Best Southeast Asia spots?

[caden]

Please indulge my daydreaming. we are (hopefully) moving to korea this summer. The company sending us is being dismally slow at giving us details so I've turned to vacation planning. What are your must-sees in Southeast Asia? We have two would-be 4 year olds so we can't do anything too adventurous, but I'm having a hard time even prioritizing cities, much less activities there. I'm not all that familiar with the region.

[frlcb]

Definitely Angkor Wat and Luang Prabang!

[kpol]

Thai beaches, Bali (Ubud was great), Hong Kong, Tokyo would all be good with small children. Jeju Island at the southern end of Korea is really great for a quick trip and very kid friendly. I don't know if I'd recommend Hanoi and Halong bay with kids as there weren't many while we were there but it was an awesome experience.

We're looking at Singapore, Saipan, The Philippines, Australia and New Zealand as options for the rest of the time we are in Korea. Good flights are easy to come by!

[scout8]

Mar 18, 2014 20:52:10 GMT -5 frlcb said:

Definitely Angkor Wat and Luang Prabang!

This.

Also Chiang Mai. If possible try to go for Yeng Pi. It was one of my top travel experiences!

When we were in Laos, we took a van from Luang Prabang to Nong Kiau for a couple nights. We then hired a private boat to take us back to LP. The scenery was incredible. I think it would probably be fun for kids too. I don't have kids, though, so you might not want to trust me there.

[Alyssa]

Vang Vieng, Laos

Inner tubing down the Nam Song River.  Lots of back-packers.  I loved this town.



Luang Probang, Laos

Located North of Vang Vieng


Koh Phi Phi, Thailand


Maya Bay - Where they filmed that awful DiCaprio movie, 'The Beach'  It's GORGEOUS!




Angkor Wat, Siem Reap Cambodia



Cambodia excepts the US dollar.



I would stay out of Hanoi, it's a crazy smoggy city.  Halong Bay is pretty  but it's hard to be there on a clear day, most of the time it's smoggy and overcast.  There's a huge language barrier once you get into Vietnam, hardly anyone knows english.  I'm not expecting them to, it's their country afterall, but compared to the other SE Asian countries, Vietnam was the worst when trying to communicate.  It's either Vietnamese of French, so just take that into consideration.


We also spent time in Bangkok, Phuket, Krabi, Surathani, and Koh Samui Thailand.   It's extremely cheap over there. 

[Deleted]

Singapore - the zoo, River Safari, and Night Safari are amazing for kids - Sentosa Island has a lot to do there as well. And there are islands you can take boats too that have hiking and such, so it isn't all city.
Philippines - we went to the Luzon rice terraces, but those are not viable with kids unless you hired a car (9 hour overnight sketchy bus ride and hike down to village), our friends go to a resort in Cebu and love it there, the kids go play in the kids club.
There are really too many great options to be able to list them all.

[Cicero]

Singapore would be fantastic for kids. You've got the zoo, the bird park, and if you don't stay at Marina Bay Sands you can still pay to get up to their aqua park and use their pools for the day (up on the top of the hotel, so excellent view).

I wouldn't do rural Laos with children. The roads are complete crap (not necessarily paved, etc) and they're pretty much the only way to get from point A to Point B unless you take a boat--and the Me Kong up there is hazardous. I'm a pretty laid back person and I freaked out at the idea of taking my not strong swimmer of an H on the boat. I'd freak even more if we were talking about a kid. I'm also guessing that you don't want to be hauling two car seats with you. If you want to do Laos I highly suggest sticking to Luang Prabang since it has an airport.

You don't need to worry about any of the above with Vietnam. The roads are a lot better, there are more than two airports in the country, and you can always take a train. I would probably stick to one region though instead of trying to see the whole country. I'll just go ahead and recommend Central Vietnam since that is my favourite. We loved the beach resort we stayed in outside of DaNang and it had a free daily shuttle to Hoi An. If you wanted the DMZ is about an hour's drive from there, so you could always hire a driver and go up to see the VC tunnels that haven't been widened for westerners like the ones outside of HCMC have.

[katfco]

Another vote for Angkor Wat, the water puppets and Singapore Zoo. If you end up in Pnom Penh and are without the kids, I recommend S-21, the concentration camp, but not with the kids.

The butterfly park in Kuala Lumpur is pretty cool.

Take a tour of the Mekong Delta.

[Deleted]

Bagan, Myanmar

[Cicero]

Mar 20, 2014 13:45:08 GMT -5 neeps said:

Mar 20, 2014 9:46:05 GMT -5 Cicero said:

I wouldn't do rural Laos with children. The roads are complete crap (not necessarily paved, etc) and they're pretty much the only way to get from point A to Point B unless you take a boat--and the Me Kong up there is hazardous. I'm a pretty laid back person and I freaked out at the idea of taking my not strong swimmer of an H on the boat. I'd freak even more if we were talking about a kid. I'm also guessing that you don't want to be hauling two car seats with you. If you want to do Laos I highly suggest sticking to Luang Prabang since it has an airport.

I advocated against driving in Laos, if you'll recall. pandce.proboards.com/thread/116910/laos-itinerary-forming

I think anyone who has done a slow boat trip in Laos thinks it's a great experience. I can't remember if you were off season, if so maybe the extra rains made it hazardous for you, because it certainly wasn't for the 14 hours we spent on it. It's like a lazy river ride.

Oh, I remember. I adopted a personal "always listen to Neeps" policy after that. TBH I'm not a huge fan of Laos. Luang Prabang was amazing but I vividly remember sitting in VV, eating overpriced and godawful stoner food for the fourth meal in a row because that is all that was available, being completely underwhelmed and kicking myself for not thinking of flying KL-Vientiane-Luang Prabang-Chaing Mai-KL and skipping the rest of the country earlier.

I usually don't mention that though because so much of travel is contingent on personal preference and experience and I really don't want to discourage someone else from going when they could have a very nice time.

From what I know of you caden, you would not like Vang Vieng and even though they've cleaned up a lot of the drugs it still caters more towards the late teen early twenty backpacking crowd than it does families with small children.

ETA: the boat--yes we were there at the end of the wet season, but also one of the routes we woul have needed to take was on an uncharted part of the river and we were advised by the expat who owned the sports at next to our hotel in Viantiane that boats sink along that route on the regular. He wasn't advising an alternate route or trying to recommend a driver so I don't know what incentive he would have had to lie.

[frlcb]

Mar 20, 2014 14:47:37 GMT -5 Cicero said:

Mar 20, 2014 13:45:08 GMT -5 neeps said:

I advocated against driving in Laos, if you'll recall. pandce.proboards.com/thread/116910/laos-itinerary-forming

I think anyone who has done a slow boat trip in Laos thinks it's a great experience. I can't remember if you were off season, if so maybe the extra rains made it hazardous for you, because it certainly wasn't for the 14 hours we spent on it. It's like a lazy river ride.

Oh, I remember. I adopted a personal "always listen to Neeps" policy after that. TBH I'm not a huge fan of Laos. Luang Prabang was amazing but I vividly remember sitting in VV, eating overpriced and godawful stoner food for the fourth meal in a row because that is all that was available, being completely underwhelmed and kicking myself for not thinking of flying KL-Vientiane-Luang Prabang-Chaing Mai-KL and skipping the rest of the country earlier.

I usually don't mention that though because so much of travel is contingent on personal preference and experience and I really don't want to discourage someone else from going when they could have a very nice time.

From what I know of you caden, you would not like Vang Vieng and even though they've cleaned up a lot of the drugs it still caters more towards the late teen early twenty backpacking crowd than it does families with small children.

ETA: the boat--yes we were there at the end of the wet season, but also one of the routes we woul have needed to take was on an uncharted part of the river and we were advised by the expat who owned the sports at next to our hotel in Viantiane that boats sink along that route on the regular. He wasn't advising an alternate route or trying to recommend a driver so I don't know what incentive he would have had to lie.

I can't speak for the rest of Laos because we intentionally skipped the rest of it because all we heard was exactly this - a bunch of young backpackers who did a lot of drugs - but I am sad that ruined the whole of Laos for you I think Luang Prabang is amazing. Saying that, we were there 4 years ago and already I could see that it was slowly moving towards a major tourist mecca which will definitely ruin a lot of its charm.

[caden]

Thank you everyone! Can you describe these boats you're referring to? Is there food on it?

[scout8]

Mar 21, 2014 6:27:16 GMT -5 caden said:

Thank you everyone! Can you describe these boats you're referring to? Is there food on it?

Sorry, but the only two I have include me in the photo. We went on a private boat. I think he picked us up around 8 and we got back to LP around 2. We stopped at a few different places along the way. We also stopped for lunch. The river was completely calm for us. I never felt unsafe.

[frlcb]

Mar 21, 2014 6:27:16 GMT -5 caden said:

Thank you everyone! Can you describe these boats you're referring to? Is there food on it?

I don't know how to put the pictures in here - here is my post about our boat. The longer ones may be bigger and a little nice, but not much.

andreaythomas.blogspot.com/2010/05/luang-prabang-day-four.html

[Cicero]

Mar 21, 2014 6:27:16 GMT -5 caden said:

Thank you everyone! Can you describe these boats you're referring to? Is there food on it?

Most people use them either for a day tour or to travel to Luang Prabang. We were in a different situation because we were coming from KL instead of Thailand (like the vast majority of people who visit Laos). The only direct flight from KL is into Vientiane, so all of our travel was between the capital and points north. It is the river between Vientiane and some point on the way to Luang Prabang that is I advisable for boat travel, not the route that everyone usually takes. 

[Alyssa]

Mar 19, 2014 19:57:21 GMT -5 neeps said:

Mar 19, 2014 18:27:18 GMT -5 Alyssa said:

I would stay out of Hanoi, it's a crazy smoggy city.  Halong Bay is pretty  but it's hard to be there on a clear day, most of the time it's smoggy and overcast.  There's a huge language barrier once you get into Vietnam, hardly anyone knows english.  I'm not expecting them to, it's their country afterall, but compared to the other SE Asian countries, Vietnam was the worst when trying to communicate.  It's either Vietnamese of French, so just take that into consideration.

Rubbish. Alyssa's hateraide for Vietnam is ridiculous. I can certainly do what she did and rip some professional photos off travel tour sites and make it look ah-mazing, but I won't. I'll post the pics I actually took.

Ha Long Bay

Hanoi


I mean look how awful it is. 

Wanna see a picture I took in Bangkok? 



Clearly it's a rat infested hell hole and you should stay far, far away. This is on Khao San Road.

Neeps obviously we had two separate trips.  IMO Hanoi was a shit-hole and I also managed to take great photos there, doesn't make it a great place to visit though.  You liked Vietnam, I thought is a shitty country.  I think it's fair to give people our opinions on travel locations without others taking a dump on them....it's not all puppies and rainbows there and it's good to let others know that..


As for  "ripping" shots off the web...See this shot?  I took it.


I took this too...


...and this one


oh and this one too....


and this one....


This is Vang Vieng, I recommend going there.


Hanoi was by far the worst and we regretted leaving Luang Probang to go there.