Four of the cheapest travel destinations in South East Asia. Mumbai is a surprise addition in the lsit

Source: Tripadvisor


This is no surprise to see KL, Bangkok, Hanoi in the cheapest or value for money destinations in tripadvisor list. Couple of surprises though. One is missing Jakarta, and other is the Mumbai.

The rates seems not too far from the experienced rates which is quite an issue with the international surveys like cost of living surveys or expensive cities survey.

As you can see KL hotels are the cheapest at 92 per night and I have not found a hotel in Mumbai for 120. I think the tour activity in KL is the reason which is causing the KL rank to go down but if I eliminate I am sure this would be the valuest place in the world. Even the taxi rates are one of the lowest and considering the quality of ride, this would be much better than other places.


Most expensive places have the usual suspects and Singapore is in the bottom list but still the most expensive in south east asia, and second most expensive in Asia.

The problem with Singapore is mainly with hotels and dinner of 150/person is not really something I personally experienced. One could have a better dinner at less than $70 easily. Probably the Wine is the main reason for the price as Dinner includes a bottle of wine to share and if I eliminate that probably SG would go out of top-10.

In any case, I would still prefer south ease asia hotels for service. They are far better than any western hotel in EU/US given the value it offers. Be it the  comfort, room types, amenities and most importantly the service.

Five Star Hotels and cheap tactics to eat money. e.g. Paid Wi-Fi, cheap accessories

I am not sure when does the hotels around the world realized that Wi-Fi is probably the most basic need these days. With exorbitant roaming charges complimented by horrible speeds no wonder the first thing people does is to look for WiFi in any place.

What makes it frustrating is when you are on a business travel, and Hotels provide Wi-Fi for the sake of it but unusable options. i.e. Lack of speed or lack of stability or long user id, password combinations.

Places like Starbucks or Restaurants started to provide Free Wi-Fi and we can see how vastly it improved our experience. For myself, I will look for Starbucks when I need to send some e-mails or do some urgent work. Of course, some parts can be improved (especially in Thailand, where they will force you type 12 digit user id, similarly long but with special character password  to get on) but overall no complaints.

But paying couple of hundred dollars for a night stay, and going through the Bad WiFi experience really makes me annoyed. In the first place, why can't the property give Free Wi-Fi to all. Irrespective of one stays in the hotel or not, people need connectivity and it would be wonderful to have option to use WiFi. I love Shangri-La for that and Hyatt started to follow suit. I seriously hope Sheraton and other major groups start to follow.

Second thing is the 'free tooth brush' or 'coffee' they provide as part of the room. I guess most of the frequent travelers carry their own brush and daily stuff but why can't they spend a dollar to provide some acceptable quality stuff? Anyways, enough of complaining and I will stop here. But still, free Wi-Fi; It's a birth right of every individual :)

Air Asia - X Cuts Indian routes to Mumbai & Delhi from Malaysia

Source: CNA

You'd be surprised to hear the news that a carrier is cutting the capacity to India. We all used to hear the news how world is looking at India and how carriers are expanding in to India. But the fact is compared to the potential the actual traffic is close to zero. Look at Indonesia or Philippines or even to Srilanka (I stopped comparing to China. They are two generations ahead in each and every single aspect), all these nations are 'attracting' people while we are stopping them at our doors.

The reason sighted by Air Aisa is because of 'higher charges'.
Cut because of rising "airport and handling charges" and visa restrictions hampering travel between India and Malaysia.


If you check the charges the charges in major Indian airports are atleast double compared to the region. Compared with worldclass Changi in Singapore Mumbai charges 2.6 times. Same with Hyderabad, Bangalore & Delhi.

One may argue Singapore need tourists so they might be subsidizing it. Fine, then how about comparing with bangkok or Jakarta or Manila. All these airports charge half or less than Indian counterparts.

The overall cost structure is so terrible, it costs the same for a person to travel to Chennai (3hrs 45min) or Sydney (7 hrs).

Expensive/restricted landing rights, airport charges & bureaucracy coupled with terrible process adherence is crippling the industry and causing a terrible image issue to the country.

Similar:

http://srichakrak.blogspot.com/2012/01/visiting-india-felt-like-penalized.html

Changi..

Just landed at Changi after few weeks of travel. What a great feeling to be back to home. Within the first week of my travel, I started missing the 'simplified services' of Singapore, efficiency of public service/transport. Most importantly the 'distance'. i.e. travel distance or driving distance from one place to another place. I love this very much in Singapore and being a city state, the country offers 30 min drive to any corner of the island :)

Oh yeah, I missed another 'unique' stuff which is sleeping without air conditioner :). I explored the option of sleeping with my windows open and with a fan. Trust me, I can have a wonderful sleep and the my mornings were wonderful too. 

Power sockets.. Hotels

I am travelling quite extensively these days and I'm quite surprised at one simple thing. This is with the power sockets in the hotels.
As you may know or experienced in the past, different countries use different kinds of power sockets. I'm not quite sure why they need to or what're the political/technical reasons behind that (you may refer to wikipedia if you are interested to find more)

Most of the hotels are happy to supply power adapters/converters but in the first place why can't they simply implement universal sockets where travelers doesn't have to bother about connecting the ugly and bulky adapters.
I'm sure the costs outweigh benefits in the user satisfaction and compared to the amount of money/resources these hotels waste, I'm sure the change doesn't cost a lot. I was quite happy when I saw the EU decision to standardize mobile phone chargers. In the same way, hope there will be some standardization on the other commonly used electronics to simplify our lives.