2024 destinations to visit near Thailand ?

[DonniePeverley]

32 minutes ago, shdmn said:

Kuala Lumpur looks interesting.  Cheap flights from BKK. Cheap hotel rooms.  Good reasonably priced food.   Penang also looks interesting if beach is a must.

 

Surely everyone has done Kuala Lumpur and Singapore by now. I was hoping to find something of the beaten track. 

[DonniePeverley]

2 hours ago, save the frogs said:

Lijiang / Dali / Shangri-La in Yunnan China are cool places. 

 

 

Sounds interesting, but i can't be bothered to go to China again. Trying to get to Shanghai with a visa on arrival was soul destroying and they were determined to not let me in, to the point the immigration person was almost ripping my passport up in their belief it was a forged document. 

[Hummin]

20 hours ago, shdmn said:

Kuala Lumpur looks interesting.  Cheap flights from BKK. Cheap hotel rooms.  Good reasonably priced food.   Penang also looks interesting if beach is a must.

Love Kuala Lumpur, great international kitchen and decent prices. 

[PJ71]

Tokyo is amazing but it's about a 5 hour flight i think.

[DonniePeverley]

2 hours ago, PJ71 said:

Tokyo is amazing but it's about a 5 hour flight i think.

 

Okay controversial opinion. But i found Tokyo one of the most overrated cities in the world. I was expecting some kind of different utopia metropolosis, full of an alien specices. But it was just your bog standard western city, modelled pretty much on New York. It was no different. 

[PJ71]

9 hours ago, DonniePeverley said:

 

Okay controversial opinion. But i found Tokyo one of the most overrated cities in the world. I was expecting some kind of different utopia metropolosis, full of an alien specices. But it was just your bog standard western city, modelled pretty much on New York. It was no different. 

Tokyo is far from bog standard.

 

I'd hazard a guess at you didn't know where to go or it was the wring time of year, i found it amazing.

 

Some of the most polite people i've met.

[Yagoda]

Why would you not go to Angkor. Its jaw dropping.

[Chris Daley]

Thai Embassy, Laos.  Border Cambodia.  Prachuap Border.  Terminal 21.

[GypsyT]

"Have a look at Hong Kong.  Loads of good nightlife, Toaist temples, hiking, beaches and great food.  Just over 2 hours from BKK/DMK and it's a cheap flight due to the number of flight operators. "

 

I found Hong Kong too crowded but still interesting and shopping for for anything is good.

 

Next to it is 3x bigger business than Las Vegas - gambling hell Macau:

"Macau's casinos generated about $36 billion in revenue in 2019; Nevada, the home of Las Vegas, reported just under $12 billion in gambling revenue over the same period."

Plenty of cheap hotels plus, of course, extra luxury hotels.

Not my kind of place but OK for 3-4 nights stay in luxury for cheap with a right lady... they seem to like that.

 

My motto is; Every place is worth to visit! At least once.

 

[Photoguy21]

Try Bali

[DonniePeverley]

2 hours ago, GypsyT said:

"Have a look at Hong Kong.  Loads of good nightlife, Toaist temples, hiking, beaches and great food.  Just over 2 hours from BKK/DMK and it's a cheap flight due to the number of flight operators. "

 

I found Hong Kong too crowded but still interesting and shopping for for anything is good.

 

Next to it is 3x bigger business than Las Vegas - gambling hell Macau:

"Macau's casinos generated about $36 billion in revenue in 2019; Nevada, the home of Las Vegas, reported just under $12 billion in gambling revenue over the same period."

Plenty of cheap hotels plus, of course, extra luxury hotels.

Not my kind of place but OK for 3-4 nights stay in luxury for cheap with a right lady... they seem to like that.

 

My motto is; Every place is worth to visit! At least once.

 

 

Maccause is nothing like the tourist experience you get in Las Vegas. Vegas for all it's fault is a top notch entertainment capital, whilst Maccau despite the grandeuse show building is hardcore gambling without the entertainment. 

[newnative]

On 6/2/2024 at 2:51 AM, DonniePeverley said:

 

Sounds interesting, but i can't be bothered to go to China again. Trying to get to Shanghai with a visa on arrival was soul destroying and they were determined to not let me in, to the point the immigration person was almost ripping my passport up in their belief it was a forged document. 

       I had a bad experience this past December, as well, and this was on my 3rd tourist trip to China--this time to the Hunan area.  I have a 10-year tourist visa but I was stopped at arrivals and taken out of the line and into an office where I was interviewed by two Immigration police.  They first pointed out that my 1-year China tourist visa had expired.  I then showed them the other page in my passport that had the 10-year unexpired visa. 

     This part of China apparently does not get many Americans and I rarely saw any westerners the whole trip--although it was off-season.  The officers were rather hostile and clearly didn't know what to do with me and they started asking all sorts of ridiculous questions, like what college did I go to and what did I major in.  Mind you, my college days were over 50 years ago!

      Finally, after about a half hour, they told me to get back in the Immigration line but when I got to the officer at the booth I was taken out of line once again and sent to another office, to talk to a more senior official.  There was also one other American that was having the same problem as me.  This official looked through my passport again for a long time, made a call to someone else, and finally stamped me in.  All in all it was somewhat scary as I was being treated like a criminal and I wasn't sure I would even be allowed in.  I like visiting China, there are lots of places still to see, but I didn't feel very welcomed this last trip.

[DonniePeverley]

4 hours ago, newnative said:

       I had a bad experience this past December, as well, and this was on my 3rd tourist trip to China--this time to the Hunan area.  I have a 10-year tourist visa but I was stopped at arrivals and taken out of the line and into an office where I was interviewed by two Immigration police.  They first pointed out that my 1-year China tourist visa had expired.  I then showed them the other page in my passport that had the 10-year unexpired visa. 

     This part of China apparently does not get many Americans and I rarely saw any westerners the whole trip--although it was off-season.  The officers were rather hostile and clearly didn't know what to do with me and they started asking all sorts of ridiculous questions, like what college did I go to and what did I major in.  Mind you, my college days were over 50 years ago!

      Finally, after about a half hour, they told me to get back in the Immigration line but when I got to the officer at the booth I was taken out of line once again and sent to another office, to talk to a more senior official.  There was also one other American that was having the same problem as me.  This official looked through my passport again for a long time, made a call to someone else, and finally stamped me in.  All in all it was somewhat scary as I was being treated like a criminal and I wasn't sure I would even be allowed in.  I like visiting China, there are lots of places still to see, but I didn't feel very welcomed this last trip.

 

With mine, they became suspicious because a British couple had just passed a few minutes ago, and they were triggered another british couple were also looking for a visa on arrival.

 

We got taken to further 'interogation' where she literally tried to tear my passport with a screwdiver, because she felt that we had a forged passport. I asked what made her think that, when we had nearly 40 stamps around the world, including USA arrivals. She didn't answer why she though that. At one point, i became so concerned she was going to rip my passport up with the screwdriver i was about to tell her to leave it. No trip to Disney was worth a damaged passport and would have left me in limbo to even get back to Thailand.

 

Eventually she gave up, then put me back in the queue. But she seemed very angry. I didn't quite work why she was so annoyed my passport was legit. 

 

But we did think this wasn't worth it 

[DonniePeverley]

10 hours ago, GypsyT said:

"Have a look at Hong Kong.  Loads of good nightlife, Toaist temples, hiking, beaches and great food.  Just over 2 hours from BKK/DMK and it's a cheap flight due to the number of flight operators. "

 

I found Hong Kong too crowded but still interesting and shopping for for anything is good.

 

Next to it is 3x bigger business than Las Vegas - gambling hell Macau:

"Macau's casinos generated about $36 billion in revenue in 2019; Nevada, the home of Las Vegas, reported just under $12 billion in gambling revenue over the same period."

Plenty of cheap hotels plus, of course, extra luxury hotels.

Not my kind of place but OK for 3-4 nights stay in luxury for cheap with a right lady... they seem to like that.

 

My motto is; Every place is worth to visit! At least once.

 

 

Hong Kong is definately very decent. Some 20 years ago it was a magical experience, but as years have gone on it has become a very cloned Chinese metropolosis - albeit some breathtaking skyline views. 

[newnative]

8 hours ago, DonniePeverley said:

 

With mine, they became suspicious because a British couple had just passed a few minutes ago, and they were triggered another british couple were also looking for a visa on arrival.

 

We got taken to further 'interogation' where she literally tried to tear my passport with a screwdiver, because she felt that we had a forged passport. I asked what made her think that, when we had nearly 40 stamps around the world, including USA arrivals. She didn't answer why she though that. At one point, i became so concerned she was going to rip my passport up with the screwdriver i was about to tell her to leave it. No trip to Disney was worth a damaged passport and would have left me in limbo to even get back to Thailand.

 

Eventually she gave up, then put me back in the queue. But she seemed very angry. I didn't quite work why she was so annoyed my passport was legit. 

 

But we did think this wasn't worth it 

      Interesting.  Thnks for sharing.

[Robert Paulson]

Why doesn’t anyone go to myanmar. What gives

[scotty1286]

7 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

Why doesn’t anyone go to myanmar. What gives

Current civil war perhaps ?

[Robert Paulson]

1 hour ago, scotty1286 said:

Current civil war perhaps ?

When did it start? I don’t buy it cuz people never went there. I wanna go. Yes I’m serious

[Polar Bear]

This is the list I came up with, based primarily on direct flights and flight times to make weekend trips viable. We are working our way through it. The Maldives was a surprise for me. It's a 4.5-hour flight, and the local islands are beautiful but really cheap if you can live without booze for a weekend. There are the resorts, too, obviously, if that's more your thing. We also just got back from a few days in Indonesian Borneo. 
 

 

City	Country	Time	Airline
Phnom Penh	Cambodia	01:10
Vientiane	Laos	01:10
Yangon	Myanmar	01:20
Hanoi	Vietnam	01:55
Nanning	China	02:20
Dhaka	Bangladesh	02:30
Kolkata	India	02:30
Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	02:30
Singapore	Singapore	02:30
Kolkata	India	02:30
Kunming	China	02:40
Bandar Seri Begawan	Brunei	02:45	Royal Brunei
Hong Kong	Hong Kong	02:45
Shenzhen	China	02:45
Macau	Macau	02:55
Guangzhou	China	03:00
Chengdu	China	03:00
Colombo	Sri Lanka	03:10
Chongqing	China	03:10
Paro	Bhutan	03:15	Bhutan Airlines
Kathmandu	Nepal	03:15
Gaya	India	03:20
Changsha	China	03:20
Chennai	India	03:25
Lucknow	India	03:25
Shantou	China	03:25
Manila	Philippines	03:30
Jakarta	Indonesia	03:35
Wuhan	China	03:35
Kochi	India	03:40
Bengaluru	India	03:45
Hyderabad	India	03:45
Taipei	Taiwan	03:50
Xian	China	04:05
Hangzhou	China	04:10
Shanghai	China	04:25
New Delhi	India	04:30
Male	Maldives	04:30
Zhengzhou	China	04:30
Ahmedabad	India	04:35
Jaipur	India	04:35
Mumbai	India	04:35
Lahore	Pakistan	04:40
Beijing	China	04:55
Islamabad	Pakistan	05:10
Seoul	South Korea	05:30
Karachi	Pakistan	05:35
Osaka	Japan	06:05
Muscat	Oman	06:15
Abu Dhabi	UAE	06:30
Dubai	UAE	06:30
Sharjah	UAE	06:30
Ulaanbaatar	Mongolia	06:30	MIAT Mongolian Airlines
Almaty Tokyo	Kazakhstan Japan	06:40 06:40
Tashkent	Uzbekistan	07:00	Uzbekistan Airways
Doha	Qatar	07:10
Riyadh	Saudi Arabia	07:30
Bahrain	Bahrain	07:40
Kuwait City	Kuwait	07:45
Jeddah	Saudi Arabia	08:30
Melbourne	Australia	09:10
Adis Abba	Ethiopia	09:20
Amman	Jordan	09:30	Royal Jordanian
Tel Aviv	Israel	09:45	EL AL Israel Airlines
Nairobi	Kenya	09:45	Kenya Airways
Istanbul	Turkey	10:00
Vienna	Austria	11:30
Oslo	Norway	12:00	Norse Atlantic
Zurich	Switzerland	12:00

Edited June 4 by Polar Bear

[Polar Bear]

20 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

When did it start? I don’t buy it cuz people never went there. I wanna go. Yes I’m serious

 

I went about 10 years ago, and it was pretty popular then. We were booking stuff more than 6 months in advance and couldn't always get our first choice because things were booked solid.

[scotty1286]

2 hours ago, Robert Paulson said:

When did it start? I don’t buy it cuz people never went there. I wanna go. Yes I’m serious

1st Feb 2021 was the military coup, too long to explain so better do some research yourself.

It is a truely amazing country but due political situations it has never been developed for mass tourism but numbers were picking up before the coup.

Travel outside of Yangon is very restricted at the moment and not safe, civilian population are probably the nicest people I have ever met.

[Robert Paulson]

3 hours ago, scotty1286 said:

1st Feb 2021 was the military coup, too long to explain so better do some research yourself.

It is a truely amazing country but due political situations it has never been developed for mass tourism but numbers were picking up before the coup.

Travel outside of Yangon is very restricted at the moment and not safe, civilian population are probably the nicest people I have ever met.

I could not care less about tourism development. Is it even possible to go? Maybe I’ll look into it

[scotty1286]

28 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

I could not care less about tourism development. Is it even possible to go? Maybe I’ll look into it

You did ask why not many tourist go....

Pretty much a waste of time going at the moment as you can't really go anywhere and there are curfews in place, but up to you as they say....