Opinions on SEA trip.

[Akkis]

Hi. My first post so please bare with me. I am 25 years (male) old and am thinking about doing a trip to SEA for about 6 weeks in October or Novemeber. I was thinking of traveling to Thailand from NYC (ticket cost $1200 roundtrip).

From there I was hoping to go to a few other countries beside Thailand. I would love to go to Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore. As you can see I am a little all over the place.

While I was thinking of doing this for 6 weeks I could go for a bit longer. My question is I will most likely be traveling alone through this entire trip. Will I be safe? How much money do you think this trip will cost me. I am hoping to travel cheap and mainly carry a backpack and my little digi camera.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[simply_angelic]

Haven't travelled SEA, but hopefully our SEA travelers will be around soon to help you out. Sounds like a phenomenal trip though! And I would say that you will 99.9% be fine on your trip (safety wise) as long as you have a good head on your shoulders.

[worldwidemike]

Absolutely, it is safe. There have been a lot of Tpunkers traveling in South East Asia, and not a one has had a serious, negative experience that I know about. Thailand is an excellent choice to start. It is a great introductory country, being well set up to receive international travelers.

I recommend seeing Bangkok for at least a few days, to start with. You may have read old posts from me recommending traveling by river to get around. It's a boat called the Chao Praya River Express (if memory serves), and it stops along the river near lots of cool temples. If you're interested in that kind of thing, read my Thailiand entry on my travel website (link is in signature). You can hire a tuk-tuk driver -- a small cross between a motorcyle and golf cart -- to take you around the city, as well.

Anyway, I haven't been to Vietnam, but I did quick trips to Malaysia, Cambodia and Myanmar. And a number of other Tpunkers recommend Laos, for its rural, laid-back and "off the beaten track" feel. I wouldn't start there, though. Wait till you have a couple weeks of travel under your belt.

Feel free to post any questions, but definitely keep planning the trip. It sounds great...

[hdtee]

Hey, I'm a 21 year old staying in Singapore and I've travelled to quite a number of countries in SEA. Of course, the great thing about SEA is its low cost of living and generally friendly people (though you must know where to draw the line at)

Bangkok is an excellent place to start, went there myself some time ago.
Things are pretty cheap with simple tees costing less than 200 baht.
(200 Thai baht = 6.6846 U.S. dollars).

People in Thailand, Bangkok generally speak thai and show utmost respect to their King. Very simple English is understood like if asked "This, how much?" and they would reply with the amount.

IMPORTANT: Avoid wearing red as riots in Bangkok happened in May 2010 and the people riotting wore red to represent themselves. Although you most prob dun look local, just to be safe.

Things to Do:

Places to shop:
Siam Square Area (Filled with tons of malls ie. MBK, Siam Paragon, Siam Square)

But if you're looking for a wide variety of clothes/items to buy with v.cheap prices, you must try Platinum Mall. It's is like a giant mall that operates with hundreds of stalls selling from clothes, accessories to shoes and bags etc.

Another damn must is Chatuchak Weekend Market . Go google it and see it for yourself. It's rumored to be one of the world's largest outdoor market that opens only on weekends (so says in the name) and it closes quite early like 5pm so go early! And of cos the prices there are a steal! 'Cos they operate like a wholesale market. Eg. One shirt cost 200 baht, 20 shirts cost 2000 baht (100baht/piece!!!) halved the priced?

Places to visit:

Many temples and palaces to visit but if you had to choose try Grand Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun. The first two are practically side by side so you can try. Remember! To bring long pants along, the Thais have a strong sense of respect for the religious places and the royal family (especially their king!).

Interesting Note: Do you know in all the cinemas in Thailand, the national anthem is played with a video of their King? And everyone had to stand up while the anthem is played? So be careful of what you say about the royalties over there.

Others:

Travelling around is quite simple. The tuk-tuk (something like a motorcyle with a backseat for passengers) can be utilized or rather tried for experience sake. Other than that, don't try it more than a few times because they quote a price before you board. And what they charge is usually more than what a taxi will charge if they go by the meter. What's even worse, the tuk-tuk drivers earn by commissions with some shops, so they might try to pull you to some stalls (meaning you spend time detouring).

So your solution is to flag a cab (all are air-conditioned) and the first important thing you must do is to ask ,"Taxi Meter?". If they say no or hesitate, be a smart tourist and go for the next cab. Dun waste your time they're about as many cabs there are as people. Unless you know roughly how much the trip would cost, normally dun trust the cabbies' quote of price.

Bangkok's traffic jam is well known so try to avoid transport-taking during peak hours if you wanna avoid them.

Buses and Trains are not advised as they usually charge as much or even more if you take the cab.

Safety shouldn't be an issue.
Just try not to walk alone at night OR accept strange offers from men about thai girls.


Anyways after Bangkok, you can always hope onto

1. Cambodia for Angkor
Locals there normally dun understand english, only to a bare minimum?

2. Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)
Locals there speak English though Malay is their main medium.

3. Singapore
We speak English 'cos it's our main medium though we have quite a diverse racial community.

Anyways since I'm from Singapore, I shall introduce it a little bit.
We're formerly a British Colony but now an independent state. Singaporeans are generally formed by migrants from China, Indian and other SEA countries. Thus our main racial groups are Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians and many others in that descending order of population. So what you get here is a melting pot of cultures. Food or rather delicacies of various countries can be found on this tiny island (approx only 700 km2 area) from local delicacies to Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Italian, Turkish, and of cos American. Trust us we are always bringing in new fast food restaurants. Places to visit includes shopping malls, Sentosa island with a new Universal Studio, many mini islands, Zoo and many others.

Just to let you know about my little state. It's quite interesting and we're much more than just a city about "fines, caning, capital punishment".

Let me know if you wanna know about SEA and especially Singapore!

Hope you have a wonderful and exciting trip!

HD

[tumblezweedz]

Hi hdtee - thanks for the little blurb about Singapore - I was there several years ago with two of my daughters, and we had a wonderful visit. Singapore is probably overlooked by a lot of travelers, but that's a pity because it is a really interesting melting pot. With young daughters, just riding on public transit was fun, since they were fascinated by all the women in their respective traditional clothing, sitting next to people in grey suits!

[hdtee]

Hey tumblezweedz

Glad to hear that you've enjoyed your trip from Singapore. You were here for how long a duration? Well i guess there are a few reasons to why ppl overlook S'pore; too small a country? boring? very strict rules and regulations? compared to other SEA countries.

Haha, that's quite a nice outsider insight to Singapore 'cos personally I overlook all these details. Been mixing with different races since I was a kid and running about with all the other kids. You get to know various fascinating little nuggets about different races and religions.

Let know if you're coming back again and I'll update you about what's new here.

HD

[tumblezweedz]

We just spent four days there - a welcome warm break in the middle of a long, snowy winter! Another thing that makes it a good destination, especially for inexperienced travelers is that an English-only speaker can easily experience all the country has to offer, but still experience the mix of such varied cultures. We were living in Japan at the time we visited, and it was nice to be able to understand everything for a short break!

[hdtee]

Yup, unique point for Singapore which can be good OR bad for some.

1. We're a tropical country located near the equator ie. so no winter season for us. Over here, we only have "2 seasons".

Super sunny! OR Super rainy!

Haha. So you can only imagine there's many Singaporean dying to experience a snowy Christmas every year.

2. Yeah, english is the main medium of language for us. It's compulsory for us to take English as a 1st lang in school before taking our mother tongue as 2nd lang. Haha. Well but so to some foreigners, Singapore don't seem to be so "exotic" as her other Asian counterparts like Thailand, Indonesia, Japan etc.

Agree with you on the newbie travelers having an easy time as their first few time travelling to Asia countries. It's quite convenient to plane-hop to other Asian countries from Singapore!

[Marcus Nappy]

whats the cost per day in Singapore? In SD if possible