Day 1: We arrived at the Phuket International Airport very early in the morning. Before you fully exit the terminal building you see different taxi vendors with price listing. The prices for airport taxis in Phuket are outrageous compared to Bangkok. If you google “Phuket Airport Taxi Mafia” you will know what I mean. Anyways, after getting various quotes from 900 THB to 700 THB we finally settled on an operator offering the latter. For the first night we were staying at the Doubletree Resort on Surin Beach and the next night was in Le Meridien near Karon Beach. The …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2015: Phuket Trip Report
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2015: Bangkok Trip Report
Day 1: We arrived at the Don Meuang International airport from our Air Asia flight from Bali around evening time. We took a cab to our hotel Ramada Plaza Menam Riverside. By the time we checked into our hotel and freshened up it was already dark and time for dinner. We took the hotel tuktuk to the neighboring Asiatique Night Market. The Asiatique night market is located next to the Chao Phraya river (and approximately a 10 minute walk from the hotel). There are a huge number of shopping and dining options here. Even if you are not interested in …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2015: Bali Trip Report
Day 1: We arrived at Ngurah Rai International Airport at Bali around 10 in the morning by Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur. I had already booked Sanny from Sanny Bali Tours for our 2 days stay in Bali to drive us around in his Toyota van. He came highly recommended by the posters in Tripadvisor Bali forum. Sanny was waiting in arrival hall for us and after a brief stop to pick up some local currency, he drove us to our hotel (Sheraton Bali Kuta Resort). After checking in and freshening up, we had lunch at a local cafe. Next we …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2015: Kuala Lumpur Trip Report
Day 1: We arrived at Kuala Lumpur by Air Asia early in the morning. After passing immigration and customs, we made our way to the Air Asia Skybus desk. We were staying at the Le Meridien right on KL Sentral train station and I had booked an airport transfer from KLIA2 terminal to KL Sentral on Air Asia Skybus for 9 RM/person one way. One can take the KLIA Express to the same train station or take a cab but since we were in no rush, the bus seemed the best option for us. Pretty soon we were on our …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2014: Phuket, Thailand Trip Report
Day 1: I arrived at the Phuket Airport around noon and after looking at the various published fares for different taxi companies negotiated one down to 500 THB. I am not sure if I overpaid by a little or by a lot but I wasn’t going to let that ruin my vacation. 🙂 The cab ride is a short 15 minutes and after passing the other two Marriott properties (JW Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa and Marriott’s Phuket Beach Club) I arrived at the Renaissance property. Hotel Review: Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spa After getting to my room, I took a shower …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsDecember 2013: Vizag – Araku Trip Report
For the last 2 years my parents (and our extended family in India) have decided that we will take a short 3-4 day trip when I visit India each year in December. This is one trip where I don’t use any miles or hotel points. In fact my parents and rest of the gang don’t even let me take my wallet out for anything, not even meals. This year the plan was to take the night train from Kolkata (my home city in India) to Visakhapatnam (Vizag for short) on Christmas Eve and stay there till December 29 and then take another …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2013: Maldives Trip Report – Day 4
Since this was the last day of our stay at the resort, we wanted to make the most of it. Because our flight left at around 11 PM, the front desk notified us that we had complimentary late checkout till 2 PM and after that we could leave our luggage at the reception and leave on the last outbound speedboat at 8 PM. We went to the beach early to spend at least 3-4 hours swimming. Pretty soon it was lunchtime. We went back to our room and took a shower and then headed to the Bokkuraa Club. After lunch, …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2013: Maldives Trip Report – Day 3
On Day 3, we woke up early and had a quick breakfast. Karen had signed up for a complimentary snorkeling trip at the house reef . The trip starts at 9:30 AM and snorkeling gear rent is free for the trip. There were about 8 people on the boat plus the 3 man crew and 1 instructor. It takes only about 10 minutes to get to the house reef which is somewhere between the Kandooma resort and the Cocoa resort. The snorkeling trip lasted about 2 hours and then we were back on the island. We decided to walk some …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2013: Maldives Trip Report – Day 2
We woke up early and Karen decided to make some freshly brewed coffee using the french press in the room. The resort is pretty expensive when it comes to food. We brought some breakfast snacks like cake, dry indian sweets, chips, crackers for breakfast supplies for the 4 days we were here. We only ate at the restaurants for lunch and dinner. After breakfast we decided to walk some more around the island. After walking and taking lots of pictures for about 2 hours we decided to go to the poolside. Karen had signed up for a complimentary basic …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2013: Maldives Trip Report – Day 1
We arrived at the resort by speedboat from Male around noon. After an expedited check-in we were shown our sea-view beach house. After freshening up we decided to do a quick tour around the island. You can walk around the entire island in about 20 minutes. Since we are after all in the tropics, pretty soon we were dying to get into the water to cool off. The water is warm and clear with almost no waves in the swimming areas. After spending about an hour or two (who counts time during vacation? :)) we decided to move to the pool. After …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsJanuary 2013: Singapore Transit Trip + Flashback from 2007 Singapore Transit Trip
On our way to Maldives we had a long connection in Singapore. Since we had already taken advantage of the free guided tour of Singapore arranged by Changi airport in 2007, we decided to venture out on our own. This time we wanted to see the Skypark at the somewhat recently opened Marina Bay Sands Hotel, billed as the most expensive standalone casino property of the world. We found out that one of the best ways to get to the MBS is to take the East – West line (in green) from Changi Airport and then switch to Circle line …
Asia Destination Trip ReportsDecember 2012: 24 Hours in Bangkok
I was actually only in Bangkok for 22 hours but who’s counting? 🙂 I arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport at around 1 am in the morning. First thing was a short trip to the currency exchange counter at the airport. I have read that you get a better exchange rate at the city counters or withdrawing cash from ATM’s but I was in no mood to maximize the currency rate. However, one thing I would definitely advise everyone is to avoid currency exchange counters at US airports. The USD-THB exchange rate at LAX was about 15% higher than what was offered …