KhunDave

This site has details of a schedule change for CNX-TPE from 28th March, not very specific with the operating days unfortunately:

Airline Routes

Interesting that you have them in February. Here in Chiang Mai we always get them in May.

In reality you are fine here. In practice I'd take along a print out of the rules just in case you run foul of the wooden-tops at Heathrow.

I've been having intermittent problems with them since about Tuesday. Speed varying from excellent to dial-up. Torrents downloading at good speeds, but absolutely will not seed at all.

cheers; I'm on an aircard and too slow to make AA bookings that way so will head to an internet place 4km away - worth the trip I came back from Penang yesterday on cheap fares I bought last year, in May we head to Phnom Penh at the crazy cheap fare of 290b each way.

Hmmmmm and the full story, how much are the taxes

Air Asia are pretty straightforward with their pricing - unlike some LCCs. The airport taxes are shown in the pricing menu and they are the exact same amounts as are levied by the respective airports. They don't charge fuel supplements. The only slightly questionable fee is the recently introduced "convenience fee" for paying with a credit or debit card. The attempts to add on insurance and other extras, and the perverse mouse clicks needed to remove them are also a bit disapointing. However compared with say, Ryanair, I think Air Asia do quite well.

Just had Siam TV to do mine, use them every year. 450Bt per unit all in. Turn up when they say they will and no scams.

22 Feb, "Bigger Than Big" - check out ad number 1 on the Air Asia homepage.

Another vote in favour. Used them many times over many years, never a problem. They're usually near the top of the best-price league.

Details of the parent company:

Gold Medal

thx for the answers,how far the way by bus and boat from KL to penang?

price aproximently for the flight?

must i booked in advance,or is it not nesarsarly?

Air Asia's very best prices need to be booked far in advance. For the second half of April you are looking at 2300 to 3000Bt for KL or 1700 to 2000Bt for Hat Yai. This is a useful site for checking Air Asia prices:

AA Plus

A few snaps from Saturday afternoon:

Drove by for a look this afternoon. Francesca's Italian food and pizzas, eat in and take away. Not open yet, but pretty close I would say - they were setting up tables inside.

I saw that too. The fact that the price was in written Thai script was a little like visiting National Parks, where the Thai price is cleverly written in Thai script.

Wow...imagine that...writing signs in Thai in Thailand...how dastardly sneaky of them...surely this practice of posting signs in a country's own language in that country is something only done in Thailand and nowhere else

Fair comment, but it is rather noticeable that Thailand is quite happy to use "farang" numerals for many, many things, but not so happy to do so when dual pricing is in effect.

Try to book a flight on their website cheapest return I could come up with including taxes (somebody got to pay them ) is 3630TB

A bus to Mai Sai is between 600 to 750 TB return + 500Tb for the privilege of walking across the bridge (does that get paid to the troll that lives under the bridge?)

Anyway I believe everything that is posted on this forum and there is going to be a Hooters soon in CM I saw the pic

I strongly suspect that the guy who posted that was pulling our leg.

However the Singapore deal can be had for much cheaper than you state; after you add airport tax, the total is just 2420 baht for a RETURN. Note that Air Asia promotional fares are as-is, no surcharges or anything. The only thing they add is the (rather exorbitant) airport tax charged by the Thai Airports Authority.

Sadly Changi have recently raised their airport tax to a similarly exorbitant 760Bt equivalent. Makes KUL a somewhat cheaper visa-run option now with their tax being only 275Bt equivalent.

We've got family living about 40km from Khao Pra Viharn, just heard from them by phone. There's been continuous artillery fire since around 7pm tonight. Lots of people from the border have been evacuated and are staying in the local school. The Thai army have ordered all electricity to be cut to reduce the risk of Khmer troops firing into lighted areas. Sounds scary.

This place is beautiful:

Golden Palm

Not exactly a budget option, but cheaper than the Maldives and very convenient to KLIA.

Its because of the new airport taxes in the UK for long haul flights, most people now go to Europe first then long haul to avoid it.

Exchange rate is better now than it has been for last 3-4 months.

It's often considerably cheaper now to hop over to Amsterdam first on a low-cost carrier, and then take the long haul flight from there. The Dutch have abolished their departure tax because they realised that it was driving people away. The penny hasn't dropped yet in Westminster.

No problems. I do it all the time

Agreed. I have also used the return sector only of a two-way booking several times, it's not a problem.

Agree 100%. Went just after it opened and it was bad, gave them a few weeks to see whether it was teething troubles and then went again. Still bad. Way over-priced for the area, service chaotic, and as you say very stingy portions. It won't last unless they sort it out.

Had the same problem, and had the same thoughts about travel agents.

So I called one, and was told that China Air will cease flying into CNX, I think end of February.

You also may want to contact a travel agent to verify this.

Sad news if so, but perhaps someone like Air Asia might view their withdrawl as an opportunity, for them to start another new-route out of CNX ?

Their newest route to Hat-Yai starts next week, their slightly-older route to Phuket is now up to twice-daily, and CNX-Singapore is also crying-out for a new LCC to start flying ! Here's hoping !

Air Asia is flying CNX-SIN from today, daily flight.

Need to visit the area on Saturday and Sunday, in Chiang Mai at the moment. Can anyone advise whether there is Red Shirt activity planned this weekend, and if so whether it is necessary to avoid the place?

@ KhunDave - i have google translated the Doi Sureya site. It seems to state that only telephone reservations are possible and not online reservations. I wonder about this.

Also the site shows little cabins but the translation for one which i looked at states it has 1 bedroom, 1 bed, 1 bathroom but can sleep 2-3 people?? The photo shows a single bed!

@NancyL - do have a look at Doi Sureya website esp if you can read Thai; there seems to be a range of accommodation and the most expensive ones look ok to me. Since you have been to Doi Ithanon, can you tell me if there are marked hiking trails there? How much is the entrance fee to the park? Any information will be appreciated.

Google translate only gets you so far...a very rough idea of what to expect. In all candour I'd say you need a native Thai or a fluent Thai-speaking foreigner to organise things at Doi Sureya. I really can't boast - my partner is Thai and she organised everything

However - the Google translation of rooms and beds refers to living rooms and bedrooms as far as I can see: I stayed in Unit 14 and that had a large communal area and two separate bedrooms. Nancy - I'm not sure I could give it 3 stars in the western context, but it was clean, the beds were soft and the bathroom had hot water. There was free high-speed wifi too - my fondest memory of the place was sitting out on the front porch at 7am, cupping a mug of hot coffee to keep the chill out and watching BBC World on Livestation on my netbook. It doesn't get much better than that IMHO.

Doi Sureya is a great place to stay. I believe (someone might correct me on this) that it is the highest-elevation privately owned accomodation in the park. They have camping or bungalows; the bungalows are comfortable with great views and the prices are reasonable. Website is in Thai only:

Doi Sureya

Google translate does a resaonable job on the prices and details of the accomodation.

For romantic try the beach restaurants at Jimbaran:

Wiki

Do your research in advance - there's loads of information on the net - because the usual trourist-trap scams and rip-offs you will be familiar with in Thailand are present. One particular scam I saw first hand was minibus drivers herding their flock into particular restaurants, where there was a "special" menu with somewhat higher prices than those available to customers coming to eat without a guide.

My advice would be make your own travel arrangements. I hired a car; the driving standards are appalling but if you're used to Thai roads you won't find it too much of a challenge. Also, when you are ordering your seafood from the live selections consider letting your wife do the negotiations if she can handle that in English - I am assuming she is Thai here, forgive me if that's not correct. The reason I say this is that the vendors seemed much less willing to try it on with Asian-looking customers than with westerners. My partner is Thai, she did the deal, and it was very much in the spirit of "all Asians together". The end result was a full meal with beers for around 2000 baht, which I thought was good value considering the superb location.

Got a couple of cheap Air Asia tickets last year and the time is now approaching for our 4 night, 5 day trip to KL. We've done the city and the Selangor coast area before, so this is what I'm thinking of for this trip:

First two nights drive up to Bukit Fraser for a little mountain time. Then down to Port Dickson for beach/seafood, and to be close to KLIA as we have a very early flight back to Thailand.

Does this sound like a good plan? I read some comments on here from a couple of years ago that claim Port Dickson is "squalid". My overall wish is to stay in fairly tolerant areas where a Thai/Farang couple will not be offensive to the locals. On one previous trip to Malaysia we ended up in some rather fundamentalist areas and both felt rather uncomfortable.

Thanks for any feedback.

Can't comment on the quality of the place - I'm no expert, but a tropical fish shop has opened fairly recently in the Hang Dong area. It looks to have quite a wide selection. If coming from the city on the 108, take a right turn into the 121 towards Samoeng and it's on the left about 1/3 the way across to the Canal Road.