I’ll be doing a small marathon of travelling through February as old friends from the UK and USA pass through Hong Kong and Hanoi – making it relatively easy to go and see them thanks to the miracle of budget flights
When you live overseas, friends are very much like buses – you wait for ages and then three come at once. That’s exactly what’s happened this month as I have UK friends passing through Hong Kong on their way to New Zealand and American friends embarking on a big tour of Vietnam and Cambodia – but they arrive almost back to back! As such, I will be making a somewhat daft dash to Hong Kong for one night, then coming back to Bangkok, then leaving again the very next day for three days in Hanoi.
This is all made possible by budget airlines and watching Compare Flight Prices and new flight comparison site WeGo like a hawk – through WeGo I managed to get a super cheap flight on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, who are normally one of the most expensive airlines around. WeGo also list a lot of budget carriers like AirAsia, making it easier to see the full range of prices on offer rather than just the “full service” airlines.
You’d think it would be easy to fly direct from Hong Kong to Hanoi, but it’s not – DragonAir charge a fortune and so it’s actually cheaper to return to Bangkok and fly out again the next day.
I’d considered staying overnight at Bangkok airport to avoid the hassle of going home and then coming straight back to the airport again, but it’s pretty expensive to stay at the Bangkok Novotel Suvarnabhumi – comparable to staying at a Singapore Airport Hotel. There some cheaper options for hotels near to Suvarnabhumi Airport, but I realised it was still cheaper to pay the cab fare both ways than stay overnight.
It’s pretty extravagant to city hop like this for such short spaces of time, but the chance to see my friends is so rare – and to get to share such great cities within, however briefly – makes it worth the cash I reckon. It would have been impossible to do this even 10 years ago without it costing a fortune.
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