Southeast Asia Travel Journal

I’m just seeing news that Indonesia plans to cancel the 7-day visa on arrival. Effective 2 February 2010, the only VOA available will be the 30-day visa for US$25. The Indonesian Tourism Ministry was trying to appeal the decision, but it doesn’t appear likely at this late date that the situation will change.

Be sure to have the right amount, in US Dollars, with you when you arrive in Indonesia. I’ve personally seen cases of people being grossly over-charged when paying in Euros or other currencies.

Update – 9 February 2010

Having just returned from Bali, I can confirm that the 7-Day visa is indeed history. However, it will probably come as no surprise that the Indonesian government has realized there’s one little glitch in their plan – or three little glitches to be exact – the islands of Bintan, Batam and Karimun in Riau province, which get thousands of visitors from nearby Singapore each weekend. The Jakarta Post reported today that the 7-day visa will remain available for these three islands.

Posted by michael under Travel News
Tags: Indonesia • Visa
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Here’s an upcoming even that I really wish I could attend: The central Vietnam city of Danang will host and international fireworks competition on March 27th and 28th 2010. It will be the third year running that Danang has hosted the event, which will have teams from the US, Japan, France and Portugal competing. More than 60,000 people are expected to visit Danang for the event.

Sorry, there doesn’t appear to be an official web site.

Posted by michael under Events
Tags: Danang • Fireworks • Vietnam
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I just got off a dive boat yesterday, after spending five days cruising and diving through the Similan Islands of Southern Thailand. I won’t bore you with the details of the diving except to say it was spectacular, and very fun. We spent new year’s on the boat, and managed to set off a lot of fireworks without blowing up the boat, although not for the lack of trying. Actually all the boats around us also had fireworks, so if you’re a diver, spending new years eve on a dive boat in Thailand can be a quite memorable experience. You can keep an eye on my SEA Undersea site for more details.

I’m spending a few days in Khao Lak before heading back home to Bangkok. I’m staying at the Bhandari Resort, and I’m quite pleased with it so far. The location is perfect, for me. The beach is just across a small service road from the resort, and Khao Lak’s “main street” with all its shops and restaurants is only a 10 minute walk away. Most of the rooms here are in small Thai style buildings. I had reserved a standard room, but at this peak time of the season they had trouble getting the people to leave the room(s) they wanted to put me in, so in the end they upgraded me to a bungalow room. (It probably didn’t hurt to hang around the lobby waiting for a room, rather than take them up on invitations to use the pool or have lunch. It wasn’t that I was impatient, the two options just didn’t appeal to me at the time.)

My bungalow room is quite large, with a king size bed, sitting area, mini-bar, bathroom with shower as well as an outdoor tub and shower. Although, you’d have to be quite an exhibitionist to use the outdoor shower, as it’s not very private! There’s a large porch out front, and a small sala over a lotus pond just in front of the room.

Breakfast was good, although nothing spectacular. There was a good selection of items, but it was all pretty standard. There’s a large pool that is popular with the many families staying here. It doesn’t look like the pool nazis have taken over the place, as there were very few towels out when I went to breakfast.

I took a walk up and down the beach after breakfast, but I have absolutely no plans for the next few days. It’s nice for a change!

Posted by michael under First Impressions
Tags: Khao Lak • Thailand
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