Enjoy Peru. I am sure Cheryl will have fun with her camera. It has changed so much since I was there as a child. Have a Pisco sour for me.....no I did not have one as a child, That was on the ADULT trip.

Please tell me did u get a Thai visa in advance. Did u stay more than the 30 days?
Thank you for your reply!
Ellen

no we were there just 23 days... we did visa on arrival. but last year we got a visa in advance because we were staying 32 or 33 days. we got it from the consulate in NYC

Arrived Bali... Alam Shanti...last night. A BIG THANK YOU to Bob and Karen...I have followed your posts about this place for a long time and the dream is now reality :)

Tonight dinner at Dolce Arancia was wonderful. Alam Shanti is just as you described and tomorrow we meet Putu for a day of exploration.

Leslie

I see I forgot to report on our 12 hours in Switzerland. Our flt arrived early in zurich, maybe about 6:30AM-- it remained dark for at least another hour. Quick exit thru immigration and we picked up our europecar in the adjacent parking garage.. the clerk threw in a GPS... nice little VW.

Easy exit from the garage. K instructed the gps to take back roads--no toll roads as we had zero cash. Very quickly we were in the forest and farming country. Ingo, from the Europe board, had suggested we might like to spend some time in the small town of Rapperswil down northern side of the lake. We headed there thru beautiful countryside. The weather was not very nice, chilly and damp, with some occasional light rain. We spotted a bakery shortly and stopped there for some coffee/juice and fab pastry.

We arrived in R after a pleasant drive.. everything along the lake was wet and closed, which worked to our advantage as I was able to drive in the lanes where traffic would not normally be allowed. We drove in and out of various areas, admiring restaurants and beautiful shops. We never parked the car.

We decided to head back to nearer the airport with the hope of finding a nice restaurant with easy parking. We did not have much luck until we were almost back to the airport and K spotted a place with some parking... It was an Italian "pizza and club" place with parking. K was the only woman in there. The men looked a bit thuggish but it seemed clean and comfortable. We both had a pork snitzel and FF and K had a delicious green salad. I also enjoyed a pilsner beer with it. Good stop.
We then easily returned to the airport, returned the car and boarded our Boston flight-- a flt I wish to not remember.

So, now the report is fully finished and the laundry is 2/3rds done.

You managed to have a nice, short stop in Switzerland - good for you.

Sorry your flight home wasn't so good...

Ah, so you made it down to Rapperswil. Nice town! Too bad weather didn't cooperate so nicely though. Trying to imagine the pizza place. You must have been outside the town of Glattbrugg? I know of a pizza place very close to the airport... we walked in the door, had a look, and left! Too bad uou couldn't have tried our favorite...Romantica! It is positively excellent! Inside the town, just up the hill on the main road from the train station.

I take it you won't be flying Swiss again?

So purge that Boston flight from your memory banks by releasing the gory details here, Bob.
It sounds like a good story!

Thanks for your live trip report - I enjoyed "accompanying" you on your travels! Sounds like you all had a great time.

I've also been saving all the details of Bali for my planned-for 2016 trip. Have fun planning your next trip -- the best remedy for the end of the last one!

While I liked having only 2 flights between BKK and BOS(not having to go thru NYC or NJ). That Swiss air flight is just tooooooo cramped. Seats narrow, and I had a passenger from hell in front of me. let's just say the 6 bottles of red wine and who knows what else she consumed made her uncooperative with us and the staff. As Bob said"it is people like her that make the airlines make emergency stops in Maine".

Bob,

Thanks for the Report, I have been taking notes for our time in Bali and Bangkok in March.

A Thai visa has come up in a couple of threads....last time we were there...2009 we flew in for a few days flew to Cambodia and back to Bangkok for a few more days....maybe 2 weeks total time in country. I do not remember getting any kind of visa before hand or anything except a stamp in the passport as we entered and left each time.

I just read about Thailand entry for US citizens on a regular passport. I don't see where we need to send our passports off for a visa, I don't really see any change from before for us. We fly to Bangkok for three days (from Bali) then fly to Burma for 9 days and return to Bangkok for another 5 days before leaving finally for Seychelles.

What am I missing in regards to Thailand?

We plan to get a visa for Bali before we leave, since we can do that in person near where we live and then send the Passports to DC for the Burma visa. We have a short window to get the visas done since we are leaving the US 7 weeks before we get to these countries.

Thanks,
Carolyn

You don't need to do anything, since you are only there 2 weeks you are ok, you get "30 days on arrival" when you get stamped in at the airport.

C, you may have forgotten.. each time you enter Thailand you get a VOA, a small piece of paper you fill out, of which 1/2 of it is stapled into your passport and will be taken on departure---you no problems for you..

good move to get the other two before leaving home, esp the Indonesia one--it will save you tons of time upon arrival in bali... as I remember keep way to the right in immigration for a non-existent line for people with visas---don't follow the crowd.

K was too kind in describing the whacko sitting in front of her... as an example, the flight attendant asked her to put her seat up during meal service several times, and in fact did it for her... as soon as the f/a moved away she pushed the seat back again... at one point I yelled at her and struggled with the seat---dumb on my part... she also threw all kinds of unwanted things on the floor/passageway---extra silverware, napkins, towelettes, trash, wine bottles...

when we landed, she ran from her seat to avoid any interaction with us.

btw, she was a Elizabeth warren look-a-like with many odd hand movements, often scratching her scalp and/or running her fingers thru her hair---over and over again...NUT CASE.

the woman in back of me struck the back of my seat over and over again... like a 5 y.o. would do..

a flt best forgotten.

Thanks Bob and Sméagol!

That explains it. I don't remember the piece of paper, but several countries we have been to do something like that which really leaves nothing except maybe a unreadable stamp in the passport.

Glad nothing has really changed.

http://youtu.be/xMHw5id67E4

http://youtu.be/KPr8E3pzzA4 Here are a couple of videos from Bali that you all might find entertaining

these were 2 of the highlights of our time in bali.. the monkeys were especially fun..

lol - your monkey video reminded me of Cheryl's first trip to SE Asia with me. We were in a beautiful corner suite at the Hyatt at Kuantan. We'd been flying for two days and were exhausted. As soon as we got there, Cheryl opened the doors to the balcony, then went into the bedroom. Sometime later, as I was reposing in the deep soaking tub, I heard a panicked voice "Kathie - there is a monkey in our room!" This huge male monkey had come info the room, had found a banana skin in the wastebasket and ate the inside of it, but walked right by the enormous fruit basket and walked into the bedroom. I got out of the tub and carefully shooed the monkey back out to the balcony. It was a great introduction to SE Asia for Cheryl.

great story

Nice report. Thanks for the heads up on Swiss Air. Nothing beats the Asian airlines for service and a fairly comfortable international flight. We are going to Similans for dinner on Wed. night. We'll be thinking of the great Sat. night GTGs we've attended there.