However, it is still better than cash exchange rate. Just as a guide, when I change my ringgit into bahts, I managed to get 9.7 bahts for every ringgit I changed. Now, compaared that with American Express which gave me an exchange rate of 9.8 bahts for every 1 ringgit. The best would have to be both Visa and Mastercard which gives me 9.93 bahts for every 1 ringgit. Though it may not sound like much but the amount we spend for the entire trip was nearly RM5,000 which at 2% would mean a good RM100 saved.

So hopefully my little experiment above will help you plan how you spend your money in future. Always as a guidelines, I will only use credit cards at reasonably reputable establishments like hotels, food chains or departmental stores. Cash would be used for hawker like environment.

Tags: thailand, credit, card, mastercard, visa, american, express, cash

I accidentally discovered the place over the internet. Though it wasn’t on most online accomodation websites when I booked it in January, somehow I decided to search for Accor group accomodation in Bangkok and got the link from there. Initially I was skeptical as I was given the rate of US$68 per night. I would have thought it would be a budget class hotel. But the photos from the site and the explanation that it has good free tut tut services made me booked the place. I spread the words among friends and there was a friend who happened to go before me. He came back and told me that the place is worth every penny we paid for.

Let me give you a quick rundown. As of this date I write this post, it is a 6 months old hotel. So you can be sure it is brand spanking new and the bathtubs probably is still a virgin. It is big and comfy too I might add. I have a lot of photos taken on the rooms but I have yet the chance to process them. So do hop over to the hotel website to look at the photos. Trust me, though they are taken professionally, they do resemble the hotel rooms unlike most other hotel photos where the photos always seem much better than the real thing.

Here in the room, you have separate shower and tub. There is even a digital scale in the bathroom which accurately weighs you to the last 100gram. It has ironing facilities, safe deposit box, minibar, coffee/tea facilities, etc. You don’t need to bring anything at all, as the towel is clean and comfy - not your usual run of the mill type. I have stayed in Grand Sheraton and Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur before and let me tell you this, this Pullman hotel won’t lose out too much to them. Perhaps the former two has a lot more luxurious fittings but other than that, everything else is on par.

Bed is king size and can compete with Westin’s heavenly beds. Somehow I feel most 5 star hotels provide relatively similar mattresses. Personally I would prefer a harder mattress, but missus preference would be softer like the one in Pullman. It has a soft top but hard bottom. Therectically it allows your body contour to slip comfortably on.

Bathrobe is pretty comfy as well. So is the 32″ Samsung LCD TV. There is wireless internet on the LCD TV if you subscribe to it. But I managed to find a 10bahts per hour internet cafe outside the hotel so there wasn’t really much of a point to use their internet services.

All in all, it is a great value hotel. Though I paid US$68 per night for it, i have seen it rising to US$85 now. Still given the current rate, I would prefer to go back to it on my next trip. That’s how good it is.

O yeah, the downside. You need to walk very far to get to your rooms and if you didn’t know about the free tut tut service which is located on the side entrance of the hotel, then you need to walk very far to anywhere.

Tags: Pullman, Bangkok, King, power, great, value, hotel, good, bargain

Our favourite place for shopping was infact Pratunam. However because of the immense heat, we decided that going into Platinum Fashion Mall is a much better idea though we may be forced to pay slightly more. Nonetheless when compared with goods back home for similar quality we got to save a lot more.

Our main purchases was children’s wear (which is perpetually expensive in Malaysia), sleepwear (better choice and variety at very good prices), footwear (again better variety) and t-shirts. My last foray in Hong Kong’s G2000 clearance where I netted nearly 20 pieces of shirts will last me into my retirement age (provided I don’t grow any fatter). I doubt Thailand could match the price and quality of the G2000 purchased before.

However, I remember buying a brand called “No Problem” about 6 years ago in Thailand and up till today the T-shirt still looks fresh and new even though it has been subjected to my daily usage. So this trip it was yet another round of whipping up the goods. I think I bought around 8 t-shirts and another 8 polo shirts. All up it costs me around 3,000 bahts which is cheap considering i will be spreading them on a budget of maybe 7-8 years. Yeah, I can be a boring person when it comes to fashion sense even though I did indulge myself in italian fashion some moons ago.

So all in all, this place comes highly recommended by yours truly. Oh, if you managed to save some money from this tip, send me one of ‘em “No Problem” T-shirts eh?

Tags: bangkok, holiday, shopping, trip, platinum, pratunam, fashion, mall,

Actually I do not know why it is more expensive to travel the same distance but it seems that going from Bangkok city to airport is cheaper than the other way around. One thing, the 50 bahts surcharge by the airport taxi counter makes the going more expensive.
I got into the metered taxi from my hotel and because it was the first day of Songkran there was virtually no traffic on the road. And maybe because of that, I managed to save quite a bit. It was 25 bahts for toll charges and another 175 bahts on the meter. Grand total of 200 bahts. And because it was reasonably cheap, I gave the taxi drive an extra 50 bahts as he was rather friendly and polite.

Somehow I got the feeling the tipping is no longer the norm in Bangkok as even a 20 bahts tip could get you very far with the person profusingly thanking you for it. I don’t know about other travellers but I do hope that if you have received good services (which I had on many occasion this trip) do tip them a little as their basic wages is actually quite low when compared with even Malaysia.

Tags: thailand, bangkok, taxi, cab, fare, airport, city,

I had looked up the net before coming that one of the best and fastest way to get from Airport to city would be via the taxi. But beware of touts. Yeah the same problems that we have in KLIA. Unfortunately the KLIA system seems to be practiced in Bangkok here and the taxi must licensed to pick up passengers. A friend of mine who was here a few weeks ago was scammed by the touts after paying a good 1,000 bahts and worse, he did not get to go on the highway and took more than 1 hour to reach his hotel.

I knew there was this taxi counter at the airport. follow the signs which says public taxi and you will get there. You need to pay an extra 50 bahts plus whatever is shown on the meter and the toll charges. This works out to be around 170 bahts on the meter and another 65 bahts on the toll charges. So total would be 285 bahts and I took 30 minutes to get to the same hotel as I recommended my friend who paid 1,000 bahts to a tout. This option is definitely much cheaper and faster.

So remember, take a taxi from the airport and ask the taxi driver politely to use the expressway. This option is definitely much better than the airport limo which is 1,200 bahts and express bus at 150 bahts per person. Express buses takes around 1 1/2 hours to travel according to my new found indonesian friends. that is until they finish building a new skytrain (BTS) link to the airport.

Tags: transport, airport, bangkok, city, taxi, bus,

Let me start right from the beginning when I arrived today. The flight on Air Asia was reasonable though I was a bit unhappy that they did not inform us that they have retimed the flight. We wasted 1 hour waiting in the airport. Had an extremely busy morning. The holiday was planned a few months ago so the hectic schedule was not anticipated when we booked the flight.

Reaching the airport, yet another incident. Apparently Air Asia do not provide you with embarkation cards so you need to get it from the airport. And for those who had been to this airport, this airport is about as confusing as KLIA. I thought I got the correct embarkation card from an officer and after filling it up, I lined up promptly for immigration clearance. However, I was told that it was the wrong card. And while filling up the “correct” one, i think there is two planeloads of tourists from Hong Kong and Korea as the queues in the immigration had began to build up. I seek the immigration officer for help as I was given the wrong card initially but no, you still have to line up. Nevermind, don’t let two events spoil my holidays.

This proved to be the end of any misfortune as thereafter everything went pretty smoothly. Stay tune for the adventure of Fat4 the travelling blogger.

Tags: bangkok, international, airport, air, asia, immigration, retime, hong, kong, korea, thailand, malaysia, travelling, blogger, blog

Planning how much you intend to spend overseas is important. And one good way to gauge is to find out the living standard of that particular country against your own country. For example, I know Thailand’s living standard is rather close to Malaysia, so I will ask the question how much would i intend to spend based on the costs of malaysia which is to include three square meals, some transport allowances, some snacking allowances, shopping allowances and touristy thingy allowances.

Personally, this is what I normally do for overseas travel. I will use Thailand as an example since I will be there before the end of the month. For Thailand my personal budget is set at RM200 per day per person. So since I am going there with missus, I will set RM400 per day. But out of this entire sum, I will only change enough for RM200 per day. The other half, I will use credit card to pay. Factually, credit cards exchange rates are quite favourable and good. Normally the first few days, I will use credit cards wherever they accept them. Then towards the end, I will check to see if I am above or below my budget. If I am above my budget, I will have to use credit card to cash out. If I am below budget, I will stop using my credit card and use cash for most transaction to leave me with minimal foreign currencies when I leave that country.

Normally the rule of thumb states that the best exchange rates are normally those found at home. First you have an avenue to go back to the exchanger and re-changed the money back to ringgit at competitive rates. Usually because you are exchanging from home, chances of being cheated (which can be quite rampant in some countries) is minimal. Even if you need to change while overseas, make sure you exchange them from official and good bureau.

Tags: money, exchange, bureau, foreign, currencies, credit, cards, transaction, purchases.

It is their introductory offer and with taxes and everything you are paying like S$230 per way. Let me say, it is cheap. Cheaper than most other airlines. And with the money saved, you can stay at better hotel. So be quick before the tickets run out.

Tags: jetstar, asia, singapore, melbourne, australia, cheap, return,

It is simple. We have friends in Perth, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne. And relatives in New Zealand. So it will be one of those, just pay for air fares and then we plan from there sort of holidays. Now, where do we fly off from Australia to New Zealand will be a bigger headache. I have done the entire Australia. My missus on the other hand has yet to do Sydney and melbourne. Personally I prefer to fly via Sydney but if I am not mistaken, it will have one of the highest airport taxes.

Sydney has been home to me for a great 7 years and I have not been back for more than 10 years. Perhaps it will be a good time to go back and take a good look eh? I have friends in Sydney who would provide me good accomodation and even a car to use during day time while they are at work. Plus I still have belongings in Sydney which I want to examine closer and send them back to Malaysia. I was told that in that pile of treasures contains some previous love letters from my ex-es to me and vice versa. *LOL*

Then it will be to Auckland and Wellington from there. I have no idea what itinerary will be planned but if it is Sydney, I will bring them to dine out at all the places which I used to craze for. Don’t know if I want to pay for overpriced Tetsuya who used to cost me a penny when he first arrived in Australia. O well, back to planning board.

Tags: holiday, australia, new, zealand, perth, brisbane, gold, coast, sydney, melbourne, auckland, wellington

1) Siam Square area including Siam Paragon, MBK, Discovery, World Trade Centre, etc. It is the same as KL’s Bukit Bintang, Singapore’s Orchard Road, Hong Kong’s TST, Shanghai’s Nanjing Road, etc.

2) Pratunam Wholesale Market - It is believed that this is the place where a lot of its trader will stock its goods from local factory. Most of them would buy those branded goods at a fraction of the retail price and sell it here in Pratunam. I have been told that the more you buy, the cheaper it will be.

3) Chatuchak Market - I don’t think I will be going to this supposedly Asia’s or possibly the world’s largest open air market.

Any other sites for shopping? Any tips on what to eat or shop for in Bangkok? I truly appreciate all tips and advices.

Tags: shopping, thailand, siam, square, chatuchak, pratunam, wholesales, paragon, MBK, discovery, world, Trade, centre