PeterRS

I loved Hanoi and for whatever reasons I prefer it to Ho Chi Minh City. Why would you be scared? Just be a little careful where you put your head when you visit the Museum!!

I think you need an assistant to organise your travel bookings LOL

Agreed. In the cirium data it came 9th. The only point to add here is that Cathay Pacific suffered most in Asia from covid19. With Hong Kong having virtually the most stringent lock down in the region, most of its planes were parked in deserts and many of it staff laid off. It was barely able to cope with a huge surge in traffic at the end of 2024. It is only now back to full pre-covid operation levels and based on pre-covid performance I'd expect it to move up the on-time performance chart this year, the more so as HK airport now has its new 3rd runway in operation. Just my guess! Japan Airlines All Nippon Airways Singapore Airlines Air New Zealand Thai AirAsia Vietnam Airlines Philippine Airlines Garuda Indonesia Cathay Pacific Qantas Airways

The location has always been lousy, but the train into Tokyo station takes little more than 50 minutes. Many trains continue on to Shinkjuku Station. It's interesting how we all gain perceptions and how often they can be incorrect. I know I'm as bad as anyone. But I'm sorry to say you are totally wrong in suggesting Narita has become mostly a low cost carrier airport. I have used it well over 100 times and most major airlines still operate from there. Want a list? How about the scheduled services by Air France, American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, all the major Chinese airlines (more than a dozen), Delta, Emirates, Etihad, EVA, Finnair, KLM, Korean, Lufthansa, Malaysian, Qantas, Qatar, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, THAI, Turkish, United and others including JAL and ANA. Many like Cathay Pacific use both. It is still by far the more major of the two airports for scheduled international services in the Tokyo region. Haneda just isn't big enough to handle nearly as much international traffic since it also has to handle 90% of Japan's domestic flights - presently over 500 daily from Haneda - which account for around 40 million domestic passengers annually. https://tokyo-haneda.com/en/flight/flightInfo_dms.html

It used to be a lot more expensive. Sure it's more expensive than Thailand. But it has become a lot cheaper for international travellers. It is not that many years ago when the ¥ was below 100 to US$1. Now it is a fraction less than 150. And when you add in the safety factor, it's now much more attractive to a great many tourists.

Narita has been a hub for American, Japanese and some other airlines for many decades. I can remember when it was quite usual to see around 16 Northwest 747-400s at the airport. 8 would have flown in from US gateways and 8 from Asian destinations. Lots of passengers connected from one route to another. Last time I connected from the US was on JAL, but it was at Haneda.

A good friend has just returned from three months in Tokyo. He confirms that the nunbers of Chinese tourists has mushroomed recently, partly a result of the cheaper ¥ and partly because it is perceived as more safe than Thailand!

Not yet, but it's on my list. I actually preferred Hoi An. Just fell in love with the place.

Minimum connecting times are surely dependent on the airline, the airport and whether you are on the same or different carriers. Having been based in Hong Kong for decades, I was used to CX having short interline connections of around 40 minutes. In all my years of flying, I don't ever recall one missed connection. But . . . this year having failed to use miles to get me to Europe on my favoured Qatar, I had to get a ticket on CX via HKG. Not really a problem as it allows me a free stopover in HKG on my return. The issue which arose is that for my flight on Saturday, even 5 months ago the only seats available were on the last flight out of BKK at 19:15 connecting to the last flight from HKG to London at 00:15. In theory that alllows for 65 minutes connecting time, although at this time of year with the winter monsoon arrivals into HKG should be straight in towards the north thereby allowing an extra 5-10 minutes or so. But . . . then I heard that on January 17, the last flight ex-BKK departed 4 hours late! Had that been my flight, I would have missed my connetion, had to spend at least 5 hours at the airport and be connected on to the first London flight in the morning. That in turn would have cancelled my cheap onward flight from London as I would have been a no show. A new ticket would cost around £300. So using FlightRadar I checked that last flight ex-BKK and its departure times. I was shocked to discover that throughout January it was on average 1 hr and 8 mins late in departing. How many had missed their connections during that month I have zero idea. So . . . I phoned CX to get me on an earlier departure ex BKK. Sorry, sir, the only mileage ticket available is on a flight departing at 06:30 am!! And that would have meant around 14 hours stuck at HKG. Finally I got on to a manager, a pleasant young man who understood my situation, but told me that there were no mileage tickets on earlier flights. I then played what I hoped would be my ace card. What airline, I asked, schedules a flight that over a 31 day month has departed on average 68 minutes late? Every single day! By this time it was perfectly clear to me that the 777 operating that flight must always have arrived late into HKG prior to being prepared for departure for BKK. And it had probably come in from somewhere in Europe where flight times are longer due to being unable to use Russian air space. Since I rarely accept 'no' for an answer, I eventually beat this poor guy down. He finally agreed to put me on a flight departing BKK two hours earlier at no extra cost and I had the new ticket within minutes. Now of course my concern is the connection in London for which I have allowed almost 3 hours. But worrying about that will achieve nothing, so I will just wait and see what happens. In general, though, I totally agree with @unicorn. It's far better to plan for 3 or so hours between flights than accept a tight connection.

Another moved post from another forum. You will love Danang and the area. I started a 10 day trip 5 years ago just as the airlines were stopping flights due to covid. Hoi An just 30 minutes away is a glorious little town, with lanterns lit up everywhere in the evenings. Hoi An There is also at the west end a 15th century Japanese bridge In the centre of this area is the large city of Danang with its fabulously long beaches A little further north there is the old Imperial capital of Hue. The French destroyed much of it, espeically the imperial palace, but it is slowly being restored. This was the scene of a lot of fighting during the Vietnam War.

This refers to a post in another forum referencing Phu Quoc in whicih a member suggested the post could be moved to the Vietnam forum. TO save @TotallyOz time, I was there just before covid and used my last Marriott points to spend 5 nights at that beautiful hotel. Loved the trip.

I never - ever - use google for hotel rates. @reader is 100% correct. The rate for 2 nights on agoda is vastly cheaper. Checking 2 nights from March 5 on the agoda site (almost always the cheapest site for Thailand hotels and less than half the rate you quoted), you get a deluxe room for 2 with breakfast at Bt 3,798.92. Surely anyone looking for rooms in Thailand already knows about agoda! The only thing you have to be careful about with agoda - and some other sites - is that their initially quoted prices usually do not include tax and service charge. The charge above is the price you are quoted just before you make the booking and so tax and service charges are included. But I have noted that you want 2 rooms, so basically double the price. On the Trip.com site, they quoted you for 2 rooms. The rate for one room for 2 people with breakfast for 2 nights starting March 5 is - Bt. 4,155. So your google search actually was pretty close if you really want 2 rooms rather than 1.

Just an extra quickie. When I complained to CX about getting nothing for all the money i had spent on the carrier to try to reach 2 million miles, I got the usual guff about no guarantees etc. But then someone told me it was all to do with joining One World. With CX having only one hub, all its 2 million milers would be entitled to reciprocal benefits on the 6 other original carriers - and most of them had objected. WIll your 2 million Platinum miles benefits entitle you to benefits across all One World carriers?

In my long very personal essay, I added that I would resurrect one other series of posts, this time of Gay Icons. As I leave for Europe on Saturday and will not post during the nearly 3 weeks I will be away. I shall merely post this first one and one other before I depart. Today the gay community in much of the world has gained a freedom and acceptance unthought of little more than half a century ago. Along with this liberation has come an understanding that gay icons are important, especially for younger gay boys and girls. Chatting with friends over dinner some years ago, the conversation drifted into two rather interesting directions. Who were the first gay icons, and why are there none in Asia? For obvious reasons many of those we consider gay icons today are dead, although new more liberated generations are discovering their own. As for the first gay icon, was it perhaps Alexander the Great? Deeply in love with his childhood friend Hephaestion, the Greek philosopher Aristotle described them as “one soul abiding in two bodies.” But the best known of the ancient figures to attract iconic status is surely St. Sebastian, the young, beautiful, naked youth, his body tied to a tree and pierced by arrows. Throughout history, hosts of artists have painted their ideals of his martyrdom. Gay film-maker Derek Jarman’s 1976 “Sebastiene” used him to examine the overlap between sexual and spiritual ecstasy. In “Confessions of a Mark” by the gay right-wing Japanese Yukio Mishima who committed ritual seppuku in 1970, one character has his first ejaculation over a reproduction of St. Sebastian. Screenshot from Derek Jarman's movie Sebastiane As far as Asia is concerned, those in the west tend to forget there was a near thriving gay culture in many Asia countries before the advent of Arab traders and the missionaries which followed in the wake of western colonists desperate to convert souls for Christ. Going back in time, Chinese emperors not infrequently had concubines of both sexes. In the fourth century BC a courtier named Long Yang-jun was offering such special services that Long Yang became a literary term for homosexuality. Even today, he is commemorated in international Long Yang Clubs. A tale often told concerns the tenth Han Dynasty Emperor Ai Ti (6 – 1 BC) who had numerous male lovers. Sharing his couch with his favourite Dong Xian, the young man fell asleep across the Emperor’s sleeve. Rather than wake him, the Emperor took his sword and simply cut off the royal sleeve. From then on, “cut sleeve” (断袖) became just one of many terms that appear throughout China’s literary history as a euphemism for homosexual love and devotion. Ai Ti's Lover Dong Xian Close by, homosexual activity was far from uncommon at court during the three main Korean Dynasties. During the first Silla Dynasty, King Hyegong was known for his adventures with other men. He was even described as “a man by appearance but a woman by nature.” One group of his elite warriors were the Hwarang or ‘Flower Boys’, so called because of their homoeroticism and femininity. During the later Koryŏ Dynasty, King Mokjong and King Gongmin are both on record as having several male lovers. When his wife died, Gongmin even went so far as to create a Ministry whose sole purpose was to seek out and recruit young men from all over the country to serve at his Court. His sexual partners were called “little brother attendants”! But as Asian countries developed their own independent identities in the 20th century, a new more public gay culture slowly emerged. As mentioned earlier, the novelist, playwright, essayist, actor and model Mishima became a Japanese gay icon, albeit a controversial one due to his extreme right-wing views. Although married, he frequented gay bars and had several affairs with men. Mishima giving the speech outside parliament before he died by committing retual seppuku Another more recent is the adored Hong Kong singer and actor, Leslie Cheung. Handsome in the extreme (as I can attest!) – even aged 44 he was described by TIME magazine as “so damned gorgeous” , he was discovered in a singing competition. Thereafter he became hugely successful as a silky-voiced singer, actor and songwriter. Unlike other movie stars, Leslie played several gay characters in Hong Kong movies, mirroring his secret life as a closet homosexual. He came to world attention in Chen Kaige’s 1993 movie Farewell My Concubine with a superb portrayal of a gay Chinese opera singer involved in a love triangle set against the violent political turmoils in 20th century China who ends up committing suicide. This gorgeous film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category. By this time, Leslie was known as one of the Canto-pop “kings”, four Hong Kong singers who dominated record sales around Asia for over a decade. In 1997 he starred in another major movie, Happy Together. This is a dark tale of two 30ish gay Hong Kong lovers who decide to travel to Argentina’s Iguazu Falls on a tiny budget in an attempt to reignite their relationship. It does not work. Both end up seeking other sexual encounters. Throughout, the entire movie themes of loneliness and emotional pain are intertwined in a recurring cycle of mutual abuse and dependence. Happy Together gained worldwide acclaim, including another Palme d’Or for its director and a third Best Actor nomination for Leslie. Trailer for Wong Kar Wai's tense drama Happy Together. Two young Hong Kong lovers travel to see the Iguazu Falls in Argentina hoping this will rekindle their faiiing relationship but with disastrous results As a singer, in 1989 Leslie filled 10,000 seats in the Hong Kong Coliseum for an astonishing 33 consecutive nights. Eight years later at another series of concerts for which Jean-Paul Gaultier designed some of his costumes, he announced that he was gay and had had a lover for many years. It did nothing to upset his adoring female fans, although some of the guys were disappointed! What was not known then was that despite his legendary fame in Asia and his growing fame around the world, Leslie suffered from depression. By the turn of the century this had developed into severe clinical depression. On April 1st 2003 his manager was waiting for a meeting in the mezzanine lounge in Hong Kong’s Mandarin-Oriental Hotel. Unknown to her, Leslie was already in the hotel having a coffee on the 24th floor. Phoning to check why he was so late, she later claimed his last words were “I’ll be down in a moment!” He then jumped to his death. He was just 46 years old. Screen shot from one of Leslie Cheung's early movies showing Danny Chan, Leslie Cheung and Paul Chung Can you imagine three cuter young Hong Kong guys than those in the photo above? Actors Danny Chan, Leslie Cheung and Paul Chung in the 1981 Hong Kong movie On Trial. Danny and Leslie were closet gays at the time. All died tragically young. Danny, who always had a coterie of cute young western guys around him, was into drugs and died of a drug overdose aged 35. Paul like Leslie committed suicide aged just 30. Leslie had left a short note thanking his family, his lover and his psychiatrist. He added, “I can’t stand it anymore . . . In my life I have done nothing bad. Why does it have to be like this?” His funeral was the largest Hong Kong had seen since the death of another movie icon, Bruce Lee, with many thousands flying in from all over Asia as well as North America. In a 2010 CNN poll Leslie was voted the Third Most Iconic Musician of all Time after Michael Jackson and The Beatles. Had he lived, he would be 69 on September 12.

Yes the officer did.

Since posts tend not to get noticed after page 1, permit me to report one from 2021 about my favourite Phuket restaurant. The text says it all. Medium priced, it is a great place to take friends and even boy special, as I did not several occasions. They loved it. The photos are from the restaurant's own site.

One additional point that I just realised. Looking at a short term insurance policy I had taken out for one trip, it specified in the proposal the countries I would visit. I assume if the couple had visited India without stating it in their proposal, that could be grounds for denying cover. This problem seems not to arise with annual policies, which I would certainly recommend for regular travellers.

No need to wait. I returned from Taipei 7 days ago. Fingerprints and photo still required.

Isn't the problem with hotel points that, like airline miles, they just keep going up? I recently posted esewhere about a 5 day stay at the Marriott on Phu Quoc back in 2019. Using points for 4 days a that time gave you a 5th day free. Now that fifth day has disappeared. Were I to try and book that exact same hotel, it would cost me in excess of 100^% more in terms of hotel points. I tried that on Cathay Pacific in the 1990s. They started a scheme with lifetime Marco Polo Club membership with access to first class lounges etc. for 2 million lifetime miles flown. By 1999 I was up to around 1.7 million. Then CX joined One World and cancelled the 2 million miles plan!

They were the three cities I mentioned - the subject of the post. Re Phu Cuoc I was not there to hook up. I had been in Ho Chi Minh City just beforehand and did meet a couple of guys there. Both were from the apps. Sadly neither were more than average. But I do read that there is quite a lot of sex going on in HCMC. Years earlier i had visited Hanoi and had a great time.

As mentioned, in order Hoi An, Danang and Hue. They are all easily accessible on one shortish trip.

Although I now get through the Fast Track Lane, I am certain it will be the same with all entering passsengers getting a chop in the passport.

You will love Danang and the area. I started a 10 day trip 5 years ago just as the airlines were stopping flights due to covid. Hoi An just 30 minutes away is a glorious little town, with lanterns lit up everywhere in the evenings. There is also at the west end a 15th century Japanese bridge In the centre of this area is the large city of Danang with its fabulously long beaches A little further north there is the old Imperial capital of Hue. The French destroyed much of it, espeically the imperial palace, but it is slowly being restored. This was the scene of a lot of fighting during the Vietnam War. Sorry we have moved somewhat away from Patpong! Not much gay life in the cities but my app started buzzing even before I was out of arrival at Danang airport.

How many times have we hear this tale? Travelling wihthout appropriate medical insurance is madness considering how relatively cheap it is. Reading the small print on policies is also vital. I have never heard of an exclusion due to first travelling to India but, assuming the insurance company does not want a law suit on its hands, I assume this has to be stated somewhere in the policy. The Thai Bt. 300 travel tax is also typical Thai madness if its intention is primarily to "repair and renovate public monuments"! How much will be left to cover genuine accidents from people who failed to take out insurance? Not much, I expect. So what? A new 300 baht tax is not going to put off 99.999% of potential Russian or Chinese tourists IMHO. But it should exclusively be for medical and repatriation costs.

Ah! When you call yourself a King in a republic, some of even your most faithful supporters will surely start having second thoughts! I'm sure it's been said before, but I totally fail to understand how Americans have fallen - twice - for the lies of a trumped (sic) up almost failed businessman whose mentoring was all at the hands of the vile and digusting Roy Cohn, that scourge of gay men who turned out to be a closet gay and died of AIDS. Interesting that in a 2008 edition of the New Yorker magazine, Cohn's assciate and Trump's buddy Roger Stone whom he pardoned, claimed, "Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around . . . He was interested in power and poitics." Now there you have a Trumpism or two!