Click Here to consider Asian Itineraries’ 3 levels of travel packagesYou Can’t!!

Nepal is a wonderful place, full of friendly people, the most spectacular mountain ranges in the world, and wonderful history everywhere. It is a tourist mecca, with a booming tourist precinct in Kathmandu, as well as several other towns that travellers from all over the world flock to.

However, a thing to keep in mind, is that the Nepalese Rupee is not such a wonderful thing! Within Nepal it does a reasonable job. In-fact, you can buy them cheap, and dont need to use too many to buy all kinds of interesting things, from a Tibetan meal, to a locally brewed Everest Lager, as well as all many of clothes and hiking gear (all branded North Face, but definitely not original!).

However, if you take any of these little devils out of the country, nobody, anywhere, will change them into anything more useful in their country! We left Nepal after a Visa card disaster, and took a fair bit of Nepalese Rupee with us, thinking we could continue our travels for a few weeks, while we waited for new Visa cards. 

First place we tried to change some was at Kathmandu airport, thinking we would turn them into Indian Rupee, at a rate of 5 to 8, as per the fixed conversion rate. No chance, they only currency exchange booth was busy changing Indian rupee to Nepalese, as well as Indian to US dollar, but would not take Nepalese Rupee! We weren’t to worries, and didn’t have much time, so we figured we would leave it till we got to Delhi.

Wrong again - first exchange booth in Delhi International airport just laughed! Nobody at airport could exchange Nepalese rupee, maybe a bank in the city?

We were only passing through Delhi, so we couldn’t go to the city centre, instead, we though we would try a bank branch in Goa.

No again! No bank in Goa, or for that matter later at Kuala Lumpur airport would change them. Back in Australia, we figured we would be OK. Well, guess what……we still have them…….even Australian Banks will not exchange!

Only thing I dont really understand is why? The currency is fixed against the Indian Rupee at a rate of 5 to 8, and has been for some time. Banks anywhere will happily exchange Indian rupee??

Anyway, I still have 16,410 Nepalese rupee, is anyone is interested in  discounted rate????

At current rates they are worth-

256 Australian Dollars, 212 US Dollars, 149 Euro, 128 GB Pounds or 20,221 Japanese Yen

(or 10,200 Indian rupee, 263 Libyan Dinars, 621 Polish Zloty or 1310 Norwegian Krone!!!) 

ANY OFFERS???

Click Here to consider Asian Itineraries’ 3 levels of travel packagesI have used Wotif a couple of times for booking accommodation, and have found them quite good for Thailand in particular. I like the format of their search page, and the prices they offer are competitive, although not necessarily better than elsewhere.

However, the hotels that do deals with them as WOT hotels, you would expect to be very strong offers, as they offer these rates “anonymously”, theoretically not undermining their brand, but still filling rooms at the last minute. The down side of the WOT hotels, is the consumer doesn’t get to see what they are until the commit, and are therefore taking a gamble that they will like them. Location etc becomes difficult to establish, and as such could be disappointing. as a trade off for this, the customer would want a big discount!

My experience was in Bangkok, as we wanted somewhere 4 star, but had been staying considerably cheaper in the rest on Thailand, and didn’t want to spend too much.

So we booked a WOT hotel, 4 star, in Sukhumvit, was all the real information provided, along with description saying major international brand, new hotel, etc etc.

well it wasn’t new, it was new to the company, and newly renovated (so that was OK), and it wasn’t a major international brand, at least, not by my expectations ( although it was international - Furama International - hotels in Singapore, Bali and Bangkok).

BUT THE PRICE WAS GOOD. we paid 1799 baht, and the best price they would offer as a walk up was 2499 baht. The hotel was the FuramaXclusive Asoke, and It was in a reasonable location, across the road from the Millennium hotel, close to Asoke BTS and underground train stations. I will report on the hotel in another post, as this post is more about the value in a WOT Hotel.

What was odd, was that all the guests in the hotel were Australians!, who had all booked through Wotif!!! So that was unusual. Shows how well Wotif WOT hotels works for the hotel (they were newly acquired to the chain, so maybe not marketed though traditional channels yet?).

In summary - happy with Wofit WOT hotel

<

We stayed at the Baan Khao Sok Resort in April 2009.

We searched Khao Sok accommodation on the Internet in Khao Lak, as this was our intended next destination, and did not manage to find any options that looked very appealing. However, in a travel agent in Khao Lak, actually on Bang Niang Beach Rd, Bang Niang, we saw a wall photo display of Baan Khao Sok Resort, and though their new Tree-house bungalows looked good. So we booked them and a taxi to take us from Khao Lak to Khao Sok.

The resort is located just off the Khao Sok National Park road, probably about a kilometer from the park entrance. The Baan Khao Sok Resort is one of the first accommodation options you come to on Khao Sok National Park road, and there are many more bungalows and lodges along the road as you get closer to the national park entrance.

We paid 1200 baht per night accommodation, and stayed for a total of 4 nights. This, we felt was quite expensive for a non air-conditioned bungalow, but there were no aircon options in Khao Sok at all. The tree houses were never new, and and interesting and novel experience!

Sitting up high in the tree made for a very peaceful time, and we could see some interesting bird and tree life we would otherwise probably have missed. Bieng built around a tree, there was a few gaps and crevices, and as a result we got a few visits from bugs and lizards, but nothing to worry about. The bathroom, in particular, with a tree passing right through the room, and with the removable shower-head attached to it, was really getting close to nature!

The bed was comfortable, and has a good mosquito net. lighting was good, and the tree house had excellent windows that opened up nicely to pickup the light breeze, and make air conditioning unnecessary.

We enjoyed our stay at Baan Khao Sok Resort very much, and would recommend it to others. It is perfectly suited to visitors to Khao Sok National Park, as it has a lovely close to nature feel.

I will post again shortly, with some more information on the grounds, the restaurant and the wonderful service!