Guide Updates

Love them or hate them, airports are a practically unavoidable part of the modern travel experience. They’re almost always our first introduction to a new city, or even a new country, and let’s face it, they don’t always make a good first impression. You arrive disheveled and disoriented after up to a full day of travel, only to be faced with confusing procedures and persistent touts.

Unfortunately, the official web sites of most airports aren’t much help. If they even exist, they’re often out of date or don’t even attempt to answer the key questions that travelers seek answers to.

To help you navigate the maze of policies and procedures around Asia, I’ve created Asia-Airports.com. The new site presents information about each airport in a simple format that I hope makes it quick and easy to find the details you need to help you plan a trip.

To start with, Asia-Airports.com covers more than a dozen of the most used airports around Southeast Asia. More will be added in the near future.

I’m pleased to announce the release of another in my ‘eGuide’ series of download-able mini-guidebooks. The latest guide is "Off the Rails in Bangkok" and covers the sights of Bangkok that are easily accessible by the rail and river boat networks. Many of Bangkok’s most well known sights, as well as some "hidden" gems, are easily accessible by the city’s train, subway and river boat system. This eGuide takes you on a tour of many of these places, which includes traditional Thai houses, Chinatown, and the sprawling weekend market.

The new guide joins the first two in the series, "Bangkok’s Big Three" and a "Chiang Mai Walking Tour" guide. The content of the guides, most of which is taken from ThailandForVisitors.com, is enhanced with margin notes giving you background information and bits of trivia you won’t find anywhere else. You’ll find far more detail than you’ll get from any travel guide, in a small format that’s easy to take with you.

All of our web guides are delivered in Adobe Acrobat (’PDF’) format, a universal document format that can be displayed and printed on any computer, as well as a wide selection of hand-held devices, using the free Acrobat Reader.

As a result of my trip to Kep and Kampot described earlier, I’m pleased to announce the further expansion of the AsiaForVisitors guide to Cambodia to include the province of Kampot. The guide includes the usual information about the sights described here, such as the Bokor ghost town and Rabbit island, as well as links to hotel booking sites, travel and transport information.

As a result of our recent stay in Railay, as first described here, I’ve updated the Krabi guide and added a whole new guide to Railay at ThailandForVisitors.com. The new guide includes hotel advice, transport information and detailed descriptions of the main sights of the area.

The Asia for Visitors guide to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat has been completely updated.

The guide to Angkor Wat covers over 30 monuments, including off the beaten track sights such as Beng Melea and Kbal Spean. Information about the historical background of places and what to see is complemented by high quality photographs and in some cases satellite images of the ancient temples.

New information on Siem Reap includes a short list of recommended restaurants, shopping suggestions and guidelines on how to be a responsible tourist.