Backpacking Abroad - Travel info for backpacking in Thailand, Laos, China & Vietnam

Is getting into Bangkok going to be an issue at 1am?

It looks like my flight options from LAX are landing at 1 am in Bangkok or spending 13 hours in Taipei and landing at 12 noonish or stoping once in Taipei and once in Hong Kong and arriving at 1 pm. Is getting into Bangkok going to be an issue at 1 am? Should I get a room by the airport and head for the center of town in the morning? The price difference between flights is about $100 so I’m not worried about that, but if 1 am is going to make my first night/morning difficult I’d rather work around it somehow.

unhealthyman, May 21, 2008

I’d suggest plunging in the deep end and heading into the centre of town. For peace of mind you may well want to book a place in advance though for the first night, because being jetlagged at homeless at 1am in a place like Bangkok can be a bit of a shock to the system.

spog, May 21, 2008

I’d come at 1am.

There will be no traffic and you should get into the city centre in maybe 40 mins (after an extremely fast taxi ride!). There will be plenty of taxis at the airport, so no worries there. Plus, the airport is less crowded, so it’s easier to get through.

And as an added bonus, it will be cooler at night, so you won’t get such a climate shock when you arrive.

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What is it like to travel through China by train?

Pompous Rhombus, Sep 13, 2007

Trains in China aren’t really that expensive. My personal recommendation for longer trips is hard sleeper (unless you’ve got a group of 4, then soft sleeper would be pretty ideal), because you get to meet people but still travel in relative comfort. You can only reserve a couple days in advance though, and if you’re traveling near a holiday, consider yourself lucky to get a hard seat. I spent 25 hellish hours in a hard seat from Beijing to Xining last summer, it blew asshole. People smoke, stand/sleep in the aisles because they don’t have a ticket for an actual seat, etc. Would be okay for a few hours though.
China is also really fucking hard to get around in if you don’t speak Chinese or have someone with you who does.

ReindeerF, Sep 14, 2007

China + Sleeper = smoke filled compartment.

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Tags: Transport

What can I expect on the island of Koh Chang?

Robotrobotrobots, Jan 16, 2006

Everyone i talked to seemed really impressed by the beaches and the atmosphere.  To me the beaches looked like dirty, muddy strips of shit.  I didn’t really find anything pleasant about the island.  Its just a road that loops around the island fringed with typical shitty souvenir shops.

The inside of the island looks nice, i think you can stay in a place way up in the mountains.  That would be kind of cool but the beachside accommodation didn’t really do it for me.  There are some waterfalls, but they’re all over run with yelling, littering tourists being total fucking jerks.  My highlight was renting an auto scooter and driving around the island at a million miles an hour.

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Tags: Motorbikes

What foods can I look forward to trying in Cambodia?

Pompous Rhombus, May 03, 2008

The food in Cambodia kind of sucks. Cambodia and Laos both have baguettes-a-plenty. If you see it, try an ice-cream baguette.  It sounds weird, but really hits the spot on a hot day.  I’ve only seen the ice cream baguettes sold off of motorcycles… if you see someone driving slow with a metal icebox looking thing on the back/to the side, good chance is they’ve got ice cream on board.

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Tags: Food

I’m doing a quick jaunt in Cambodia, what can I see in one week?

Ribsauce, Apr 29, 2008

I knocked out all the major stuff in under a week. Flew into Phnom Penh the night before the water festival.
Day 1: Checked out the water festival all day which was nuts. 1 million people in like 8 city blocks and every village in Cambodia has their own 30+ person canoe they race and everyone goes nuts. There are ferris wheels (ride a ferris wheel in Cambodia…no thanks!), vendors, and everything. It was really cool. As I said, there was over a million people in this festival spread over like 1 square mile. I did not see 1 other white person.

Day 2: The next day I hired a motorcycle at like 7am, saw the Killing Fields, the Tuol Sleng prison, and thought about how shitty people were and spent the rest of the day depressed something like that could happen.
Day 3: The next day I rode a bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep.
Day 4 & 5: Spent 2 days at the Angkor Wat.
Day 6: Took a bus back to Thailand, although if I knew how awful the bus was going to be I would have paid 75 bucks more and flew if Siem Riep had an airport (not sure if they did).
Anyways, all the big things in Cambodia could be done for in a week. I would have liked to leave the beaten path but my timetable did not allow it.