(Tips) A Lesson From Malaysia-Singapore-Thailand Trip 2013

So... How's my story? I hope you can enjoy that long story... or maybe you just want to skip and found yourself here? Hehehe~

If you want to read the quick review of this whole story in one post, you can read it in my wordpress here. :)

Okay... as I promise yesterday, here is the summary of my 1st travelling episode earlier on 2013.

A trip to Malaysia-Singapore-Thailand :)
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So... where should I start? haha...

Well, this page will have a lot of words. I won't divide it to several pages. So, be a good reader bro hehe :)

Prepare some snacks before reading would be wise :D

I'll divide it into 4 parts only : introduction, information and communication, monetary (limited), and transportation.

For recommended places and hotels or other things that you might need but not available here, I will write it later in different segment. Just leave a comment here if you want to know something. :)

1. Introduction...

Please feel free to take my questions first,

1) Are you the one who loves traveling by yourself, with couple, or in a group?

2) Are you the one who loves a get-lost traveling?

3) Do you prefer to plan your trip by yourself regardless of your budget?

4) Are you looking for some information for your upcoming trip to one of these 3 countries?

5) And most of all... Do you love traveling??

Okay... just keep the answers in your mind :)

I hope these experience-based tips will be useful for you.

Besides, most of all, I'll give it to you for free in my blog, right? *nah, just joking. lol*

Never leave it alone

If you travel outside your country for the first time, make sure you know two basic important things about your passport once we approach the immigration check booth in port(s) : departure stamp and arrival stamp.

One more important thing is your visa. Honestly, I've never been travelling to the country that requires visa until now so I don't have any tips related to this.

FYI : If you want to know the list of countries that Indonesian can enter without visa and countries who can enter Indonesia without visa or maybe Visa-on-Arrival, here is the page of my another blog. Hope it can give you some useful information >>>> Free-visa list of country to and from Indonesia

Always take your passport whereever you go while you are travelling. Never use your passport as a collateral document like hotel deposit, vehicle rental, loan, etc. Bring some copies of your passport, just in case (the color one if necessary). If the vehicle rental is still insist to hold your original passport as a warranty, make a reasonable explanation to them and give them a copy one. Believe me, even Thailand immigration staff suggested me like that; and always be careful on scam. Your passport is much more precious than any of your wealth once you enter the other people country.

If you want to make your own schedule, carefully watch the timing of one activity after another and always predict on what kind of transportation you want to use along. Today we can use the help of google maps to estimate the time required to our destination. It would be annoying if you miscalculated it. I've experienced it several time though~

But it shouldn't be a problem if you are a get-lost traveller or not too strict about the schedule. Just relax and enjoy your holiday :)

2. Information and Communication

Surely you should have an information about your destination, right? Collect at least the information about places you want to visit, its route, and transportation available. Internet is one of a very important tool this day, so you must have an internet access while traveling in order to keep the information you need.

I suggest to buy a SIM card rather than looking for wi-fi access, especially in Singapore (Singapore SIM card is a bit expensive, but it's worth than you buy a wifi access). In several airports you won't get a free wifi access. Some airports who have a free wifi in these 3 countries are Changi, LCCT, KLIA, Don Mueang, Phuket, Krabi, and Suvarnabhumi.

Traveller SIM Card (source: Never Ending Voyage)

When you buy a SIM card, tell the seller that you need: 1) an unlimited internet access, 2) micro sim or not, and 3) how long will you stay in their country. They'll choose the best operator for you. If they don't, here's my advise. (the price is based on my 2013 experience. It might be different now or later)

1. If you start your journey from Malaysia, you can buy TT sim card for RM 30, which includes 30 RM deposit and free unlimited internet access for a week (and full blackberry service if you have blackberry). The other alternative is D**i card, which provides daily free certain amount of quota to access internet (not unlimited). The price is RM 12.
2. If you start your journey from Singapore, you can buy S**gt*l. The price is start from Sgd 8. Although it's expensive, it provides you with good services and unlimited internet access up to a month (depends on the package you want to buy. More expensive one will have a better service). However, I never bought it even I had already visited Singapore several times.
3. If you start your journey from Thailand, TM operator have a booth in some airports to give tourists a free SIM card. It has a low-cost international call service so you can call your family in your country without worrying about your deposit. However, based on my experience, I strongly not recommend it. The sim card is indeed have a good international call service, but it's kind of 'trial SIM'. If you want a full access, you must top-up your number and activate the full access that is paid from your deposit, and then you'll get the internet access after that (doesn't mean you'll get an unlimited free internet. You must buy the internet package first. Forgot the deposit required, but I believe I spend about 300 B in total). I suggest you buy A*S3G. It provides an unlimited free internet access for a week, but you also have to activated it. I forgot the exact deposit required for it, but the total price is 150 B (50 B for the card and 100 B for top-up deposit).

Unlike in my country Indonesia, it is a bit difficult to find a free wi-fi access in these 3 countries. Some of them are free but you have to register first. If I can rank these 3 country based on free wifi access available from best to worst, it's like : Thailand - Malaysia - Singapore.

Although Indonesia is rated as one of the slowest internet connection (lol), you can find a free wi-fi with a very easy access in the most public areas especially in major cities and tourist destinations.

Furthermore, plot all your destinations and places you want to visit along with your hotel in your map along with the price you need to enter and reach them; nearby station if necessary. It will help you to decide what type of transportation you have to use to reach your destination and save your time.

Communication. What's more important in society than communication? Learn the local language, at least the basic one like 'hello', 'good morning', 'goodbye', etc. Singaporean, Melayu, and Thai people will respect you when you try to communicate with them using their language, no matter how hard you try (well, at least most of them). Soon or later they will know your limitation on their language and try their best to use a good english instead, especially in Thailand where most of the people is struggling to speak english. We all know that Malaysian and Singaporean are fluent enough in english because it is their daily language, so it won't be a big problem.

3. Monetary

A very-sensitive part of people I guess :P

I am pretty sure that most of the readers here are looking for budget reference, so I'll write it here. I won't give you the details, but only the estimation. If you really want the details that bad, you can contact me via e-mail :)

If you want to travelling with a tight budget, calculating your saving and expense is very important. Here I want to share something for you, especially a budget traveller, should you don't know yet.

I suggest that you bring some baht/ringgit/dollar singapore from your country before you enter their country. About 2000 baht/200 ringgit/100 dollar is more than enough for the beginning.

I believe that most of you have already know this. Money changer is indeed more expensive than take the money from ATM or change it directly to bank teller from your original country (depends on forex fluctuation of each bank). Except, you can find an (un)authorized money exchanger who wants to buy your country money in a more expensive price than the others.

The value of foreign exchange is fluctuate and change everyday. If you are familiar with forex, I'm sure you've already know how to manage it. :)

I'll make a simple example here with a simple language so it will be easy to understand. This is for those who don't understand it yet (just skip if you don't want to get an extra headache! lol) :

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I want to enter from Thailand and the money that I want to convert is Indonesian Rupiah. I want to compare the conversion on ATM (A), and thailand's bank exchanger (B). Here is the case :

1). ATM A in Thailand provides master card/visa/similar service. I can take bahts by using my visa-registered ATM card of my country bank from this ATM machine with the exchange rate of 0.0052. It means that, to take 1 baht, I have to change it with Rp 192 in my saving account (1/0.0052). But the ATM in Thailand will charge you 180 baht for each withdrawal activity, regardless of how much you want to take. So if you take 1000 baht, the actual amount that you must pay with rupiah is as worth as 1180 baht.

2). Bank exchanger B can buy rupiah with their baht with the rate of 0.0050, meaning 1 baht is worth Rp 200.

Looking on the case above, if you want to take only 1000 baht, A is actually more expensive than B because of its withdrawal charge. To have 1000 baht from A you'll need to pay as worth as 1180 baht or about Rp 226,560 , while having 1000 baht from B you'll just need to pay Rp 200,000.

But, if you withdraw a higher amount of money, I'll said it's better you take it from ATM than exchanger. Let's calculate it to give a better understand.

A has exchange rate of 0.0052 and B has 0.0050. The difference between their rupiah's exchange rate is Rp 200 - 192 = Rp 8.

ATM A will always charge 180 baht no matter how much money you'll take. With its exchange rate, 180 baht is worth Rp 34,560. To reach a-something-like Break Even Point, you will at least have to multiply every baht that you want to take from ATM as follows :

1 baht x (Rp 34,560 / Rp 8) = 4320 Baht.

4320 baht is an exact point where the amount of rupiah to be exchanged from ATM is the same with the one in exchanger.

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Based on the example above, if you want to have a baht money with the amount higher than 4320 baht, you better withdraw it from ATM rather than exchanger. The higher the amount you want to take, you will see that withdraw a money from ATM is much cheaper. But if you want to take less than 4320 baht, you better bring your money from your country and then exchange it with money exchanger.

For example, you want to have 5000 baht.

From ATM, you'll have to pay 5180 x 192 = Rp 994,560.

From Exchanger, you'll have to pay 5000 x 200 = Rp 1,000,000.

Although the difference seems small, believe me, it will give a significant effect sooner or later.

Money changer or ATM?

Nevertheless, ATM currency exchange is almost always lower than money exchanger. So the conclusion is, make sure you know the exchange rate of several exchangers and ATMs before doing a transaction.

However, you can ignore this brainy things if you have so much money :P

Get a headache already? Okay...let's move from the calculation above and take a fresh air :D

Budget??

Some friends always ask me with this typical question : "How much money had you spent for your holiday?"

Well, I always estimate my expense with an "absolute assumption" before went travelling. It really depends on what you need while travelling and your economic power, so you must estimate your expense by yourself.

Here is the simple example of mine. An estimated expense on this Malaysia-Singapore-Thailand trip for 10 days for each person. And of course, it is Indonesian standard. May different for people from another country :

1. Hotels = Rp 1.500.000*

2. Consumption = Rp 1.000.000 (Rp 100.000 per-day in average)

3. Transportation = Rp 900.000 (all flights in this trip) + Rp 1.150.000 (public) + Rp 250.000 (rent)

4. Accommodation = Rp 1.500.000

5. Backup and Deposit = Rp 800.000

TOTAL estimated rough expense = Rp 7.100.000 or about USD 625 using exchange rate on May 16, 2014.

* 6 nights in average. In my 10-days trip, the rest 4 nights didn't stay at the hotel. You can have the same budget if you want to have a low budget backpacking and stay at the hostels. If you want to stay at the common hotels, may have an extra Rp 1.000.000 for total 10 nights.

 

However, there was still about Rp 1.500.000 or USD 130 left, so I have spent about Rp 5.500.000 or about USD 484 for this trip, including accommodation and pre-booked transport and stay. I can say that if I wanted to make this trip to be an extra low-budget one, I can saved about 50% of the spent above.

4. Transportation

Kuala Lumpur and Singapore give an easy access for tourists to go to the most of their attractive places, thanks to their mass transit system.

I would prefer to go anywhere by city train rather than bus or taxi, because it is easy to use, doesn't require us to have a fixed money to pay, has a competitive price, and most of all, it's fast.

Since the transportation for KL and Singapore is relatively easy, I won't write them here :)

If you want to know the route map of Singapore MRT train and its fare, you can access their website here.

As there are so many route of Singapore bus system, you can also read them here.

If you want to know the route map of Kuala Lumpur Integrated Rail System (KTM komuter, LRT, etc), here is the map I got from another website (click to enlarge) :

You may want to search and check their website, too. There might be some updates about their mass transportation system. :)

In Langkawi, as I said in part 4-5 of the story, there is no mass transportation available to reach the tourist attraction(s). So it's important to rent a car or just hire a travel guide. I have an information from some bloggers that hiring a travel guide is relatively cheap, around $40-$50 for 2 days and they'll get you to some tourism spots.

To get to Phuket from southern border of Thailand (northern border of Malaysia), there are a number of ways you can take. If you want to take a land border by bus (usually a route for Penang-Hat Yai) or train, it's a little bit difficult and risky because there are numbers of conflict that occur sometimes. But it's worth for traveling adventure of course. :D

Going to Phuket or Bangkok from Malaysia (especially KL) with an airplane is more reliable, and this day, it can be as cheap as either land or sea route. Just keep watching for the airlines ticket fare on their website! :D

If you want to get to Phuket or Bangkok from Langkawi island, I can say it's more than safe. You can proceed to jetty point in Kuah town and take a ferry boat there to Tammalang pier Satun. After arrival, you can buy a bus ticket from travel agents at tammalang pier to your destination (be careful of scams, choose a trusty one), or you can just take a motor taxi or tuktuk waiting in front of the pier to get you to Satun bus terminal. Don't forget to make a bargain if you wish! :)

In Phuket (as well as Pattaya or Bali), unless you have a plan to just having a lazy time on the central beach area, it's necessary to rent a vehicle or travel guide if you want to make a trip. It is because there is only a few or even no mass transportation to take you to tourist attractions there.

In Krabi, unless you just make a transit like me, you can just take a walk or tuktuk or motor taxi. It is relatively near to get anywhere in Krabi. I don't think it's necessary to rent a vehicle, but renting a motorbike or bicycle is okay somehow. There are so many bicycle rental in Krabi.

If you want some advice on renting a vehicle for your upcoming holiday, you can read my tips here (wordpress). :)

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Yup. I think that is a tips I can give from you. Should you have any further question or want to ask something, you can leave a comment here. I will kindly give the answer as I could :)

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy this page :D

Cheers.