Thinking of doing a tour of Southeast Asia + Australia - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

jeremywilhelm · 07-08-2009, 09:39 AM

So im leaving my job to go back to school after christmas. I've been working pretty steadily and havent got to travel much in the last 3 years (i used to travel several times a year), and am thinking im gonna take a month off before school and do a little tour of Asia and Australia area. Probably places are: Australia, New Zealand, Bali, Thailand, Fiji.

I've been to thailand alot, i was just wondering what the CP braintrust had for ideas, reviews, thoughts, tips and such for where to go, when to go, what to see and who to talk to on the trips to make the most of it while im there.

Thanks in advance guys.

valo403 · 07-08-2009, 10:11 AM

That's a lot to attempt in a month. If I were in your position I'd cut that down to 2 places max, Australia alone would take you close to a month if you wanted to see most of the places and actually have time to enjoy them.

MaxPower · 07-08-2009, 10:11 AM

I used http://www.timetogobackpacking.com/P...Itinerary.html for my asia trip. They gave me some good ideas of where to go.

Bownesian · 07-08-2009, 10:30 AM

If you're in southeast asia you should consider a swing into Siam Reap, Cambodia. There are hundreds of ruined (some rebuilt, some not) temple complexes there including one of the wonders of the ancient world, Angkor Wat, that sat swollowed by the jungle for 500 years.

The scale of the structures, the level of detail in the bas-reliefs and the amount of access to ancient monuments are unrivaled anywhere I've been. The town is safe (basically built to accomodate tourism) and you have a range from disneyesque hotels with pools to 10$ a night places that are perfectly servicable. We toured temples for 3 days, hiring a guide and a taxi driver for day 1 and just the driver for the subsequent days.

This place made the Pyramids seem so-so.

valo403 · 07-08-2009, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bownesian

If you're in southeast asia you should consider a swing into Siam Reap, Cambodia. There are hundreds of ruined (some rebuilt, some not) temple complexes there including one of the wonders of the ancient world, Angkor Wat, that sat swollowed by the jungle for 500 years.

The scale of the structures, the level of detail in the bas-reliefs and the amount of access to ancient monuments are unrivaled anywhere I've been. The town is safe (basically built to accomodate tourism) and you have a range from disneyesque hotels with pools to 10$ a night places that are perfectly servicable. We toured temples for 3 days, hiring a guide and a taxi driver for day 1 and just the driver for the subsequent days.

This place made the Pyramids seem so-so.

I'm planning to go to Siam Reap at the end of August, if you have any advice or particular hotels you'd recommend it would be appreciated.

jeremywilhelm · 07-08-2009, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxPower

I used www.timetogobackpacking.com/Plan_Your_Itinerary.html for my asia trip. They gave me some good ideas of where to go.

Wow, seems like a really good free website!

WesternCanadaKing · 07-08-2009, 11:55 AM

I agree with valo, you should cut down on the amouth of places you're going for that amount of time. But in any case, this would be a good itinerary in going from Asia through Australia to New Zealand.

Lots of people go from Bali and fly to Darwin when coming from Asia. A couple days there would probably be enough (Kakadu is supposed to be amazing though, lots of great crocodile cruises). You could go south from there to Alice Springs to see the Rock and all that stuff around there (Kings Canyon, etc), and then go down through South Australia to Adelaide (you could stop in Coober Peedy on the way, a very cool town thats underground). While in Adelaide you could go to Kangaroo Island, its a great day trip. If you like wine, South Australia is a good region for that too. Then take the Great Ocean Road over to Melbourne, spend a couple days there, and then head north to Sydney. You can get really cheap flights from Melbourne to Sydney, but you'd have to bypass Canberra (which seems to be a place you either love or you hate). From Sydney you could go to New Zealand. You could probably do that in 2 weeks or so, and it'd take you to all the major Australian sites.

Rerun · 07-08-2009, 12:08 PM

When you're in Asia, don't pay more than 25% of the asking price. If you pay more, you're getting ripped off.

I got this, right from the horse's mouth.

Bownesian · 07-11-2009, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by valo403

I'm planning to go to Siam Reap at the end of August, if you have any advice or particular hotels you'd recommend it would be appreciated.

Our Driver's name was Lory Loy. His email was loy-holiday@yahoo.com and his phone number back then was (855) 12 927 731. If you could be so lucky as to get a gentleman like this, you'll have a great time. He took us to a different perfectly lovely restaraunt for all our meals and acted as a tour guide for days 2 and 3 (day 1 we paid for a proper guide to introduce the different styles of the temples and whatnot - worth it). We gave this info to a friend of ours who used Lory's services when she was there and enjoyed him too. He was at our service from first thing in the morning until supper.

We stayed at Big Lyna Villa:
http://www.angkorhotels.org/Big_Lyna.../accm_roomrate (20$/night)
The room was clean and perfectly servicable. Our only requirements for accomodation were that they had to be clean (i.e. no insects) and air conditioned so this may be more basic than many people are hoping for. If you have kids and you want something with a pool, you can pay 100$+ a night for a 4 star hotel.

The temples and whatnot are in a "park" of sorts and back then you had the choice of a 1-day, 3-day or week long pass. 3 days is plenty as by then you'll be all templed out. It was at the park entrance that we hired our official guide. Try to get up early in the morning as it gets really hot on those monuments mid-day.

The Cambodians were doing their best to build a modern tourist economy there (there were maybe a dozen huge hotels catering to rich Chinese going up 5 years ago) so it may not be quite as charming as when we were there.

FlamesFaninTO · 07-11-2009, 01:27 PM

My G/f and I covered the same areas but we did it 9 weeks and it was pretty rushed. No way you could do all those places without running from place to place and missing lots of cool stuff. We loved NZ and I highly reccomend Taupo and Rotarua if you are interested in hiking, rafting, skydiving, bungee, caving etc etc. We did all of those and had a blast.

Definetly agree with others recommending Siem Riep and Angkor Wat, it was definetly worth the trip to Cambodia even though I got deathly ill while we were in another part of the country, Phnom Phen. We stayed at a nicer place in Siem Riep that was about 80 bucks a night because I still wasnt feeling tip top that was really nice, beautiful pool, great food, really relaxed; Maison De Angkor. Two or three days is plenty to see the best of Angkor and not get too templed out.

Overall I dont think you can really do justice to Aus/NZ/Thailand/cambodia etc in a month, might be best just doing Aus/NZ, maybe could get to Bali too for 4-5 days but SE Asia and Aus/NZ in that time would be really rushed IMHO.

Bownesian · 07-11-2009, 02:17 PM

Good point about limiting things. We did a month in just Thailand, Cambodia and Southern Vietnam and it was rushed. My inlaws bought a car in NZ and Oz and spent about a year in each. I've heard great things about New Zealand - great people, tons to see and do, from a number of well-traveled people. Seeing as I have been to SE Asia already, I'd probably spend my month touring around in NZ.

One destination you didn't list is Nepal. Mrs. Bownesian and I went there for our honeymoon back in 2000 and it was fantastic. It's hot with jungle up to about 10000' and loads to see and do (highlight for us was an eliphant ride in a national park where we saw a leopard (about a 1 in 100 chance) but didn't see the rhinos (about 90 in 100 chance), plus a multi day white water rafting trip and some trekking in the terraced hills near Annapurna mountain). The nugget we learned on that trip was to not book anything in advance. We overpaid by 1000's of dollars because we booked our tour from Canada. You can hire a porter and a guide for less than 10$ a day and can do all the cool stuff we did, staying in tea houses for 2-3$ a night.