I came over this story about a guy that wanted to travel around the world for as little money as possible. And how can that be done? Well, by earning air miles in various creative ways in the USA It turns out that there are quite a few lucrative deals for earning miles by using credit cards in the USA, you just have to know about all the rules and deals out there. Check out this article on Gizmodo as it is quite interesting to read how he earned the points, how to use the points and how to afford traveling for a longer period of time and so on. There are also a few links to other pages that might be useful. Unfortunately we don’t have the same credit card deal in Norway so some of these advices are limited to readers in the USA. But it is still a fascinating story If you want to read an even more creative way of earning air miles you should check out Tyler’s story “The day I bought $15,000“. Tyler bought 15.000 USD from US Mint and then went to the bank to sell them again to cover the credit card bill – quite brilliant

Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

A bit of old news maybe – SAS will reinstate the Oslo-New York route in 2011 and it is brewing up to be quite a price-war as Norwegian has also announced that they will start flights to New York as well (and to Bangkok). So it seems like SAS and Norwegian is taking the battle scene from Norway to world now. Hopefully this will result in good prices for the consumers but it will be exciting to see how Norwegian will be able to handle long-haul flights. You can read more about the SAS news on businesstraveller.com and you can read more about the new planes that Norwegian is getting to fly their new routes on Flightglobal.com.

It finally looks like it will be possible once again to get online while flying. I had the pleasure of trying this back in 2006 when I flew Scandinavian airlines to Asia. In advance I had read that it was possible to surf on the plane so I pre-registered and it worked like a charm. But obviously there were issues with this as it was discontinued in 2007. But now it seems like both SAS and Lufthansa will introduce this service once again. On the Lufthansa pages it says: “FlyNet is back on board – faster, stronger, smarter. Lufthansa is now offering boundless broadband communications. With WLAN-enabled devices, you can surf the Internet and utilise mobile data services on many of our long-haul flights. FlyNet brings the entire spectrum of mobile data communications at fingertip to passengers above the clouds” . You can read more about the Lufthansa FlyNet solution is this article.

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

After a short stop in Bangkok, we moved to the Krabi area in the south of Thailand where we stayed at the Small hotel near Ao Nang beach outside Krabi. We had a moon deck suite and we did have high expectations but these were not met – maybe because we just came from a great hotel in Bangkok. But here is the review of the hotel as posted on Tripadvisor and below is a video of our room.

We just had the pleasure of staying at Le Meridien in Bangkok. When we arrived we were upgraded to a suite and got a great room.

I booked the hotel online on the Starwood Preferred Guest site and we chose this hotel as we wanted to try out a new hotel in Bangkok – from before we have tried hotels like Sheraton Sukhumvit, Westin Sukhumvit, Lebua, Plaza Athenee etc. The rate I got was 4590 THB (about 150 USD) including taxes but without breakfast. Le Meridien is located on Surawong road in the Silom area so getting to the hotel took a bit of time with a taxi in the Friday afternoon traffic of Bangkok – but we decided to use taxi as it is not very practically to drag around big suitcases on the airport express train and skytrain/subway. The taxi was about 500 Baht including the toll stations on the express way.

When checking in we were informed that the room we had booked (corner room) was not available and instead we had been upgraded to a corner suite – not the worst message one can get when checking in at a hotel We got our keys, vouchers for a free drink at Bamboo Chic and our suitcases were sent to our room. We got room 1124 and it was quite a room to say the least. When we walked in we were met by some sort of book shelf but behind this was a living room with two sofas with a table, a large flat screen TV, a work desk and even an espresso machine – we had the option of espresso, regular coffee (in a press mug) and there were even takeaway cups – how cool is that?.

The room was tastefully decorated with books about Thailand in the bookshelf and with pieces of art scattered around in the room. The room was tiled with black tiles on the floor to start with but the rest of the room was with a yellowish carpet. The work desk had a large phone with a display that greeted us welcome – not that we used it much. From the living room there was a large window facing to Rama IV road leading to Hua Lamphong train station. The room also included a small fridge with various cold drinks and there were also proper glasses if you wanted to enjoy any of the drinks.

From the living room there was a sliding door leading into the large bed room. In here there was a large bed of course which turned out to be very comfortable with one large duvet and 4 pillows. There was also a TV for the bedroom and in this room we also found the mini safe. There was also a chair by the windows with the same view as for the living room. The windows had electrical day and night blinds. A new sliding door took us into the bath room and it was also possible to slide away most of the wall that was separating the bed room and the bath room. In the bath room there were black tiles on the floor and walls and we also had a bath tub, two sinks, lots of amenities ranging from shower caps, mouth wash, dental kit etc etc. A glass door led into the large shower with two separate shower parts…each part had a regular shower and a rain forest shower head option. The shower was all done in black tiles so it was a bit on the dark side – I would have loved to see lighter tiles here. The toilet was separated from the rest of the bath room with a door made with frosted glass – an excellent solution.

Some of the walls turned out to be not just walls in the bath room – some turned out to be the wardrobe with nice fluffy bathrobes and soft slippers and the other contained an iron. One even turned out to be a sliding door which opened up into the living room.
The breakfast was served at Last recipe on the 2 floor and as it was not included we had to pay. The full buffet was 650 Baht (22 USD) so there was no point in just going for continental breakfast as that was 550 Baht. The breakfast selection was excellent as you would expect from a 5 star hotel – a good selection of bread, cereal, fruit etc. But there was also stations with staff that could make omelets, carve up meat, scoop up some frozen yogurt for you and there were also various selection of hot food. In some of the reviews on TripAdvisor the breakfast buffet has been described as the best in town so naturally we had high expectations but after having stayed at other nice 5 star hotels (like Sheraton on Sukhumvit and Plaza Athenee) I don’t think this was any better than what the others have to offer. Nikki was missing hard boiled eggs, she was not that impressed with the watermelon but she was impressed with the option of fresh waffles and that it was possible to get some funky smoothie blends. And it was nice twist with the Illy press filter coffee that was served at our table. We also stopped by Bamboo chic briefly to have an aperitif before going out one evening and it looked like a nice place.

The location of the hotel is not bad – located on Surawong road it is about a 10 minute walk from Sala Daeng BTS station and you can also walk a couple of more minutes to Silom subway station. But note that the most direct route leads you straight through Patpong – maybe one of the most famous red light districts in the world and certainly the most know red light area in Bangkok. Today there is also a night bazaar and if you walk in the middle of this and keep your eyes focused on this you might be able to avoid seeing all the neon lights. But trust me…you will get asked if you want to see ping pong shows or if you want to buy various movies.

Conclusion: well, it is hard to really give an accurate conclusion as we were upgraded to a corner suite and that turned out to be just an amazing room. I really think the layout of this room is one of the best layouts that I have seen in a hotel room and I loved the larger double shower. Special treats like a coffee machine, lots and lots of complimentary water etc made this into a very comfortable stay. But I can also mention a couple of things that I don’t like – I would have liked to see free internet in the room. We were actually informed when we called the first day that it was included but when it didn’t work the second day we got the opposite message. There was free internet in the lobby but it required a user name and password from the concierge and he seemed to only activate it upon request. Another thing that turned out to be a challenge was the air con – there was a separate air con in the living room and the bed room but we could never really figure it out and it was always freezing in the living room. But these are just details of course – all in all this was one of the best hotel rooms that I have ever stayed in. I have also uploaded a video showing the room by the way.

Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

Here is also a video that I took of the room…enjoy

A while back I tested out the new Bangkok Airport train link (check out the first review on this page) and a few days ago I got to check it out once again. I decided to take it again as I had no luggage this time. Getting to the train station at Suvarnabhumi is easy as you just take the escalators down to the sub-level. But getting a ticket was not that easy – all the ticket machines were out of service so all people had to line up at the counter. The platform when boarding the train is not ideal – when there is lots of people on the train and lots of people on the platform waiting, the process of emptying and filling the train gets pretty messy

The train into Bangkok was pretty full and it looked like it was mainly locals without luggage taking the train so I assume people are just using it as a regular transportation method as it is so cheap (15 Baht). A few people got of at Makkasan but it seemed like most continued to Phaya Thai. In my last report I wrote about the troubles of getting of at Makkasan – this time we continued to Phaya Thai as we wanted to connect to the BTS (skytrain). Getting of a Phaya Thai took some time as there were lots of people waiting on the narrow platform and hence people exiting had to squeeze by people waiting on the outside. The link from the airport train platform and Phaya Thai BTS station is excellent – there is an elevated walkway leading directly to the BTS.

Going back to the airport was more or less the same deal – the platform was very crowded and the train was delayed due to technical problem. But we got to squeeze in eventually and we had to stand almost to the airport when most locals had gone of the train.

Conclusion this time: the link between the airport train and the Phaya Thai BTS station is a lot better than at Makkasan. But due to a very crowded train and plattform(s) it would have been a challenge if I was dragging along a huge Samsonite suitcase. The value is still great (only 15 Baht per way at the moment) but if you have a suitcase and want to go to a hotel I think a taxi is still the best option.

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and photos

Hi all

Nikki and I went to Bologna in Italy this summer. We first spent a few days in the city itself and stayed at Hotel Touring (see the hotel review here) in the city center. After that we changed hotel to Savhotel located just a bit out of the city center and we rented a car and we had some road trips to places like Ferrara, Ravenna and Modena. I have now posted the trip report with photos, videos, maps etc. on this page. I hope that it can be of some use to others that are going to Bologna and the surrounding area.

If you want to have an idea about eating out in Bologna you can also check out this section of the trip report . As you will see, there are lots of good restaurants and LOTS of good food to be eaten in this city. I have also made this interactive Bologna Google map that shows the location of the restaurants and attractions that we went to.
Well, there it is…hope that you guys will enjoy it. As always, let me know if you see something that needs to be corrected or fixed in the trip report. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

I have never experienced something like this on a plane but I would probably pay close attention to the safety instruction if it was done in this way. Something for SAS to try out maybe??

I have stopped by Bangkok many times over the last few years (you can check out this trip report) and we have normally used taxi to get to and from town. A taxi from Bangkok airport Suvarnabhumi to town (e.g. Sukhumvit road) does not cost that much – maybe like 400 Baht with the toll stations on the express road into the city. This is still only like 13 US Dollars so the transportation has been quite affordable if you compare it with other big cities around the world. But with skytrain, subway and a new airport added to Bangkok, I guess it was only natural to also add a airport train. On the last trips we have seen the train track (looking a lot like the skytrain I guess) reaching further and further out towards the airport and on the last trips the train has been in a test mode. But when we got to Bangkok in the end of September 2010 the airport train was finally open and it was time to test it out.

After immigration and customs we followed the train signs to get to the lower levels and there we found a new connection to the train station itself. There are two options that you can take: the express train into town or a local train stopping on each of the stations. The express train leaves the airport every 30 minutes if I’m not mistaken but we went for the local train that cost us 15 Baht…only 50 US Cents in other words! The station at the airport is all new and shiny but it did not seem like everything was working yet (e.g. the entrance gates). After taking the escalator down, we had to wait a few minutes for the train. The train itself looks like the regular skytrain (BTS) with air-con and with hard, plastic seating. The train ride was comfortable and there was only about 5 stops until we reached Makkasan after about 20 minutes. And I guess this is where the problem started! The Makkasan station seems to be a copy of the airport (at least seen inside) but only in a smaller version. When we got out it was pretty empty and naked as it was just opened and I don’t even think the escalators were working (or were there escalators at all?) – this is a bit of a let down when you are carrying a huge, 20 kg Samsonite suitcase.

When we got out of the station there were taxi available but we decided to be environmental friendly and go for the subway (MRT) instead as the information said that Makkasan was connected to the Phetchaburi MRT station. We followed the temporary signs into the darkness, humidity and heat of the Bangkok night but soon there were no more signs and a lady that saw the confusion in out eyes, pointed us in the right direction. If you have been to Bangkok you know that the city is not really made for walking with roads, pavements that are high above the street…we even had to cross a railroad track to get to the MRT station. I think the walk took 5-10 minutes but with a big suitcase and in the heat it was not really a great way to meet Bangkok. When we got into the MRT station we faced another “problem”: the security staff. They have started a some sort of security control when entering the MRT stations but it seems more of a superficial check than anything else. But still…the security guard insisted that we had to open the suitcase so that he could take a milli-second look in there.  The MRT fare was only 15 Baht as we only had one stop to Sukhumvit station (at Asok) to get to our hotel. To top it of we had to carry the suitcase over Sukhumvit road and I arrived soaking wet from the exercise of carrying the suitcase up and down stairs. To be fair, I think work is underway to connect the Makkasan station with the Phetchaburi MRT station. You are also supposed to connect to the BTS (skytrain) by taking the train to the end station Phaya Thai station.

Conclusion: This only cost us 30 Baht per person (1 USD) so if you are on a budget and live near a station (and remember to put on you workout clothes) this is a great alternative. If you carry a big suitcase it might be a better idea to take the train to Makkasan and take a taxi from there but be aware that the Bangkok traffic can be pretty bad and you might get stuck for some time. If you just want to sit back and relax, take a taxi straight from the airport to your hotel. Just make sure that the driver uses the meters and get him to take the express road. Also is is useful to have 45+25 Baht available for the toll stations

We were in Paris for just a long weekend recently and as we have seen the usual attractions on previous trips, we decided to go for a walk. We came across the Discover Walks homepage and decided to try it out. We came a few minutes late to the meeting point at Notre Dame and we thought we missed it – but after a couple of minutes we saw the pink vest indicating the guide. We started out with the guide Raphael but was soon also joined by Bertrand – two guides in a group of only 5 people – what luxury :-)  We went for the relative new 4 pm walk and I guess most people are not aware of this as the group was so small. But the tour lasted for a couple of hours and it was great doing a tour with a couple of local boys and we got to hear about Cyrano de Bergerac, about the Sorbonne university, about small book shops and jazz clubs and we could talk to the boys on where to eat and drink in Paris and much more of course. But best of all was of course getting guiding from local people who has a real passion for their own city. Thanks guys for the great tour – I’ll try out one of the other tours when I return to Paris Check out their homepage http://www.discoverwalks.com/ for more information.