_Asia: December 2008 Archives

Now that I've caught your attention, let me explain. Asian budget airline AirAsia announced yesterday that it would offer 100,000 free tickets to Thailand as part of a regional marketing campaign to boost its tourism industry, which suffered greatly from recent political turmoil.

The Associated Press reports:

AirAsia said it would collaborate with Tourism Authority of Thailand to bring back tourists and businessmen by "reinstating the core message that it is now safe to travel back to the Land of Smiles."

Under its campaign themed "Get Your Baht To Thailand" -- a play on the Thai currency -- AirAsia will give away 100,00 free tickets to Bangkok from Vietnam, Cambodia, Myammar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and China, as well as for flights within Thailand.

Passengers will only have to pay airport taxes and administration fee. AirAsia last month abolished fuel surcharges on all its flights.

"We hope that this campaign will instill the confidence among travelers and also help to boost tourism which is vital at this juncture," Group Chief Executive Tony Fernandes said in a statement.

You must act fast, however. Tickets can only be purchased until Friday (Thailand time - they are 12 hours ahead of D.C.!) for travel between January 6 and March 31, 2009. Unfortunately, while there are no free tickets from the U.S. to Thailand, anyone who is already planning on traveling around Asia in the New Year might find this useful.

(Note: When you are asked to select a country on the AsiaAir homepage, select Thailand, then select English as the language. We had a hard time finding the promotion when we pretended to be a Brit wanting a flight from Malaysia to Thailand)

Image: AirAsia.com

All through December we'll be showcasing the best of the holiday season in cities around the world. Today it's Christmastime in Tokyo and we've asked local experts for the essential ways to enjoy the winter's best. Visitors and locals alike come together to celebrate the holidays and the New Year, and we encourage you to share your own favorites with us in the comments below. You can find all of the cities we've already visited and stay up-to-date on the rest by bookmarking the series here. Traditionally, celebrating the New Year is much more important than Christmas in Japan (less than one percent of Japanese are Christians). Holidays come early in Tokyo, with many of the lighting ceremonies happening mid-November and lasting through January. 


Mayako Sumiyoshi, Chief Concierge

Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo

• January 1st to 3rd are called shogatsu (Japanese New Year's holidays) in Japan. January 1st is called gantan and is a Japanese national holiday. Shogatsu is the most important holiday in Japan. To celebrate, Japanese people eat osechi.  Like a bento box, osechi offers foods that are colorful and presented in a lovely fashion. Each dish has a particular meaning. For example, prawns for long life, kuromame (sweet black soybeans) for health, kazunoko (herring roe) for fertility, tazukuri (teriyaki-flavored small sardines) for a good harvest, kurikinton (sweet chestnuts and mashed sweet potato) for happiness. Many local hotels and gourmet grocery stores take orders for osechi (available in traditional and Western versions).

• Japan lights up during the holidays. A must-see display is Sapporo White Illumination with more than 370,000 white lights decorating Odori Park and Ekimae Avenue. The Shibuya area from Dogenzaka to Miyamasuzaka and Koendori Street is decorated with more than 600,000 lights.

• Take to the sky at the top of the Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills. Opened for its first holiday season, the Sky Deck is 886 feet above sea level and provides an open-air, 360-degree view of the city.  

• Since the traditional Christmas celebrations are not observed, the holiday season has become a commercial event and locals like to shop. Among the popular places to shop in Tokyo are the Galleria at Tokyo Midtown, where you'll find upscale shops and boutiques, Omotesando Hills for high-end fashions, and Roppongi Hills for an eclectic mix of shops, cafés, and restaurants.

• Pick up specialty cakes during the holidays at the Café & Deli at The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo. Other sweet shops that sell traditional pastries during this time, include Toshi Yoroizuka and Kyohayashiya.

• Get thee to a Temple. The Japanese all go to temple during the New Year holiday. New Year's Eve is relatively quiet, with the exception of the tolls of the temple bell. It rings 108 times to banish each of the 108 sins. At temple, people pray for safety, health, and good fortune.

Friend of IT Lisa Sonne recently had a close encounter in Kuala Lumpur that can only be described as illuminating.

There are several M words you can use to describe Malaysia - mysterious, mystical, magical, and, well, modest. An etiquette book for tourists going to Malaysia recommends, "no public displays of affection" (not even holding hands). It further suggests that women travelers to this equatorial hot zone not wear sleeveless tops or V-necked shirts to be respectful to local customs.

So I was rather surprised when I found out I could make arrangements to watch (but not participate in) a massive sexual orgy - thousands trying to seduce thousands each night, outside, in the dark. Even more intriguing, it's rumored to be one of only two large-scale group-sex gatherings in the world where the males' seductions are in a completely synchronous rhythm, like some mega-meta-choreographed sensory bacchanal.

For this, I boarded a plane to beguiling Kuala Lumpur, and then had a driver take me 90 minutes into the countryside. Then, to get to the titillating trysting target, I was told to step into a wooden flat-bottomed boat. A dark stranger thrust the paddles into the water. As he stroked, we pushed forward in spurts. After all this build up, I was afraid things might be anticlimactic, but we rounded a bend -- and then -- WOW!

Thousands of fireflies blinked on and then off in unison, a huge collective mating call to get the females' attention.

Our dear assistant art director Stefan Caiafa is currently on an overland trip throughout Southeast Asia. But his travels were put on hold in Cambodia for several days as the recent political unrest swirled in Bangkok, where protesters have just ended their week-long blockade of the area airports. Fortunately, Stefan made the most of his ample time there by providing us with an outline of how to find sustainable ways to travel in the environmentally precarious region. We got word from him that he's already on the move, and we were glad to hear that the standoff is over, meaning more than 300,000 stranded travelers will be able to fly home.

Five Sustainable Travel Tips to Angkor, Siem Reap, & Environs

Tip 1. Don't Go!!! Well, not now at least. This is serious advice, as there are a few reasons why travels to Angkor and Siem Reap should be postponed, not the least being the sheer volume of tourism taking its toll on the sites:

Angkor Complex - Several foreign governments (including those of France, Italy, South Korea, India) are contributing funds and personnel towards restoration and conservation efforts within this World Heritage site. This does mean that several important temples, including Angkor Wat, have light scaffolding and closed-off sections. Some of these initiatives are due for completion in 2010 at the earliest. While the temples are still utterly impressive, a visit might be more so once several of these projects have been completed. The upside for those traveling now involves viewing first-hand as workers repair parts of the important temples, and scientists document the bas-reliefs for assessment (a plus for conservation enthusiasts like IT readers). The downside for visiting Angkor Wat currently: the central section, which includes the five iconic towers, remains closed to visitors and has scaffolding on one side. Also, the main draw, "Churning of the Sea of Milk" bas-relief, has parts of it undergoing restoration, which are closed off to the public.

Siem Reap - This is Cambodia's hub town for visiting the Angkor complex, which lies only a few miles north. Siem Reap is a rather sleepy town, though future development is palpable: Several large-scale hotels and resorts are currently being built, making the streets a tangle of tourist buses, motorbikes, and construction crews. Unfortunately, these new, mostly self-contained resorts verge on the generic, offering few opportunities for exploring authentic Cambodia. Siem Reap is, in effect, on path towards becoming a town of Club Meds. Visitors might at the very least wish to wait for the dust to settle before venturing here.