rent a tuk tuk in thailand :D

You might consider renting a motorbike in Thailand, if you have the stomach for it - that is probably the easiest way to get around, if a bit harrowing. Traffic in and around BKK is absolutely horrible, by the way.

More or less correct.

Topless = $20 Bud Lights.
All nude = drink in the parking lot.

... or so I've been told. :o

Tok tok's are fun, but bring a scarf or face mask to cut down the amount of soot and exhaust that you inhale.

Now that would be an experience! We plan on taking a tuk tuk ride while in BKK, but I'll let someone else do the driving.

The motobike idea crossed my mind as well. We'll be spending most of our time about an hour north of Phuket and I hear it is very quiet there. I don't think I'd ever drive in BKK (plus, we will probably only spend 2 nights there).

That reminds me - a big ^ to Thai Airways for flying widebodies between BKK and HKT. Business class for only about $50 more? Yes please.

Yeah , Im just going by what I have heard :D

Both. It truly depends on where we are.

In Malta we would've gone crazy being stuck in the hotel area and, while there is a pretty good bus service there, the timings on the routes were pretty limited (hourly) and we didn't want that. We rented a scoooter as I didn't want to drive a manual transmission on the other side of the road. I subsequently crashed the scooter, threw Mrs. sbm12 off the back of the bike into the median, ripped my pants, cracked the body on the bike and still, to this day, have a scar where my knee was ripped up on the asphalt. Suffice it to say I'm not allowed to do that any more.

In Turkey earlier this year we depended on local transit (taxi & metro) for the time in Istanbul. To do otherwise is just stupid. But once we got out to the countryside (flight, bus, bus to get to our hotel) we realized that we needed wheels to see things we really wanted to see. From Goerme to the Ilhara Valley is about a 90 minute drive or 3+ hours on 3 different buses. Or a guided tour. Given that the cost for the rental car was on par with the guided tour price and that we actually got to hike the whole valley instead of just 30 minutes and a lunch there, we chose the rental car. You should've seen the look on the guy's face when I brought it back having driven on a road that they were re-tarring. He was not happy.

We needed a car in England earlier this year because of the distances we needed to cover between SOU and BRS, but we took advantage of the local bus route when we needed to hop to the next town for drinking and didn't want to have the car abandoned there.

New Zealand was a lot like Turkey. No need for a car in AKL, but for anything else you do.

Excellent FA
 

We had a really great FA on the way back from Austin. A guy named Joseph who was witty and just didn't stop cutting up on the intercom. I felt like I was on Southwest!

^

This makes me miss Texas. I remember in High School (w/ fake ID) you could go to an all nude and BYOB. You can only imagine the quality though.

The nude BYO's here are just short of the fourth circle of hell. Club owners down this way are not shy about admitting that they import Russian girls from Philly.

Haha. In NY they important Russian girls from Russia! :o

I have rented a car for leisure travel in Israel (drive the whole country from Eliat to the Golan Heights), SW England (from BRS to Land's End), France (from CDG to Normandy to the Loire Valley back to Paris) and Italy (around Sicily, then back up to Naples). I have also driven with my uncle and aunt in their car around northern England, Scotland and Wales.

I enjoyed all the trips. Other than a scare outside Bethlehem and having a little trouble with directions in Italy, all were great. I wouldn't have covered so many places in the time I have without a car, for sure.

One place where I have never driven is Hong Kong. There's absolutely no need to, and somehow none of my car-owning friends/family have offered their car for me to drive, despite my credentials. :rolleyes:

I just told a colleague who missed a conference call that we voted her off the island.

:cool:

If it's a city, public transportation; if it's the countryside, rent a car; however, I would not rent a car anywhere I've been in Asia.

There are a few Russians I wouldn't mind seeing imported from PDX. The staff working the bar at the RCC Sunday afternoon was quite nice. :p