Travel plan idea blog

Singapore-Malaysia travel plan

A travel plan in progrees for next summer, one that should be good for my in-laws, my parents, my wife, and me.

1. Fly to Singapore. Check into the hotel. If it's early visit some of the cool temples. Get some dinner. Go to the Singapore Zoo night safari.

2. Take the bus to Kuala Lumpur. Sure there's lots more to do in Singapre, see an alternate beginning to the Singapre-Malysia travel plan below. Check into the hotel. Get some dinner.

3. Go to the Petronas Towers to get your free tickets. They will be for some time later in the day. Depending on how much time you have, this would be a good opportunity to visit a mosque or a museum and maybe get lunch. Go to the Petronas Towers. Go to one of the open markets. If you're buying fake Luis Vitton and Rolex, haggle. If you're tough you can get them down to nearly half price, although we never did get them to knock off 50% my wife had fun trying. Get some dinner. See a show (maybe a traditional dance). On the way back to the hotel you might want to get a coconut. They'll chop it open, pour the juice into a big plastic bag, shave some coconut into the bag, stick a straw in, and tie it up. It looks funny and I didn't like the taste, but at least I tried something new.

4. The next day you should go to the Gardens. There's a bird park which is expensive but good and a petting farm with some very fat deer. Walking around the gardens is relaxing if you're not too hot. You should finish well before 5:00 and have time to go to some more museums and mosques. Then you can go to the old train station which is very cool looking. You can also walk around the colonial district of downtown Kuala Lumpur.

5. Go to Langkawi. I've never been there but it should be better than Penang. Relax on the beach for a few days.

6. Go home.

Alternate:

1a: 1. Fly to Singapore. Check into the hotel. If its early, check out some of the cool temples. Get some dinner. Go shopping.

1b (day 2): On your second day in Singapore, go to the Singapore Zoo. Then go to the Singapore Zoo night safari. You can get a discounted ticket by going to both in the same day as long as you pay all at once.

1c (day 3): Go to Sentosa Island. The cable care ride is pretty good. Hit the beach, take the monorail, do NOT miss the aquarium (one of those tunnels where the fish are above you and on each side). Having lunch outside the acquarium can be exciting, not because the food is good, but because the Peacocks are pretty aggressive about getting some of your food. I could ahve passed on the Dolphin show, but it was pretty good. Just remember you'll be sitting in the sun and there's basically no shade anywhere.

2+. Same as above.

Silluk-sa Temple - Day trip from Seoul

Silluk-sa Temple is about an hour away from Seoul in Yeoju. It is the only Korean temple located on a riverside, which also makes it one of the few that you don't have to hike up a hill or mountain to get to. The views of the river are said to be excellent, but there's currently some renovations on one of the Pagoda's (one that is supposed to be wroth seeing).

More travel warnings

It's sad that we have to think so much about safety before making travel plans, but it's reality. Here's a travel warning for New Zealenders that I imagine applies to most of us. The focus is violence and the areas affected are Southern Thailand, Israel and Palestine, and in Papua New Guinea's Mt Hagen and Highlands provinces and the cities of Port Moresby and Lae.

Mobissimo - good or bad?

Mobissimo has officially launched its travel search engine. I went to mobissimo.com and tried a search from ICN (Incheon) to PRG (Prague) this January (2005). I clicked on the cheapest result (which was very expensive at 1600+/ticket and got a nice little note about how I was being sent to a US web site and that prices were in US dollars; it's nice to know what to expect.

Anyway I saw a 20 hour trip from Seoul to Tokyo to London to Prague. Now that doesn't sound like a good vacation! I tried Jan. 21 (a little better) - 22 - 23 - etc. What I'd really like to see is a button for people like me who are flexible. I'll fly whwnever I can get the best connections, but I don't want to ahve to try 20 different dates to figure it out. I might just end up using a travel agent after all...

One more try, an easy one: Incheon to Sydney. Feb 8 - Feb 15 = 1567.00 (for 2) on Qantas through Onetravel. Feb 9-16 = 1553.00 (for 2) on Asiana through Destina. Feb 10 - Feb 17 = 1575.00 (for 2) on Asiana through Travelocity. I'm still willing to call a travel agent to see if they can arrange something better. None of those deals strike me as unbeatable.

Travel agencies

Here's an interesting article about how travel agents are having trouble staying profitable. While the travel industry is still recovering from 9/11, many travelers are now shopping for travel online. One travel agent had this to say:

If all a traveler is doing is booking a $199 plane ticket to Orlando, then it probably makes sense to do it online, McCabe said. Where the company makes a difference is in more complicated business trips or vacations, and when something goes wrong.

Personally, I check things out online and then call a travel agent to see if they can find somehting better. Many times they can, but not always.

Phillipines travel warning

I read about this travel warning on http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/02/content_2168388.htm

The US State Department has renewed a travel warning barring nonessential travel to the Philippines, particularly in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and neighboring islands of Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu.