We want to travel to Thailand- Cambodia (Siem-Reap)-Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh city) over 12 days, on a budget. We want to enter Thailand with a visa on arrival?for this, is it mandatory to book a return ticket only from Thailand? Or can we fly home from Ho Chi Minh City? We want to travel overland from Thailand to Cambodia and Vietnam and then back to India. Please advise.
One of the stipulations of being granted a visa on arrival in Thailand is that you show proof of leaving the country. Unfortunately, this has to take the form of a confirmed air ticket: thus, travelling overland out of Thailand by train or road does not qualify. Seeing that you live in Guntur, where there
I?d love your input on niche place(s) to stay in the mountains, 9- to 10-hours? drive from Delhi. We are two women who will be driving up in early November. We are nature lovers looking for invigorating mountain air in an unspoilt, fairly luxurious place to stay, curling up with a book, enjoying good food and even better scenery, with a languid walk amidst pine forests.
You sound like you want to go to Sitla Estate. It’s a 9- to 10- hour drive up, in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon hills. It’ll give you all the invigorating mountain air your lungs could desire (7,000ft up). It offers both luxurious (in chic wooden-floored rooms) and ‘fairly luxurious’ (in cosy stone-floored rooms) accommodation. There are many
We?re planning our honeymoon in the first week of November. We have shortlisted Greece and plan to travel to Athens, Mykonos and Santorini over 8-9 days. We are also considering the Maldives. Could you please suggest if November is a good time in Greece and if these islands will be open? Also whether we should add more islands to our itinerary.
Don’t even think about spending nine days in the Maldives. You’ll be stuck on a resort and, after snorkelling, diving, boat rides and relaxing, you’ll be twiddling your thumbs. It’s beautiful, but save it for when you’re desperate for a short, de-stressing break. So, Greece. Peak tourist season here is mid-June to early-September (summer). Early
Too much information can be a bad thing is what I realised when searching for activities and stay options for a week-long trip to Pushkar and Jodhpur in December. We are a couple and 10-year-old kid looking for family activities with a budget of 10K a day for sightseeing and stay. There?s so much online. Can you help separate the best from the banal?
I feel your pain. A glut of information, options and opinions is the downside of popular tourist haunts. There’s a catch with being picky, and wanting the ‘best’, though: it can cost, quite literally. To start with, you’re travelling in peak tourist season, when prices are high and the likelihood of being able to bargain
We are a couple with a four-year-old son, who intend to travel to Singapore for a week between February and June next year. We will travel from Kolkata and would like to stay in an affordable family hotel. Can you recommend any?
You’ve posed a simple but strangely challenging question. Because Singapore is famously expensive for hotel accommodation—hotel rooms here bear comparison to those in touristy European cities, such as Venice, where a matchbox-sized room commonly costs from Rs 10,000 or so. Much rests on one’s definition of ‘affordable’, of course. The cheapest hotel rooms at reputable
My husband and I are planning to visit Manali. We have planned a three-night and two-day trip but are ready to extend it if required. Manali is a popular destination but we want to explore something new and different there instead of ?Snow Point? and the temples. Please give us recommendations for something beyond the usual travellers.
It’s creditable that you want to escape the standard tourist trail when in Manali (and yes, do ignore Snow Point, it’s odious), because there’s much else to do in the Kullu Valley. But to enjoy your great offbeat Manali vacation, you should ideally do two things: hire a taxi for quick daily transport and extend
We are a family of four?my husband, our two kids aged seven and eight and I. We are planning a road trip to Rajasthan in the first week of September for 8-9 days. We will be driving up from Mumbai and plan to visit Mount Abu and Udaipur. Do you think it is advisable to do a road trip in the monsoons in this region? We plan to take a break at Vadodara on our way to Mount Abu. What kind of attractions should be seen at Mount Abu and Udaipur? Can you suggest haveli-style accommodation in Udaipur? Could you also recommend some hotels in Mount Abu?
Mumbai/Thane to Mount Abu/Udaipur is a popular driving holiday route, featuring excellent roads, many of them six-lane. Unless the monsoon creates exceptional havoc this year, there is no reason to fear a driving trip on this route in September. The rider being, of course, that all driving, anywhere, in the monsoon should be attempted with
My wife and I would like to plan a trip of about seven days, which takes in the following: Borobudur, Prambanan and other ancient sites such as Sewu, Plaosan, Ratu Boko, Sambisari, etc. as well as Jakarta. Alternatively, instead of flying through Jakarta, we could go via Kuala Lumpur and also spend a couple of days in Malaysia and visiting Georgetown. Our budget is about ?1.5 lakh. Could you help us put together an itinerary, including stay options and the best ideas for local transport? Also, what?s the best time of the year to do this?
Combining Jakarta-Borobudur and Kuala Lumpur-Georgetown (Penang) in a week is possible, of course. But I don’t really see why you would want to do it. There are multiple factors at work here. The first is flights and fares: you don’t tell me where you’ll be travelling from, but assuming Delhi as the point of departure,
We are three persons planning to travel to USA in August or September. We plan to travel via Europe where we want to rest between our flights without leaving the airport. The airports we are considering for the transit break are London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Zurich or Istanbul. Is a visa required for these places even if we remain inside the airport overnight? Also, please advise us regarding overnight accommodation at these airports.
I suggest that you remove London Heathrow airport from this list right away, since it is the only one of the four airports you mention for which you will need a transit visa. You don’t need transit visas to stay in either Zurich Airport or Amsterdam Schiphol, nor even at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul since
We are a couple with a grownup daughter, looking to spend four-five weeks in Himachal Pradesh from mid-May to mid-June, 2017. We have to attend a wedding in Narkanda and want to start our holiday immediately after that. We will have our car and prefer to stay at homestays (8 to 10 days). We want to avoid both crowded touristy places like Shimla and Manali and remote places like Spiti. Our budget is approx ?1 lakh for stay and food only, for the duration of our holiday.
If you’re setting out from Narkanda, you have one lovely possible stop right around the bend, so to speak. Banjara Camps’ Thanedar Orchard Retreat offers a range of accommodation, surrounded, of course, by orchards and great views of the mountains. If you’d like to get further up the mountain before parking for your first stop,