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I'm afraid you can stop hoping, because with current airplane technology, direct flights between East or Southeast Asia and South America are effectively impossible.
The maximum practical range of today's best planes hovers around 8,000 nautical miles. The longest flight ever flown commercially anywhere was Singapore Airlines' Singapore-Newark service at ...
31
Looks like Wat Chaiwatthanaram in Ayutthaya, Thailand, north of Bangkok:
(courtesy Justin Vidano via Wikimedia)
While the tubular central Khmer-style prang does indeed look a bit like Angkor Wat, the red brick is distinctively different and the tilted chedi dome (right in the original, far left in the photo above) and the brick terraces all around are ...
17
The article Don’t Touch My Child! Lessons from Asia by Cordelia Newlin de Rojas at InCultureParent.com article may be of interest.
I can’t speak for all Asian cultures but in Singapore and Thailand, people love kids. And I am talking everyone. Age and gender simply don’t factor in. At first, I admittedly found it a little disconcerting how so many people ...
17
It's easy, use the hose! while you're sitting on the toilet seat, direct the hose to your private area (do not insert it there, of course), press and get yourself cleaned.
This answer explains how to use the hose.
15
Is going via Australia or New Zealand not an option? Qantas 27 runs direct from Sydney to Santiago, Chile every other day, while LAN Chile 800 runs the same route daily with an intermediate stop in Auckland, NZ. There's also Air New Zealand 30 that flies from Auckland to Buenos Aires, Argentina, but it's Fri-Sun-Tues only.
answered Jul 17 '16 at 13:27
UnrecognizedFallingObject
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11
The answer is going to depend on your exact itinerary, but my sneaky suspicion is that hubbing out of Kuala Lumpur and flying Air Asia everywhere would be the cheapest way to do it. Not only is Air Asia cheap and ubiquitous, but the passenger taxes & charges at KUL are noticeably lower than in SIN.
That said, Kuala Lumpur's LCC terminal is a bit of a ...
9
The best way to get cell phone service throughout Southeast Asia is to buy a SIM card in each country; probably at the airport when you land.
You can buy a SIM at most international airports with minimal wait. Less than $20.00 US will usually last you for a week (voice, data, SMS, and tethering). The greatest overhead will be for them to potentially copy ...
8
Usually questions like these get closed as subjective, but in KL's case I think there's a pretty objective answer: The Petronas Towers!
(courtesy me)
Especially at night...
(courtesy Someformofhuman, Wikimedia Commons)
Sure, there are taller skyscrapers these days, but (IMHO) few are prettier, and nothing else in KL that you can cover in an hour comes ...
8
The bad news is that there's no sensible pan-Southeast Asian solution nor one in sight. There are no operators that cover the whole region, or even more than a country or two, and thanks to nationalistic telecoms policies and the lack of something like the EU cracking heads, this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
The good news is that prepaid SIMs are ...
8
None. I have visited all those countries and I wasn't asked about insurance by any country (we have free medical care back in my home country but I think that's irrelevant).
A note about your credit card's insurance: if you plan to use it, just make sure you are eligible for it before leaving the country. In most cases, you have to buy the ticket using that ...
8
No, you're not going to find anything cost-competitive with LCCs, meaning a few hundred dollars. (That would barely get you from Sydney to Brisbane.) You can count the number of SE Asia to Australia cruises per year on your fingers, and both markets consider the other exotic and desirable, so there's plenty of demand as well.
Random sample: Sydney to ...
7
According to laos-guide-999.com:
If you don't have photos you will be asked to pay a small fee (few dollars) for scanning your photograph from your passport, and placing it onto your visa application form.
Another opinion from wikitravel:
passport photo is/may be required (although you may be able to pay a US$1 "fee" to have this requirement waived) -...
6
I think you were disappointed because the most famous Lao dishes have become popular in Thailand and a lot of the food you find in Laos without a local to help isn't really Lao food but Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and French food.
The most famous Lao dishes have to be larb and green papaya salad. I never saw these on offer in non-touristy Surat Thani in ...
5
Given the proximity to Thailand, and the migration between the two populaces, as well as cultural migration, there's always going to be some crossover.
Wikipedia actually has a page on Lao cuisine. It notes the most famous Lao dish would be Larb (ລາບ) - "a spicy mixture of marinated meat and/or fish that is sometimes raw (prepared like ceviche) with a ...
5
You can go camping in the Phou Khao Khouay national park north of Vientiane. In the Nah Ha park, you can stay in some bamboo huts. There is also a campsite at the Tad Leuk Waterfalls. I am sure there are more.
So to answer that part of your question, there are campsites.
Sleeping outside in an unprotected area by yourself can be tricky by the way since ...
5
Since 1978 Côte d'Ivoire has been the world's biggest producer of cocoa with production of 1.65 million tonnes, more than nearby Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo combined (1.55 million tonnes) and West Africa produces two thirds of the world's cocoa crop.
At the time this question was asked Côte d'Ivoire had no chocolate factory in country. However in May ...
5
Well, depending on what you mean by multiple-entry, yes you actually can!
The thing is that China actually distinguishes between three "entry numbers" (that's my term, not theirs):
Single entry
Double entry
Multiple entry
So if you want what China means by multiple entry, three or more entries, then I defer to the other answers on this page, in which case ...
5
On my previous trip I ended up getting my Chinese visa in Vientiane, Laos.
The price was much lower than in Australia.
I picked it up the day after I applied for it.
The consulate never had more than two or three other customers so no queues and waiting and the staff were available for "what do I put on the form here" type questions.
The only hard thing is ...
5
You have alternatives in most countries. In Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, I've found it useful to rent mopeds with <100cc engines. While they are regulated, and while I have a license, very often, I don't get asked for it.
Three big advantages over motorbikes:
a. you're most comfortable driving them at 20-30 km/h (most of them max out at about 50) - ...
5
I don't have a complete answer, but I think you can actually get pretty far by ferry alone.
There's a ferry between Puerto Princesa and Iloilo City.
You can get there by taking the ferry from Balabac to Bataraza and driving the rest (although there should also be a ferry between Bataraza and Puerto Princesa).
Although I don't know any ferries to Balabac, ...
5
Laos-Myanmar bridge awaits juristic acts
Laos-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in Luang Namtha province in the northern parts of the country has yet to become an official international border as the juristic acts between the two countries have not been completed. Pending the completion of the requisite juristic acts to be passed, it has now opened as a ...
5
Short answer: travel insurance that you purchase beforehand from a reputable organization can cover you in case of accident on a two-wheeled vehicle (and possibly in case of loss).
Long answer: Tons of posts and travel forums are dedicated to this issue, and I spent hours reading them both before and during my five months in SE Asia. The best way to make ...
5
beforehand
read reviews and search them for your keywords, e.g. "fire alarm", "escape routes", ...
check the hotel website for information on the property and make your own guesses. I would be more concerned about earthquakes in a high-rise hotel than in a wooden bungalow on the beach, whereas in the latter a tsunami might frighten you more
at the hotel: ...
5
I plugged "Mexico, anywhere" to "China, anywhere" for a random Friday in August into Skyscanner, and it only throws up one-stop connections - no direct flights. Ditto going to South Korea, India, Singapore. However, there is a single direct flight from Mexico City to Tokyo (14h on Aeromexico).
On a Saturday, I can see a direct flight from Tijuana to ...
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