Get me from Thailand to Cairo in 3 1/2 weeks.
August 17, 2008 2:51 AM Subscribe
I'll arrive in Bangkok on September 18th and need to be in Cairo on October 15th.. Inspire an adventure:
Take a rice barge down the Chao Phraya River and tour Ayutthaya, the ruins of the former Thai capital.
posted by quidividi at 5:36 AM on August 17, 2008
posted by quidividi at 5:36 AM on August 17, 2008
If it was me, I'd try to cram this in, but picking and choosing the options you like would work too:
Arrive Bangkok, quick side trip to Angkor in Cambodia.
Then fly Jetstar Asia direct from Siem Reap to Singapore.
Tour Singapore for a day and then fly either Singapore Airlines or Sri Lanka Air direct to Colombo. Spend a few days doing the safe parts of Sri Lanka, then onto Mumbai from Colombo.
Either a quick peek at Mumbai or transferring directly to Kenya Airways to Nairobi.
From there Kenya Airways will get you direct to Zanzibar or the Seychelles. If the beach isn't your thing, I'd go upcountry and safari the Masai Mara.
Then back to Nairobi for your flight to Cairo (it stops in Khartoum, but you don't have to disembark).
posted by meerkatty at 8:41 AM on August 17, 2008
Arrive Bangkok, quick side trip to Angkor in Cambodia.
Then fly Jetstar Asia direct from Siem Reap to Singapore.
Tour Singapore for a day and then fly either Singapore Airlines or Sri Lanka Air direct to Colombo. Spend a few days doing the safe parts of Sri Lanka, then onto Mumbai from Colombo.
Either a quick peek at Mumbai or transferring directly to Kenya Airways to Nairobi.
From there Kenya Airways will get you direct to Zanzibar or the Seychelles. If the beach isn't your thing, I'd go upcountry and safari the Masai Mara.
Then back to Nairobi for your flight to Cairo (it stops in Khartoum, but you don't have to disembark).
posted by meerkatty at 8:41 AM on August 17, 2008
Do you have any strong preference for either hanging around in SE Asia, or doing some kind of tour like meerkatty suggests?
If SEA is where you'd like to spend most of your time, Angkor is unmissable, and Burma is a very pleasant place to visit - very friendly & laid back, and not overrun by tourists. I'll leave it up to you to decide your own position of the politics of boycotting.
If a meerkatty-style trip takes your fancy, that was a nice looking itinerary. As an alternative, you could consider overlanding from Istanbul down to Egypt, via Syria & Jordan. Turkey's a great place to visit, and you'd be surprised at how incredibly warm & hospitable Arabs are, in spite of all the bad press that part of the world gets. Obviously, a trip through Syria & Jordan would take in places like Petra, Damascus & Palmyra. 3.5 weeks for that would be a bit fast-paced, but quite feasible.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:11 PM on August 17, 2008
If SEA is where you'd like to spend most of your time, Angkor is unmissable, and Burma is a very pleasant place to visit - very friendly & laid back, and not overrun by tourists. I'll leave it up to you to decide your own position of the politics of boycotting.
If a meerkatty-style trip takes your fancy, that was a nice looking itinerary. As an alternative, you could consider overlanding from Istanbul down to Egypt, via Syria & Jordan. Turkey's a great place to visit, and you'd be surprised at how incredibly warm & hospitable Arabs are, in spite of all the bad press that part of the world gets. Obviously, a trip through Syria & Jordan would take in places like Petra, Damascus & Palmyra. 3.5 weeks for that would be a bit fast-paced, but quite feasible.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:11 PM on August 17, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Southeast Asia is pretty much the cheapest place in the world for active budget travelers, and you could easily fill a leisurely month making your way down/up the region on buses, trains, and local transport without having to really fly anywhere as long as you're heading in one general direction. Visas and formalities are relatively simple to deal with for US passport holders, the food's amazing, language difficulties aren't insurmountable, and it's well-traveled enough that you could just show up without a guidebook (though it's nice, but not necessary, to know where the bus you're on is going) and start.
If you want to cover more ground in that time, fly; here's a list of Asian low-cost airlines. If you're a train guy, check here.
Selamat jalan!
posted by mdonley at 3:14 AM on August 17, 2008