Bought Rough Guide to Thailand on Kindle as well. Have had a quick skim
of first bit. Sounds quite a cool place. (I find it odd I need to say
that. I think the slightly pressured preparation for the trip, including
one or two moderate niggles I haven't blogged about, are making it seem
like an enormous hassle.)
Don't seem to have got as much done this weekend as I'd have liked and a
few too many things are still up in the air, but I think there has been
reasonable progress all things considered. Am now onto lesson 6 (of 20,
and that's just the video lessons, there are some audio ones which I
haven't looked at yet, though they may be the same material for all I
know) of the Georgian course, although I am by no means rock solid on
the material of lesson 6. I guess there is at least a moderate chance I
will have the alphabet down before I go, which could well be helpful
when reading signs and what have you.
I am not going to be booking any more flights or hotels tonight. Maybe
tomorrow or Tuesday.
While I remember, I did get some slight soreness in my left arm for a
day or two after the typhoid vaccination. Nothing major.
Monday, 30 September 2013
Sunday, 29 September 2013
Miscellaneous preparations
Up later than I'd have liked today, natch.
Called MBNA to see if I can get my credit card re-issued early as it
expires in February. No, I can't.
Called T-Mobile to enable roaming. That was OK, although their recorded
messages suggest you should turn off data roaming to avoid unexpected
charges, whereas their web site (last time I looked) and the bloke on
the phone who I spoke to today both said that you don't get any data
unless you use the phone's browser to buy a data booster, so there's no
need to turn data roaming off explicitly (unless, I guess, you have
bought a booster but don't want the phone burning through it). It's so
freaking expensive that I doubt I'd buy a booster, but I will probably
turn data roaming off anyway. They can't put a cap on the account so the
bill can't go over say £50 a month, nor are they capable of issuing me
with a text warning when the bill crosses a certain threshold. I can
text BAL to 150 but - I asked - they will charge me a roaming text
charge for sending that text message just like any other. So basically
you have to check your balance on the web, if you happen to have a free
data connection. I already knew the whole roaming business was a
complete customerfuck anyway, of course. Obviously you can buy a local
SIM but I may or may not bother - in Georgia I probably won't, perhaps
in Thailand or India I will; basically I want this so I can receive
texts (which is free, fortunately) from family and friends in the event
of minor or not so minor emergencies, and also so I can get verification
codes from Google when signing into GMail, plus the ability to receive
and make calls in the event of serious emergencies at my end or back in
the UK.
Have booked a hostel (double bed to myself, shared bathroom) in Tbilisi
for Sunday-Tuesday nights; I paid hostelworld £5 for a gold card to
avoid the £1 admin charge per booking, as with my previous trips I am
sure I will use them at least a further four times during the next five
months, let alone the next year. Paid a 10% deposit now and the rest on
arrival, as usual; also this way I suppose if I do want to change my
mind I can forfeit the relatively small deposit and book something else.
(However, the hotel on expedia I was also considering now appears to
have no availability anyway.) The hostel offers airport transfers but I
shall take a look at the guide book at some point over the next day or
two and see if I think it might be easier to manage that myself. Arrival
time offered me the choice of 10am, 11am or midday, I chose 10am but I
don't know if I will be able to get into my room then. (It may depend
how busy they are, if the room is vacant the previous night then they
may let me in anyway.) They do offer free tea and coffee all day so I
always have the option of sitting around in the hostel keeping myself
awake on caffeine for a bit anyway.
As per my usual paranoia - I am sure I read this somewhere, I didn't
make it up out of nothing - I am not going to note down the name of the
hostel until I've finished staying there. Off the top of my head I
really can't say why this matters, but there you go.
Looking at the onward flights, I land in Bangkok early in the morning of
Tuesday 29th October. I guess I want to be back in London on about
Saturday 21st December. That's about 53 days (I am being fuzzy because
you sort of don't want to count the last day if you're flying back
then). Let's knock one day off for the flight Singapore-Delhi (let's say
Bangkok-Singapore is short enough we don't need to worry about it) and
decide to spend four nights in Singapore. That leaves 48 days between
India and Thailand. Perhaps unfairly - especially given I haven't
actually bought or looked at a guide to Thailand yet - I am inclined to
split that slightly less than equally in favour of India. (It may be a
bit silly, and perhaps I'm rationalising my preference, but with the
visa hassle for India, I am perhaps slightly more likely to visit
Thailand in a fairly casual manner on a future trip, whereas to go to
India I would probably feel I had to spend at least 2-3 weeks there to
be worth the visa hassle.)
Three weeks in Thailand would see my fly out on Tuesday November 19th,
presumably during the day and arriving in Singapore in time to do
something that night. So my four nights in Singapore would then leave me
flying out Saturday 23rd November. I am half inclined to give Thailand
an extra day or two so I get to have Friday and Saturday night in
Singapore. Let's plough on as-is for now and see how it goes.
I would arrive in Delhi the same day I left Singapore. Four weeks in
India would see me leaving on Saturday 21st December. It's vaguely
tempting to try to get back a day or two earlier in the hope of catching
up with friends (who tend to be around mostly during the week), but
Christmas being Christmas I'm not overly confident any of them would be
around, certainly not enough to make it worth losing a day or two's
holiday. I might choose to stay in London and travel back up to Skegness
on Christmas Eve, which would give me the Monday to maybe see people.
That split is perhaps pushing it a bit too far in India's favour, and I
think the weekend in Singapore argument resolves it by suggesting
(subject to flight prices varying hugely day to day) I should extend
Thailand by two days and cut India back by two.
So that gives me these propose dates:
- Bangkok-Singapore Thursday 21st November
- Singapore-Delhi Monday 25th November
- Delhi-London Saturday 21st December
Let's crank up the flight websites and see what's on offer.
Bangkok-Singapore is a short, cheap flight anyway. ITA offers as
cheapest flight on 21st November £68 with Jet BKK 13:25-SIN 16:55, and
those times look pretty good too. (Date makes little difference on ITA.)
Singapore-Delhi doesn't seem very date-sensitive judging from ITA, so
let's go with Monday 25th November. Absolute cheapest is £156 via CMB,
10h all in. For £187 Air India do a direct flight SIN 0915-DEL 1230.
That departure is a bit earlier than I'd like, but it gives me plenty of
daylight to get to my hotel in Delhi on arrival. Also it will encourage
me to have a quiet Sunday night in Singapore, and I am assuming that in
Singapore the transport to the airport is going to be relatively easy.
We'll see what expedia can do but on ITA that Air India flight looks
about the best option regardless of how much money I'm willing to spend.
Delhi-London doesn't seem very date-sensitive either, so let's go with
Saturday 21st December. British Airways do a £336 flight DEL 1230-16:15
LHR direct, which looks pretty good. Absolute cheapest is £246 via RUH,
17h 25m all in; for that price difference I'll take the direct flight.
[I don't know where CMB and RUH are, though I might guess they are
Ceylon - duh, it's Colombo actually I think [filled this in later!] -
and Riyadh. I'm using the airport codes here to save writing anything
inaccurate while also not bothering to look them up.]
For Bangkok-Singapore expedia offers some £61 flights via Air Asia at a
variety of times; these seem to be from DMK not BKK. That is indeed in
Bangkok (just checking!) and I guess that would be fine. If I can find
somewhere to book the Jet flight shown on ITA then that's slightly
better times IMO; expedia can offer AirAsia DMK 1315-SIN 1640 for £70 if
I can't. (I think Andy said the opportunity to add-on a hotel when you
book with expedia is sometimes worthwhile, whereas I'd assumed
otherwise, so I should perhaps investigate this before I book anything,
especially if I am going to try for something nice.)
For Singapore-Delhi expedia's absolute cheapest is £165 via Colombo.
They don't seem to offer any direct flights comparable in price with the
ITA Air India flight; the cheapest direct is £252 SIN 19:35-DEL 22:55,
so I think if I can find somewhere to book it the ITA one wins there.
For Delhi-London expedia's absolute cheapest is £278 via Moscow (15h
20m). They are offering the same BA flight shown on ITA for £346; I will
hunt around but it may be that ITA is slightly off on that and that's
the actual price I'd pay to book it.
So, what is expedia offering by way of add-on hotels? Absolute cheapest
are some hostel-type things, it's hard to just write down a single
cheapest price as it's all a bit fuzzy. There might be some kind of
hostel place which would give me a double room (not clear if it would be
just for me, or I'd have to pay double) for £63.54 a night. I guess if I
want a hostel I can probably - I will check in a bit - do it cheaper and
more flexibly myself via hostelworld. Let's move up the price range.
There is a hotel offering a "superior room" for £30.18 a night, not sure
if it's a great location or not (Geylang). Sorting by "best value", I
can get a "superior room" at a different hotel "in the heart of
Singapore City Centre" (Little India) for a tad over £100 a night. That
does include free wifi, although it then goes to say there is a
surcharge for wifi in the rooms (it's a hotel, naturally they chisel you
left right and centre).
The cheaper places in Geylang seem to offer genuine free wifi (this is
important, but not as important as I perhaps make it sound just now!)
for a tad over £50 a night (I do wonder if the £30 a night thing was
with the 20% discount for staying just one night, not clear).
Incidentally, it's also not super clear if this is a cheap deal with the
flight or not.
Quick web search suggests Geylang is the red light district (to be fair,
this is mentioned right on the expedia hotel pages). Rough consensus
seems to be that it is safe but it's not clear if it has good transport
links or not. Some say you'd be nuts to stay there are there are other
nice areas which are cheap, others say it is a bit more real than other
parts of Singapore.
Frankly I think I need to get a guide book (electronic of course) and
have a skim before I decide what to do. Of course in some sense booking
my initial Bangkok hotel is more pressing, because I will be there much
sooner, but the question here is deciding roughly what I want and what I
expect to pay so I can see if there is any combined flight+hotel deal
which will save me money.
OK, having had a browse on amazon bought Rough Guide to Singapore. It
was the most expensive they have, but for slightly hazy reasons I
figured I'd go for that one. (Perhaps because I think the formatting etc
on the electronic Rough Guide to India is much better than on the
electronic Lonely Planet Georgia..) Also it was the most up to date,
being a 2013 edition.
Hmm, as far as I can see expedia only allow you to do a flight+hotel
search if you want a return flight. Let's re-search for a flight and see
if it offers any hotel add-ons (although when I was looking at the
prices above, it just seemed to sit there with some kind of searching
animation for ages). Yeah, it's doing that again. Sod it.
I have a couple of hotels in mind at the budget end of the range
(£250-260 for four nights, free wifi, fairly good location, small
windowless rooms but WTF) but I am not going to rush in to book them
just yet. I might do some booking later today and it might even include
this, but I'm not quite that rushed.
Let's just have a try at the multi-stop ticket. expedia let you do this
as well, I just never noticed/bothered. Bwahahaha! The *cheapest* on
expedia, without paying attention to desirability of the flights, is
£1098. The individual flights I picked out above come in at about £591
(adding up the ITA prices just to get a quick figure).
opodo comes in at £501 for the cheapest (which has a 22h 10m flight from
Bangkok to Singapore) and £580 for the next cheapest (which has a 16h 5m
flight Bangkok-Singapore). Basically unless calling up some airline
would somehow massively beat this, I think the multi-stop ticket is no
good at least for the particular combination of flights I want here.
Maybe if I were doing more flights on the ticket (e.g. London-Bangkok as
well) it would be better, but as mentioned earlier (I think) the lack of
flexibility in choosing individual flights also sucks. I will consider
the possibility for the Latin American part of the trip but for this
part, it's not going to be a multi-stop ticket.
I'm going to send this and have something to eat; I've been building
this up over the afternoon/evening so far. I think the next most
pressing booking is a hotel for my arrival in Bangkok, as that's the
nearest unbooked thing which I want to book before I leave home. After
that it's the flight on to Singapore and the hotel there; I might well
book the flights up today or in the next day or two, before I get any
unpleasant surprises with price hikes and to give me the best chance of
getting aisle and/or emergency exit row seats.
Called MBNA to see if I can get my credit card re-issued early as it
expires in February. No, I can't.
Called T-Mobile to enable roaming. That was OK, although their recorded
messages suggest you should turn off data roaming to avoid unexpected
charges, whereas their web site (last time I looked) and the bloke on
the phone who I spoke to today both said that you don't get any data
unless you use the phone's browser to buy a data booster, so there's no
need to turn data roaming off explicitly (unless, I guess, you have
bought a booster but don't want the phone burning through it). It's so
freaking expensive that I doubt I'd buy a booster, but I will probably
turn data roaming off anyway. They can't put a cap on the account so the
bill can't go over say £50 a month, nor are they capable of issuing me
with a text warning when the bill crosses a certain threshold. I can
text BAL to 150 but - I asked - they will charge me a roaming text
charge for sending that text message just like any other. So basically
you have to check your balance on the web, if you happen to have a free
data connection. I already knew the whole roaming business was a
complete customerfuck anyway, of course. Obviously you can buy a local
SIM but I may or may not bother - in Georgia I probably won't, perhaps
in Thailand or India I will; basically I want this so I can receive
texts (which is free, fortunately) from family and friends in the event
of minor or not so minor emergencies, and also so I can get verification
codes from Google when signing into GMail, plus the ability to receive
and make calls in the event of serious emergencies at my end or back in
the UK.
Have booked a hostel (double bed to myself, shared bathroom) in Tbilisi
for Sunday-Tuesday nights; I paid hostelworld £5 for a gold card to
avoid the £1 admin charge per booking, as with my previous trips I am
sure I will use them at least a further four times during the next five
months, let alone the next year. Paid a 10% deposit now and the rest on
arrival, as usual; also this way I suppose if I do want to change my
mind I can forfeit the relatively small deposit and book something else.
(However, the hotel on expedia I was also considering now appears to
have no availability anyway.) The hostel offers airport transfers but I
shall take a look at the guide book at some point over the next day or
two and see if I think it might be easier to manage that myself. Arrival
time offered me the choice of 10am, 11am or midday, I chose 10am but I
don't know if I will be able to get into my room then. (It may depend
how busy they are, if the room is vacant the previous night then they
may let me in anyway.) They do offer free tea and coffee all day so I
always have the option of sitting around in the hostel keeping myself
awake on caffeine for a bit anyway.
As per my usual paranoia - I am sure I read this somewhere, I didn't
make it up out of nothing - I am not going to note down the name of the
hostel until I've finished staying there. Off the top of my head I
really can't say why this matters, but there you go.
Looking at the onward flights, I land in Bangkok early in the morning of
Tuesday 29th October. I guess I want to be back in London on about
Saturday 21st December. That's about 53 days (I am being fuzzy because
you sort of don't want to count the last day if you're flying back
then). Let's knock one day off for the flight Singapore-Delhi (let's say
Bangkok-Singapore is short enough we don't need to worry about it) and
decide to spend four nights in Singapore. That leaves 48 days between
India and Thailand. Perhaps unfairly - especially given I haven't
actually bought or looked at a guide to Thailand yet - I am inclined to
split that slightly less than equally in favour of India. (It may be a
bit silly, and perhaps I'm rationalising my preference, but with the
visa hassle for India, I am perhaps slightly more likely to visit
Thailand in a fairly casual manner on a future trip, whereas to go to
India I would probably feel I had to spend at least 2-3 weeks there to
be worth the visa hassle.)
Three weeks in Thailand would see my fly out on Tuesday November 19th,
presumably during the day and arriving in Singapore in time to do
something that night. So my four nights in Singapore would then leave me
flying out Saturday 23rd November. I am half inclined to give Thailand
an extra day or two so I get to have Friday and Saturday night in
Singapore. Let's plough on as-is for now and see how it goes.
I would arrive in Delhi the same day I left Singapore. Four weeks in
India would see me leaving on Saturday 21st December. It's vaguely
tempting to try to get back a day or two earlier in the hope of catching
up with friends (who tend to be around mostly during the week), but
Christmas being Christmas I'm not overly confident any of them would be
around, certainly not enough to make it worth losing a day or two's
holiday. I might choose to stay in London and travel back up to Skegness
on Christmas Eve, which would give me the Monday to maybe see people.
That split is perhaps pushing it a bit too far in India's favour, and I
think the weekend in Singapore argument resolves it by suggesting
(subject to flight prices varying hugely day to day) I should extend
Thailand by two days and cut India back by two.
So that gives me these propose dates:
- Bangkok-Singapore Thursday 21st November
- Singapore-Delhi Monday 25th November
- Delhi-London Saturday 21st December
Let's crank up the flight websites and see what's on offer.
Bangkok-Singapore is a short, cheap flight anyway. ITA offers as
cheapest flight on 21st November £68 with Jet BKK 13:25-SIN 16:55, and
those times look pretty good too. (Date makes little difference on ITA.)
Singapore-Delhi doesn't seem very date-sensitive judging from ITA, so
let's go with Monday 25th November. Absolute cheapest is £156 via CMB,
10h all in. For £187 Air India do a direct flight SIN 0915-DEL 1230.
That departure is a bit earlier than I'd like, but it gives me plenty of
daylight to get to my hotel in Delhi on arrival. Also it will encourage
me to have a quiet Sunday night in Singapore, and I am assuming that in
Singapore the transport to the airport is going to be relatively easy.
We'll see what expedia can do but on ITA that Air India flight looks
about the best option regardless of how much money I'm willing to spend.
Delhi-London doesn't seem very date-sensitive either, so let's go with
Saturday 21st December. British Airways do a £336 flight DEL 1230-16:15
LHR direct, which looks pretty good. Absolute cheapest is £246 via RUH,
17h 25m all in; for that price difference I'll take the direct flight.
[I don't know where CMB and RUH are, though I might guess they are
Ceylon - duh, it's Colombo actually I think [filled this in later!] -
and Riyadh. I'm using the airport codes here to save writing anything
inaccurate while also not bothering to look them up.]
For Bangkok-Singapore expedia offers some £61 flights via Air Asia at a
variety of times; these seem to be from DMK not BKK. That is indeed in
Bangkok (just checking!) and I guess that would be fine. If I can find
somewhere to book the Jet flight shown on ITA then that's slightly
better times IMO; expedia can offer AirAsia DMK 1315-SIN 1640 for £70 if
I can't. (I think Andy said the opportunity to add-on a hotel when you
book with expedia is sometimes worthwhile, whereas I'd assumed
otherwise, so I should perhaps investigate this before I book anything,
especially if I am going to try for something nice.)
For Singapore-Delhi expedia's absolute cheapest is £165 via Colombo.
They don't seem to offer any direct flights comparable in price with the
ITA Air India flight; the cheapest direct is £252 SIN 19:35-DEL 22:55,
so I think if I can find somewhere to book it the ITA one wins there.
For Delhi-London expedia's absolute cheapest is £278 via Moscow (15h
20m). They are offering the same BA flight shown on ITA for £346; I will
hunt around but it may be that ITA is slightly off on that and that's
the actual price I'd pay to book it.
So, what is expedia offering by way of add-on hotels? Absolute cheapest
are some hostel-type things, it's hard to just write down a single
cheapest price as it's all a bit fuzzy. There might be some kind of
hostel place which would give me a double room (not clear if it would be
just for me, or I'd have to pay double) for £63.54 a night. I guess if I
want a hostel I can probably - I will check in a bit - do it cheaper and
more flexibly myself via hostelworld. Let's move up the price range.
There is a hotel offering a "superior room" for £30.18 a night, not sure
if it's a great location or not (Geylang). Sorting by "best value", I
can get a "superior room" at a different hotel "in the heart of
Singapore City Centre" (Little India) for a tad over £100 a night. That
does include free wifi, although it then goes to say there is a
surcharge for wifi in the rooms (it's a hotel, naturally they chisel you
left right and centre).
The cheaper places in Geylang seem to offer genuine free wifi (this is
important, but not as important as I perhaps make it sound just now!)
for a tad over £50 a night (I do wonder if the £30 a night thing was
with the 20% discount for staying just one night, not clear).
Incidentally, it's also not super clear if this is a cheap deal with the
flight or not.
Quick web search suggests Geylang is the red light district (to be fair,
this is mentioned right on the expedia hotel pages). Rough consensus
seems to be that it is safe but it's not clear if it has good transport
links or not. Some say you'd be nuts to stay there are there are other
nice areas which are cheap, others say it is a bit more real than other
parts of Singapore.
Frankly I think I need to get a guide book (electronic of course) and
have a skim before I decide what to do. Of course in some sense booking
my initial Bangkok hotel is more pressing, because I will be there much
sooner, but the question here is deciding roughly what I want and what I
expect to pay so I can see if there is any combined flight+hotel deal
which will save me money.
OK, having had a browse on amazon bought Rough Guide to Singapore. It
was the most expensive they have, but for slightly hazy reasons I
figured I'd go for that one. (Perhaps because I think the formatting etc
on the electronic Rough Guide to India is much better than on the
electronic Lonely Planet Georgia..) Also it was the most up to date,
being a 2013 edition.
Hmm, as far as I can see expedia only allow you to do a flight+hotel
search if you want a return flight. Let's re-search for a flight and see
if it offers any hotel add-ons (although when I was looking at the
prices above, it just seemed to sit there with some kind of searching
animation for ages). Yeah, it's doing that again. Sod it.
I have a couple of hotels in mind at the budget end of the range
(£250-260 for four nights, free wifi, fairly good location, small
windowless rooms but WTF) but I am not going to rush in to book them
just yet. I might do some booking later today and it might even include
this, but I'm not quite that rushed.
Let's just have a try at the multi-stop ticket. expedia let you do this
as well, I just never noticed/bothered. Bwahahaha! The *cheapest* on
expedia, without paying attention to desirability of the flights, is
£1098. The individual flights I picked out above come in at about £591
(adding up the ITA prices just to get a quick figure).
opodo comes in at £501 for the cheapest (which has a 22h 10m flight from
Bangkok to Singapore) and £580 for the next cheapest (which has a 16h 5m
flight Bangkok-Singapore). Basically unless calling up some airline
would somehow massively beat this, I think the multi-stop ticket is no
good at least for the particular combination of flights I want here.
Maybe if I were doing more flights on the ticket (e.g. London-Bangkok as
well) it would be better, but as mentioned earlier (I think) the lack of
flexibility in choosing individual flights also sucks. I will consider
the possibility for the Latin American part of the trip but for this
part, it's not going to be a multi-stop ticket.
I'm going to send this and have something to eat; I've been building
this up over the afternoon/evening so far. I think the next most
pressing booking is a hotel for my arrival in Bangkok, as that's the
nearest unbooked thing which I want to book before I leave home. After
that it's the flight on to Singapore and the hotel there; I might well
book the flights up today or in the next day or two, before I get any
unpleasant surprises with price hikes and to give me the best chance of
getting aisle and/or emergency exit row seats.
Tbilisi flights
Because I really need to get to bed so I can continue trying to sort
stuff out tomorrow (been doing quite a few minor bits of preparation
today, one way or another), I am of course still up and just checked the
London-Tbilisi flight I'm booked on to see if the ticket price has gone
up; it's £234 on expedia at the moment, so I don't think it has gone up
(from memory) since it recovered from the momentary blip down to
£209-ish at which I booked it.
Oh, Raj also recommended multi-stop tickets as a way to save money. It
seems (he recommended phoning someone, but I like the mulling potential
of online) you can get them on opodo at least, based on a quick search.
However, unless flight prices have soared since I took down the prices
of individual flights on a rough planned itinerary onwards from Bangkok,
the multi-stop doesn't really save any money on this route at this time,
and you get far more choice of departure and arrival times with
individual tickets of course. Worth checking out in future however, now
I know they can be purchased online.
I do also need to decide, before I book the rest of the flights, exactly
how I am going to parcel my time up between Thailand, Singapore and
India. Something for tomorrow. Bed!
stuff out tomorrow (been doing quite a few minor bits of preparation
today, one way or another), I am of course still up and just checked the
London-Tbilisi flight I'm booked on to see if the ticket price has gone
up; it's £234 on expedia at the moment, so I don't think it has gone up
(from memory) since it recovered from the momentary blip down to
£209-ish at which I booked it.
Oh, Raj also recommended multi-stop tickets as a way to save money. It
seems (he recommended phoning someone, but I like the mulling potential
of online) you can get them on opodo at least, based on a quick search.
However, unless flight prices have soared since I took down the prices
of individual flights on a rough planned itinerary onwards from Bangkok,
the multi-stop doesn't really save any money on this route at this time,
and you get far more choice of departure and arrival times with
individual tickets of course. Worth checking out in future however, now
I know they can be purchased online.
I do also need to decide, before I book the rest of the flights, exactly
how I am going to parcel my time up between Thailand, Singapore and
India. Something for tomorrow. Bed!
Laxity
Not been getting on great with preparations. Need to book a hotel in
Tbilisi ASAP; leaning towards springing for a double room to myself in a
hostel with shared bathroom, as a compromise between not burdening
myself with the stress of a dormitory after the flight but still saving
a bit (not a huge amount, but still) compared to a hotel and offering
some prospect of meeting people. The main purpose of the trip is to "see
and, where appropriate, do stuff", not to socialise per se, but of
course a) that's also a potentially fun part of a trip (as long as it
doesn't lead me into excessive drinking any more than I can help) b) is
something I'd kind of like to get sorted out and c) is semi-necessary
when otherwise travelling solo for a couple of months at a stretch. In
respect c) this trip is of course slightly easier than the one in 2010
as I will never be away for more than three months straight, but the
issue still arises.
Went out shopping today and bought a pair of lightweight trousers at
Rohan; think I will take those and the combats I bought to go to
Edinburgh, eschewing jeans (heavy, slow to dry) and the trusty pair of
creamy lightweight-ish chino-esque Rohan trousers I bought for the 2010
trip (which are still in tolerable nick, however; if I didn't think
three pairs of trousers was pushing it a bit, I would probably take
them). Needed to have them shortened, I hope that will work out OK, and
bit of a pisser to collect as they are open from 10-7 so I can't go
before work nor can I conveniently go after work and I'm not in London
next weekend. I might pop over at lunch or failing that one day I will
have to leave work early or get in late. To be fair, if I made sure I
was at the shop in Covent Garden at 10am I'd probably be in work no
later than I often have been lately coming from home.
Got myself a T-shirt and a coat as well. Those were dead cheap,
Debenhams and Primark respectively. I got the lightest coat I could
find, obviously this isn't an ideal time to be shopping for one in this
country. Frankly I suspect it may well be too hot even at night, but we
will see. The cream-y jacket I bought prior to the Mexico trip was too
warm there, definitely during the day and AFAICR at night too. This just
might be lighter in a way - it's waterproof-ish-looking fabric rather
than proper cloth - but you never know. If I don't wear it I don't wear
it, but I will probably want a coat (plus layering underneath) for
Georgia and maybe some parts of Latin America (e.g. if I end up down in
the far south again), and I think it's borderline jacket-y enough that
if temperatures permit I could wear it in the evening and look
reasonably smart without being overly formal. I hate clothes, they're so
complicated. ;-)
Need to get to bed really. Do want to book the hotel in Tbilisi tomorrow
and also look into booking more flights, ideally all of the remaining
flights for the pre-Christmas phase of the trip.
Raj and Manmeet at work gave me some tips on India; apparently I can
hire a taxi for a day for something like £15-£25, which sounds like a
good way of doing some sightseeing in Delhi (although I do want to try
the underground there). Was surprised Raj recommended taking traveller's
cheques, which everyone else I've ever talked to seems to regard as a
prehistoric curiosity. However, I have checked and I have USD200 of my
pre-2010-trip purchase left, so I will regard that as enough for
emergencies and I will try to ensure (Raj recommended £500 in cash,
which is a bit too mugger-prone for my liking) I have maybe £100-£150 on
me (or in my belongings) as a reserve of cash on top. They seemed to
lean towards recommending expensive-ish (although relatively cheap by UK
standards) hotels/restaurants, although Raj said he had stayed in 1* and
3* places and they were OK. I think - oh, Andy made a similar-ish
recommendation about Bangkok - I will lean towards something relatively
fancy when I first arrive in both India and Thailand to allow me to find
my feet before possibly moving down to the cheaper end of the scale. I
am not really intending to go 5* unless it's super cheap however, but
reputable 3*/4* perhaps.
This perhaps makes my choice (not booked of course yet) of a hostel for
my arrival in Tbilisi a bit odd, but then again it's a different kind of
place, I suspect.
Have done lesson 5 of the Georgian course today. So progress has been a
bit slow due to my laxity. Still, better than nothing and I hope to do
one or two more lessons tomorrow, and I think I am pretty much
remembering most of the stuff that has been covered (I keep recapping
some of the older lessons to keep them fresh).
Anyway I am going to go to bed as I hope to not be up mega late tomorrow.
Tbilisi ASAP; leaning towards springing for a double room to myself in a
hostel with shared bathroom, as a compromise between not burdening
myself with the stress of a dormitory after the flight but still saving
a bit (not a huge amount, but still) compared to a hotel and offering
some prospect of meeting people. The main purpose of the trip is to "see
and, where appropriate, do stuff", not to socialise per se, but of
course a) that's also a potentially fun part of a trip (as long as it
doesn't lead me into excessive drinking any more than I can help) b) is
something I'd kind of like to get sorted out and c) is semi-necessary
when otherwise travelling solo for a couple of months at a stretch. In
respect c) this trip is of course slightly easier than the one in 2010
as I will never be away for more than three months straight, but the
issue still arises.
Went out shopping today and bought a pair of lightweight trousers at
Rohan; think I will take those and the combats I bought to go to
Edinburgh, eschewing jeans (heavy, slow to dry) and the trusty pair of
creamy lightweight-ish chino-esque Rohan trousers I bought for the 2010
trip (which are still in tolerable nick, however; if I didn't think
three pairs of trousers was pushing it a bit, I would probably take
them). Needed to have them shortened, I hope that will work out OK, and
bit of a pisser to collect as they are open from 10-7 so I can't go
before work nor can I conveniently go after work and I'm not in London
next weekend. I might pop over at lunch or failing that one day I will
have to leave work early or get in late. To be fair, if I made sure I
was at the shop in Covent Garden at 10am I'd probably be in work no
later than I often have been lately coming from home.
Got myself a T-shirt and a coat as well. Those were dead cheap,
Debenhams and Primark respectively. I got the lightest coat I could
find, obviously this isn't an ideal time to be shopping for one in this
country. Frankly I suspect it may well be too hot even at night, but we
will see. The cream-y jacket I bought prior to the Mexico trip was too
warm there, definitely during the day and AFAICR at night too. This just
might be lighter in a way - it's waterproof-ish-looking fabric rather
than proper cloth - but you never know. If I don't wear it I don't wear
it, but I will probably want a coat (plus layering underneath) for
Georgia and maybe some parts of Latin America (e.g. if I end up down in
the far south again), and I think it's borderline jacket-y enough that
if temperatures permit I could wear it in the evening and look
reasonably smart without being overly formal. I hate clothes, they're so
complicated. ;-)
Need to get to bed really. Do want to book the hotel in Tbilisi tomorrow
and also look into booking more flights, ideally all of the remaining
flights for the pre-Christmas phase of the trip.
Raj and Manmeet at work gave me some tips on India; apparently I can
hire a taxi for a day for something like £15-£25, which sounds like a
good way of doing some sightseeing in Delhi (although I do want to try
the underground there). Was surprised Raj recommended taking traveller's
cheques, which everyone else I've ever talked to seems to regard as a
prehistoric curiosity. However, I have checked and I have USD200 of my
pre-2010-trip purchase left, so I will regard that as enough for
emergencies and I will try to ensure (Raj recommended £500 in cash,
which is a bit too mugger-prone for my liking) I have maybe £100-£150 on
me (or in my belongings) as a reserve of cash on top. They seemed to
lean towards recommending expensive-ish (although relatively cheap by UK
standards) hotels/restaurants, although Raj said he had stayed in 1* and
3* places and they were OK. I think - oh, Andy made a similar-ish
recommendation about Bangkok - I will lean towards something relatively
fancy when I first arrive in both India and Thailand to allow me to find
my feet before possibly moving down to the cheaper end of the scale. I
am not really intending to go 5* unless it's super cheap however, but
reputable 3*/4* perhaps.
This perhaps makes my choice (not booked of course yet) of a hostel for
my arrival in Tbilisi a bit odd, but then again it's a different kind of
place, I suspect.
Have done lesson 5 of the Georgian course today. So progress has been a
bit slow due to my laxity. Still, better than nothing and I hope to do
one or two more lessons tomorrow, and I think I am pretty much
remembering most of the stuff that has been covered (I keep recapping
some of the older lessons to keep them fresh).
Anyway I am going to go to bed as I hope to not be up mega late tomorrow.
Thursday, 26 September 2013
London-Bangkok flights
I need to get to bed...
Just been on the Jet Airways website to check if I got aisle seats. I
did (the economy cabins are not that full, yet), but since I can
apparently pre-reserve seats and emergency exit seats were available on
both flights I have changed them. Fingers crossed I don't get relocated
to non-aisle non-emergency exit seats...
I'm now supposed to be in aisle emergency seat 30H on the London-Mumbai
flight and window emergency seat 18A on the Mumbai-Bangkok flight. To be
honest I probably need to get over my "fear" of not having an aisle seat
anyway, after all I did survive the flight back from Sao Paulo to London
:-) and that was much longer. (Plus I distinctly remember flying from
Sao Paulo to Santiago in a window seat back in 2010 and not thinking
twice about it. It's only relatively recently I've somehow built this up
into a massive deal rather than a mild preference.) To be fair, window,
while a bit more "trapped" in some sense, is better than a middle seat
where you're still blocked off from the aisle by someone else but you
also have someone on the other side.) Window is totally fine in an
emergency row anyway, in fact better since you have the chance of a
view. I couldn't get an aisle emergency seat on the second flight so I
figured I'd chance it. I am assuming of course that if I do get shifted
(or if the plane layout turns out to be wrong somehow) that choosing an
aisle emergency seat will probably at least degrade into an aisle
non-emergency seat.
Anyway, enough about my bizarre psychological problems and towards bed.
Just been on the Jet Airways website to check if I got aisle seats. I
did (the economy cabins are not that full, yet), but since I can
apparently pre-reserve seats and emergency exit seats were available on
both flights I have changed them. Fingers crossed I don't get relocated
to non-aisle non-emergency exit seats...
I'm now supposed to be in aisle emergency seat 30H on the London-Mumbai
flight and window emergency seat 18A on the Mumbai-Bangkok flight. To be
honest I probably need to get over my "fear" of not having an aisle seat
anyway, after all I did survive the flight back from Sao Paulo to London
:-) and that was much longer. (Plus I distinctly remember flying from
Sao Paulo to Santiago in a window seat back in 2010 and not thinking
twice about it. It's only relatively recently I've somehow built this up
into a massive deal rather than a mild preference.) To be fair, window,
while a bit more "trapped" in some sense, is better than a middle seat
where you're still blocked off from the aisle by someone else but you
also have someone on the other side.) Window is totally fine in an
emergency row anyway, in fact better since you have the chance of a
view. I couldn't get an aisle emergency seat on the second flight so I
figured I'd chance it. I am assuming of course that if I do get shifted
(or if the plane layout turns out to be wrong somehow) that choosing an
aisle emergency seat will probably at least degrade into an aisle
non-emergency seat.
Anyway, enough about my bizarre psychological problems and towards bed.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Flight to Bangkok booked
Been mulling this over and it's actually cheaper to fly Georgia-London-Bangkok than Georgia-Istanbul-Bangkok, so I'm going to come back to London for a couple of nights before going on to Bangkok. Not great but probably not too bad an idea, and Istanbul would be doable as a normal long weekend kind of trip if/when I'm back at work, or even as a weekend trip after my return to the UK before I started back at work (not that I expect to do that). It does also mean I can maybe make some changes to my luggage from 'cooler' to 'warmer' climate stuff, not that this is likely to be a big deal. Just been checking flight prices online from work and I've booked. About (from memory) £200 to fly back from Georgia via Kiev, then £350 (on ebookers; expedia had same flight for £370) London to Bangkok via Mumbai.
Need to get hotel booked for first couple of nights in Tbilisi sharpish. Also bit worried may not get aisle seats on the Bangkok flights as booking relatively late. I guess I will survive if I can't, and this should also encourage me to book the other flights ASAP so I get more chance of getting aisle seats.
Travel insurance
OK, having slacked off a little at work I managed to find a sane (well, apparently) travel insurance policy with MoreThan or however you spell it. Multi trip for up to 90 days at a time, maximum 180-ish a year which while not as generous as some others (which are unlimited) is still ample and will give me maybe a month of cover to use for any short holidays later in 2014 as a bonus.
As a further bonus they actually let me pay a supplement up front and paragliding (among various other 'risky' sports) is covered (not personal accident or liability, but if I break a limb that's covered). That was something like £35 extra but the total policy worked out at £170ish, which was still cheaper than I could get from Trailfinders.
Normally I would go with Trailfinders even if they were a bit expensive since they were pretty good when I broke my arm in 2010 but the best price would have been £129 for annual multi trip with a 70 day trip limit and then £193 for an additional 3 month single trip for the post-Christmas bit, plus an extra £25 a pop and having to phone them if I do any paragliding. Had there not been the Christmas break preventing me taking out a 5-6 month single trip policy I'd probably have paid the £255 they wanted for that (for 5 months, 6 would be £289) - of course I'd also have had no choice since multi trip wouldn't have been an option then anyway.
The paragliding thing was not a deciding factor, just a bonus - I figured it was worth paying the £35 to avoid any problems, also quite possibly on that policy I wouldn't have the option to add the cover even for a single day while abroad. (It's just luck/the way they work that Trailfinders offered that the first time I tried it.) What was a consideration was that any policy I took had to at least allow for paragliding cover even if it had to involve some extra fee and/or phone call.
90 days is slightly tight post Christmas but in a way I do need something to ensure I come back and start looking for work by the start of April (when it's apparently a good time to do so) instead of dragging the trip out, so that works out OK really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
