncomfortable on overnight trains and in rural guesthouses, and enjoy more water based activities like beaches or waterfalls. We'd also love to go somewhere we haven't been before! Only having a week to make it from south to north, and not wanting to move around too much for MIL and DIL's sake, we won't have time to visit more than a couple of different places. We'll be able to rush it a little bit, because once we leave the others will have another week or so to enjoy things at a more leisurely pace.

Some possibilities I'm considering are:
* Dalat (short flight from Hanoi/Danang, we haven't been there, has some nice looking waterfalls)
* Ninh Hoa (on the train line, small coastal city near national parks, we haven't been there)
* Hoi An (not far from train line or airport in Danang, relaxed atmosphere with coastal aspect, we've already been there)
* Hue (on the train line and has an airport, cultural significance, close to DMZ, we've already been there)
* Dong Ha (on the train line, right in the middle of the DMZ, not much else around and limited accommodation)
* Ninh Binh (on the train line, great national park type area with limestone karst and caves)

As you can see, definitely no time for all of them!

 

[zanzibar138]

After a short planning session with SIL and her DH (henceforth to be referred to as DHIL haha!), I have some more concrete ideas about our possible itinerary. Here's what I'm working on...

Friday: DH and his parents will fly out, stay in Singapore. I'm looking at accommodation within a 10 minute walk of a train station in the city centre, preferably on the same line as the airport to make things easier for them. I think our budget will have to stretch to $150 per room.

Saturday: SIL, DHIL and I will fly into Singapore and meet up with the others as we all make our way into Ho Chi Minh City on an evening flight. I'll be looking at mid-range accommodation in the centre of HCM, with a budget of around $80 per room per night. I'm still toying with the idea of just having one night in HCM as it's really just a transit point.

Sunday: Some sort of day tour from HCM. We won't bother with the tunnels, as we'll be seeing some other ones later in the trip. Maybe a Mekong Delta tour, or even just a city tour. SIL and DHIL may opt to stay at the hotel for the day if it has a pool.

Monday: Fly out to Da Nang and transfer to Hoi An. We'll be looking at staying in the same place we did last time, which was around $65 per room per night for a basic room. Our time in Hoi An will mainly be spent just sight-seeing at our leisure, either walking or hiring bikes. SIL and DHIL may want to spend some time at the nearby beach (I believe there was a free shuttle from the hotel). If we leave HCM after one night, we'll add that night on here.

Tuesday: Sight-seeing in Hoi An

Wednesday: Transfer back to Da Nang, perhaps via the Marble Mountains which we didn't see on our last trip. Take an afternoon train to Dong Ha. The route from Da Nang to Hue is particularly spectacular, with mountainous jungle on one side and the sea on the other side. The hotel I'm eyeing off in Dong Ha looks quite luxurious, but is ridiculously cheap given the untouristy location, at about $60 per room per night.

Thursday: Do a morning tour of the DMZ, including the Reunification Bridge and the war tunnels in Dong Ha. We all agreed that we think it's important for MIL and FIL to do this, since the DMZ was still in action last time they were there and the north and south were still very much separate. We also all agree that MIL can be quite sensitive about these things, so will not be visiting the sites of any massacres or anything, and will want to keep the tour as light as possible. SIL and DHIL are not at all interested in that sort of stuff, and will probably spend some time by the pool at the hotel. Thursday night we'll jump on an overnight train to Ninh Binh. With 6 of us, I think we'll just get 2 cabins between us. The cabins have 4 berths, so we'll be paying for 2 extra, but overnight train travel in Vietnam is cheap, and I think it will be worth it to keep it as just us - that way we can come and go between cabins as we like without having to worry about bothering anyone.

Friday: Ninh Binh is a lovely looking area, with plenty of amazing limestone karst scenery and a few caves and lookouts. There are a few lovely looking guesthouses that have bamboo huts built on the river. However, DHIL refuses to go without air-con, so I'll have to spend a bit more and book some slightly less character accommodation. Alternatively, the place with air-con that I'm looking at is pretty close to one of the guesthouses that I was looking at. It's possible that one place might not be able to accommodate all of us anyway, so perhaps we can just stay down the road from each other. The guesthouse provides free bikes for getting around the area. At the hotel you have to pay for them, but I'm sure it wouldn't be much.

Saturday: Sight-seeing in Ninh Binh

Sunday: Get an early train up to Hanoi for our flights out. DH and I will be flying out to Bali at lunch time, and SIL and DHIL are looking at flying to Phuket or Ko Samui around the same time. We'll plan an itinerary for MIL and FIL for another week, with some time in Hanoi, plus a Halong Bay cruise and maybe a couple of days at an authentic homestay or something.

It will be a fairly rushed week, but I think very enjoyable, with a couple of new places for me and DH, and I think a good mix of destinations/activities for everyone. I'll have to start booking the accommodation, since I'll be needing 3 rooms everywhere. I don't want to have to split us up if I can help it!

 

[zanzibar138]

We now have a definite plan for our Vietnam trip.

* 1 night in Singapore (for DH and his parents)
* 1 night in HCM City for acclimatisation
* 3 nights in Hoi An
* 1 night in Dong Ha for brief DMZ tour
* 1 night on overnight train
* 2 nights in Ninh Binh

I had a massive brainwave about where to send DH's parents to finish off their trip too. I remembered that MIL knows someone living in Siem Reap (she's all about visiting people while they're away), so we're investigating the logistics of sending them there after their Halong Bay cruise. If we're running short on time, we might even ditch the Halong Bay cruise since they would have already seen the limestone karst scenery in Ninh Binh, we don't want to make it too rushed for them.

 

[zanzibar138]

And now the planning begins for next year's anniversary trip...

So far we know that we'll be starting the trip in Penang, but would like to spend most of our time in Borneo (as we had originally planned this year). The good news is that next year we'll have 2 weeks to play with, so will be able to give Borneo a bit more time.

We'd still like to do the trek we were planning for this year, and also spend some time in Kuching and Sandakan. I'd love to do a 'safari' since we've got the extra time. I've found a jungle lodge I love the look of where they regularly see orang-utans, pygmy elephants and wild cats. There's another gorgeous looking place in the middle of the rainforest where there's even a chance of spotting leopards, but unfortunately it is way over our budget and also a real pain to get to. Depending on how much time we've got leftover (I'm guessing not much), we may spend a night or two in a nice Kota Kinabalu resort on the way home.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Ooh! An East Malaysia trip. Awesome.

 

[zanzibar138]

Going to start booking accommodation for Vietnam today.

DH finally got SIL's return flight locked in. She's spending an extra week in Phuket after leaving Vietnam. Her DH and his friend are going to spend an extra night in Phuket and come back on Jetstar business. I hope he's not expecting it to be like the Singapore Airlines business he's getting on the way over On the plus side though, we get our Velocity points back (SIL is coming back on Qantas), so we can use them for our anniversary trip.

SIL has also made some decisions about their accommodation. I found an abandoned water park near Hue which elicited the first positive response I have seen from her DH about the whole trip, so I've added that to their itinerary as a day trip from Dong Ha while the rest of us are doing the DMZ tour. I suggested that it might work better if they actually stayed in Hue instead of Dong Ha, but SIL is happy to back track from Dong Ha.

We've decided that SIL and her DH will stay in the air-conditioned hotel in Ninh Binh, and the rest of us will stay in the traditional bamboo bungalows at the homestay next door. Now SIL has just gone and thrown a spanner in the works by booking an early morning flight out of Hanoi - I'd been working on flights leaving at lunch time, which would give us plenty of time to get to the airport in the morning. Their options will now be to take the train up to Hanoi the night before and spend the night there (the last train for the day leaves at about 5pm), catch a train from Ninh Binh at about 2:30am, or spend a bit of extra cash and arrange a driver to take them to the airport in the morning. I'm guessing they'll go with the last option. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to get to Hanoi on the train, then another half an hour to get to the airport, compared to about 2 hours to drive straight there.

Now getting onto the finer details of looking at tour operators etc. We'd like to do a day trip in Ho Chi Minh City, perhaps to the Mekong Delta, but FIL isn't a good passenger at the best of times, so we're thinking getting straight into a van in Ho Chi Minh City and driving 90 minutes to the delta may not be the best start to the trip. I have found an alternative, a tour by speedboat, but it is rather exxy. To save money, we could go with the van, which would be a private tour so we could ask them to include lots of stops along the way for a breather. Or we could just stick with a walking tour in the city. I think the in-laws would prefer to see more of the countryside though. We won't bother to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels, because we will be exploring tunnels as part of our DMZ tour.

Speaking of which, there are several DMZ tour operators, but most seem to depart from Hue, which seems to defeat the point of staying in Dong Ha. There is one mob in Dong Ha who get pretty good reviews, and the guide is a Vietnamese veteran. They do a fairly basic tour just taking in a few of the less threatening sites, so we might go with them.

In Hoi An and Ninh Binh, we'll just play it by ear a bit and organise tours and activities as we go - I'll just go in with a list of options that I've researched beforehand.

 

[zanzibar138]

Yay got most of our accommodation booked in at lunch time today! All pics from the interwebs...

For DH and his parents, I have booked superior rooms at the rather unassuming looking Hotel 81 Osaka in Singapore.



The standard room wasn't available, but I think it will be nicer for them this way anyway - at least they'll get windows in their rooms lol! DH liked this one because (aside from being under budget) it's quite close to the hotel we've stayed at previously, so he'll be confident finding his way around the area. It's just a short walk from Outram Park Station (which connects directly to the airport), and there's a great food court not far away.

In Ho Chi Minh City, I have booked 2 standard rooms at the Duc Vuong Hotel, and one superior (availability again). The superior seems to be slightly larger with a window and an extra single bed.



We won't be at this place for long, but it seems to be in the middle of town, close to a few attractions if that's what people decide they want to do. The selling feature for me was the great rooftop bar (love a rooftop bar at a hotel in Asia!).

In Hoi An, we chose to stay at the Vinh Hung Emerald Resort again (DH and I stayed there on a previous trip). I have booked 3 deluxe rooms (their most basic room type).



Absolutely loved this place last time we stayed there! It's on a island in the river, so it's far enough away from the hustle and bustle to be nice, but close enough to be convenient. Hopefully this time around we'll have enough time to enjoy some of the features like the pool and complimentary river cruise. SIL and her DH may enjoy the free shuttle to the beach. I mentioned that it was a surprise trip to celebrate an anniversary, and said that anything they could do to make the trip extra special for MIL and FIL would be much appreciated, and I've already got an email from them confirming that they will make special arrangements!

In Dong Ha, I've booked 3 deluxe rooms (their most basic room type) at the Muong Thanh Quang Tri Hotel. This seems to be quite a big hotel chain in Vietnam, and this is one of their newest offerings.



It looks lovely and luxurious, and was absolutely dirt cheap (because they don't get many tourists staying overnight in the area).

Finally, for DH and I, and MIL and FIL, I've booked 2 traditional bamboo bungalows at Nguyen Shack in Ninh Binh.



While this (believe it or not) was the most expensive accommodation on the Vietnam section of the itinerary at $76 per night, these little shacks looks amazing with all the mod-cons including ensuite bathrooms with hot showers, wifi and mini fridges (and all the traditional charm of the bamboo construction and balcony hammocks). The only thing they don't have (which is why I didn't book one for SIL) is air-con.

Glad to have the majority of accommodation locked in now and know that we can all stay together at the same places without having to get too carried away with premium room types!