S.E. Asia makes lots of cents for U.S. travelers

BANGKOK — Thailand's congested capital was my first stop on my first trip to Asia almost 20 years ago. Up at dawn, with only a few hours of sleep, my husband, Tom, and I had breakfast in the fancy hotel that came at a discount with our airline tickets, then hit the streets in search of a new place for the next few nights.

Orange-robed monks carrying wooden begging bowls walked barefoot near temples topped with golden spires. Traffic was a mess. It was hot, crowded and polluted, but this was my first morning in Asia and I felt as if I had landed on another planet — just as I hoped I'd feel after leaving Seattle one day and arriving on the other side of the world at midnight the next.

Sweating after just 20 minutes of walking, breathing exhaust fumes and dodging little three-wheeled vehicles called tuk-tuks, we stopped inside an air-conditioned, 1950s-style, art-deco hotel called the Royal to ask directions to Khao San Road, headquarters at the time for backpackers and budget travelers.

The marble lobby and wide wooden staircases told me this hotel was out of our price range, but I decided to ask about the rates anyway, remembering that you could negotiate the price of anything in Bangkok, even rooms.

The desk clerk quoted the equivalent of $40 in Thai baht. "Could you give me a discount?" I asked. He offered me the room for $27, and we checked in later that afternoon.

Back in Bangkok last month at the start of a three-week swing through Southeast Asia, we walked over to the Royal to see what a difference two decades had made.

This time, we already had a hotel, the Aurum River Place, a boutique inn in a restored warehouse near the Chao Phraya River. But we needed another for one night at the end of our trip, and I'd been curious about the Royal after learning that it had been used as a hospital for people injured during demonstrations in 1991.

The price has nearly doubled, and the clerk said she couldn't offer me a discount, but at $52 for a large room with breakfast, I couldn't complain.

Accessible Asia

Southeast Asia has always been a bargain for Americans. The change is that navigating it all has never been easier. That's good news if you're looking for new destinations to explore as the dollar sinks against the euro, the British pound and the Canadian dollar.

The countries and cultures in this part of the world are as different from each other as Italy is to France or Finland.

Sampling several on a short trip used to mean paying high prices for tickets on airlines that had the market sewn up, or sacrificing valuable travel time riding trains or buses.

All that's changed now that no-frills airlines such as Malaysia-based Afrasia are making getting around as affordable as Ryanair, easyJet and other low-cost carriers have made flying around Europe.

Choosing flights from AirAsia's Web site (www.airasia.com) was like having the run of a candy store for travelers. Bali, Macau, Phuket, Siem Reap, Rangoon ... so many choices. I cherry-picked the best connections and put together a three-week trip that took us from Bangkok into Penang and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and finally to Hanoi in Vietnam before returning to Bangkok for a flight ($920 from Asia Travel in the International District, which undercut Northwest's Web fare by $190) back to Seattle.

The savings were significant. Travel agents here quoted $250 for a flight between Hanoi and Bangkok on Thai Airways or Vietnam Airlines. AirAsia's price (booked online) was $80, including taxes. We paid $130 to go from Bangkok to Penang compared to twice that amount for flights on the full-price carriers. Best of all: The travel time was 1 ½ hours compared to 22 hours on the train.

Dollar power

It's not just less expensive air travel that's making travel here easier. Banks of ATMs inside shopping malls dispense cash. Wireless Internet and cellphone service are everywhere. Enterprising locals organize cooking classes, walking tours, yoga sessions and bike rides, making it easy to customize an independent trip with a few organized activities.

The dollar, although worth less than a year ago, still packs more buying power here than in Europe.

While the average meal in London costs around $79, according to the restaurant rating company Zagat, dinner for two was $38 with drinks at the elegant Top Hat restaurant tucked into a 19th- century Chinese villa in the Golden Triangle area of Kuala Lumpur.

In Bangkok, I used Priceline.com to snag a night at the luxury Amari Watergate for $90, including taxes and a 10 a.m. check-in. In Kuala Lumpur, the Internet rate of $108 for a double at the four-star Traders Hotel with a rooftop pool and sunset view of the Petronas Twin Towers sounded like a bargain. Then I found an even better deal on Expedia.com — $85 including taxes, booking fees and a $6-a-day credit for a breakfast spread that spanned the globe.

Improved public transportation is making getting around easier and more efficient. Kuala Lumpur has a monorail and light rail system. Tickets are 30 cents for rides around town; $8 for a 28-minute ride to and from the airport.

It's mostly just tourists now who use Bangkok's three-wheeled tuk-tuks to maneuver through traffic. An air-conditioned SkyTrain connects the major shopping and hotel areas. Prepaid taxis available at the airport reduce the chances of being ripped off by drivers who refuse to use meters.

Crossing cultures

Travel's not all about saving money, of course, and no one should pick a destination just because it's cheap.

Visiting Southeast Asia isn't just about crossing borders. It's about crossing cultures.

We chatted with Buddhist monks in Bangkok, stumbled onto a Hindu street wedding in Penang's Little India, spent two nights with a Muslim family in a home-stay near Kuala Lumpur, and shared noodles and conversation with a Vietnamese medical student in Hanoi whom I met on the Internet.

Le Phuong Loan, 22, who calls herself Loannie, met us for coffee on a rainy evening, and brought us to Quan An Ngon, probably the best place to sample authentic street food in Hanoi without actually eating on the street.

The concept is genius: Set up a Benihana-style garden restaurant under a canvas awning strung from the trees, then hire some of the city's best street cooks and install them in outdoor kitchens where customers can watch the show.

For about $6, the three of us shared spring rolls with crab, sticky rice with coconut, salad, fish soup and beer while trading stories about life in the U.S. and Vietnam.

Loannie signed up at www.hospitalityclub.org to be a volunteer greeter to foreign tourists after she spotted an entry on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree bulletin board titled "Hanoi Hell." The traveler, whose cellphone was stolen, had nothing good to say about his visit.

"It made me cry," she told us at dinner.

"Every city has two sides, good and bad."

Loannie's friends think it's a little odd that she meets up with strangers, but she likes to practice her English and wants to help outsiders avoid what she calls "duck travel," everybody after the guidebooks to the same neighborhoods, restaurants and cafes.

Her online nickname is Wind Ambassador "because the wind comes and goes, just like people do in the world."

The evening we spent together in Hanoi left me feeling more enthusiastic than ever about the way Southeast Asia is blossoming for travelers.

Carol Pucci: 206-464-3701 or cpucci@seattletimes.com