Tour Package Vs Self-Guided (Money POV)

After tallied up all the expenses associated with the South America (SA) trip, I compared this cost to those of my previous trips. The result is shocking!

The SA is 2 weeks + 3 days long trip (and the only tour package trip I ever took), but by far, it is the most expensive trip.
-The SA trip cost 15% more than the one month (4 weeks) Asia trip and also 15% more than the recent one month ACYJ trip.
-The SA trip cost 25% more than the 3 weeks Western Europe trip.
-Also, on all previous trips, I bought souvenirs but on this trip, I did mostly window shopping.
-Furthermore, I ate good (VERY GOOD!) on all previous trips but not as much on the SA trip.

With minimal spending on food and souvenirs (even though these are more expensive in US and Europe) during the SA trip, plus the shorter vacation duration, I am surprised the SA trip costed so much.

Another argument for "from now on, I should always do self-guided trip."

Who Says Money Can't Buy Happiness?

I can't help but to smile whenever I look at the two things I bought today (a bamboo dish rack and a laundry basket).

Chilean Travel Agent

My South American trip is the first tour-packaged trip I ever done. The first 11 nights of the trip was booked by a Florida agency while the last 4 nights was booked by a Chilean agency.

Booking via the Florida agent was a breeze. I told her which package I wanted and provided my credit card, and that is it.

However, booking via the Chilean agent has been a nightmare. I emailed and called her daily during the trip and things still went wrong. She made flight reservation but did not purchased the flight tickets and did not notice this mistake until SIX hours before the flight departure. I ended up have to call the airline myself to book the tickets. She also changed the flight time without notifying me, so we ended up on flights that depart at 2am and 4am. Furthermore, during land excursion, I had to work individually with each local agents because she did not work out the transportation and tours logistics for us [even though she told us those were already taken care of].

Trip is completed but the nightmare continue. She overcharged $1,500 on my credit card; so now I am trying to work out this mistake with her over email. Argh!

Traveling: Tour Package or Self Guided

I enjoy planning, so all my previous trips have been self-guided. However, because I did not have time to plan this year, we took the South America tour package.

 

Things I like about tour package (base on my experience from this Rio to Santiago trip):

-No thinking involved. From the beginning to the end, there is someone taking care of you from picking up at the airport to dropping off at the airport. No getting lost. No worry.

-Other tourists on this tour. Everyone is friendly.

 

Things I do not like about tour package

-I felt like I am being shuttle like a cattle.

-Waking up early for the tours

-Visiting jewelry shops

-No time to stroll around the town

-Not getting to know the city. I need to time to wander around.

-A lot of time are wasted on waiting for everyone to be ready. I like being efficient and this is counter-efficient.

 

If I have it my way, I will do all my future travels the way I used to do them: self-guided!

Unexpected Headaches

Anyone with some travel experience knows that unforeseen issues are part of traveling experience; excellent planning cannot prevent all these surprises.

 

Since I did not have any time to plan for this South America trip, I booked two tour packages (this is my first tour package vacation). The first (American) tour agency took care of all the planning from Rio to Santiago. The second (Chilean) tour agency took care of the planning from Santiago to Patagonia. We are at Santiago right now and the first part of our tour ends tonight. We are taking the 2:45AM flight to Punta Arenas for our Patagonia trip.

 

The booking of the second package has been an unexpected nightmare. I thought all I needed to do is gave my credit card number; as I had done for the first tour package. Instead, I emailed the Chilean travel agent daily while I was traveling from Rio to Santiago and called her several times today for our flight information. Six hours before our flight departure time, she informed me that her assistant mistakenly charged other people´s flights on my credit card and the tickets for our flights were still unpaid. I ended up had to call the Lan Chile to pay for the three tickets. The travel agent promised to fix the error and refund the erroneous charge so I would be paying just tthe previously-agreed tour package price.

 

What a headache!

 

Hopefully the remainder of the trip will be great and the travel agent will fix the error in a timely manner.

 

 

Buenos Aires

-Brazil and Chile is more expensive than Argentina. Meals in both former countries cost about the same as USA but about half in Argentina.
-Steak are cheap (Cost about USD $15) but I did not ate any amazing steak. All I got were mediocre to ok steaks. Many people in our tour shared my disappointments, though several people did found amazing steaks. We probably just had bad luck and stumble upon bad restaurants.
-Chimichurri sauces are amazing. The sauces made average-tasting steak tasted good.
-Chicken empanadas are very good here.
-Chinese food are suprisingly good here.
-Breakfast sucks here. I wanted more than just breads and fruits for breakfast.
-I love how everyone spend hours in cafe and cafe offers wine.
-Wines are super cheap here. We saw Malbec (yummy) for only 4 Pesos (USD$1)
-Where is the central nightlife in Buenos Aires? I felt as if it is L.A., where you need to know which bar has people because ther is no central downtown that is full of nightlife.
-I would like to come back to Buenos Aires again. However, when I do return, I would like to spend at least a week so I can take my time to explore this city. And I would do thorough research beforehand so I know which restaurants I should go eat.

A Lesson in Traveling Price

Today is our free day in Santiago, Chile. Sixteen people in our tour group wanted to take a day trip to Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso. These towns are right next to each other and they are two-hours bus ride from Santiago.

 

Our tour guide offered to take us on this tour for CHP$30,000 (USD$60).  Unfortunately for our tour guide, the hotel receptionist already told us that it  cost only CHP $3,000 (USD$6) for a one way bus ticket.

 

This morning, we took the metro (CHP$400) to the Santiago central bus station. At the bus station, a tour guide managed to convinced us to pay her CHP$17,500 (USD $35) per person for a 4-hours tour of Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso, including the round trip bus fares betwen Santiago and Vina Del Mar, all transporation in Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso, our private van and tour guide. This package is almost half the price of what we were offerd yesterday, we thought CHP $18,000 was a good deal. After a quick discussion, the group bought this package.

 

Unfortunately, we were wrong. At the Vina Del Mar bus station, we saw a poster for a similar 4-hours Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso tour for CHP $5,000. If we had took the bus to Vina Del Mar as we originally planned, we would have spend only CHP $11,000 (USD $22) per person instead. That would have been a 173% saving from our tour guide´s offer and 59% saving from the offer we took.

 

DOH!

 

Lesson of the day: For the best bargain, book tour for a city in that city!

Iguazu Falls, Brail/Argentina

• Iguazu Falls is the grand-daddy of water falls. There is no point in seeing any other waterfalls once you wee Iguazu Falls.
• Iguazu Falls should be visited from both Brazilian and Argentinian side. But if you are short on time, just visit the Argentina side.
• Brazil side has the awesome panoramic view. It also keep wow-ing as you walk along the trail and it seem there is no ending to Iguazu Falls.
• Argentinian side provides great experience. Walking the cat-walk to the Devil´s throat, while surrounded by butterflies, is an amazing experience that no where else in the world can match. The power boat to the bottom of the waterfalls is also an experience once should not missed.
• Pictures and films can´t do justice for the awesomeness of Iguazu Falls.
• I do not like to visit any place twice, but I will be more than happy to visit Iguazu Falls again (and again and again)!

 

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

• Rio De Janeiro means River of January. It was named so because the people who settled here mistaken the bay for a river and they got here in January.
• Everything in Rio cost about the same as in the U.S. ( 1 USD is about 1.7 Real)
• All the meals in Rio cost the same (if not more) than in the U.S. (most sit down restaurant cost R$15 - 30 per entree, while slightly nicer one cost R$30 - $60 per entree). Churrascaris tasted the same as those in the U.S. 
• Fruit infused Sushi are very common (I am not a fan though)
• But alcohol is cheaper here (caipirinha cost around R$6). Liquor and juice stands are all over the sidewalk that are next to the beach.
• Flip-flop are very expensive here. Most are sold for R$20. Platform flip-flop can cost as much as R$90
• Temperature in November is very nice. Although it is hot (33C was the highest during our stay), it was not unbearable.
• Copacabana beach has white sand but the ocean is full of trash. The water is dark green (kind of like those in L.A. but with a lot more trash). We got freaked out and did not get into the Copacabana ocean water again when we saw an used condom flow-by. EW!
• Ipanema beach (right next to Copacabana) has white sand and much cleaner ocean. The water is actually blue and there were tons of people jumping and swimming in the ocean.
• Portuguese sounds like a mixed of French and Spanish to me.
• Brazilians are friendly.
• Clubs stop serving alcohol and closed at 2AM (I was shocked!).

 

Overwhelmed

Last month, traveling and working at 9 destinations, spanning over three countries and three time zones.

This month, I am working locally. However, there are many deadlines (both personal and work) that I have to meet within the next few weeks.

Next month, I am traveling to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile for 2.5 weeks. I have not done researching and planning for this trip.

And the month after (December), a friend is visiting at the end of year and there is also the one week break that I have no plans for yet.

I am feeling overwhelmed!!!

Blogging

This is my last night in Portland; also the last night of my one month on the road (thanks to JetBlue's All You Can Jet pass).

As you can see, I have not blog much since Colombia. This due to lack of time. You see, I am working full time while traveling on the AYCJ pass. Working (especially after a week off) take up a lot of time, sight seeing take up a lot of time, which mean no time for blogging.

However, even with the three hours difference, I did not have a lot of time to do sight seeing (for example, in NYC, the only sight-seeing thing I did is I went to High Line Park). Regardless, I still have to eat, and eating I did!

This month turns out to be a tour for my stomach, not my eyes. I had the best in every cities that I visited. All I did is eat, work, eat, sleep, repeat! I eat good, so good that I am feeling my waistline bulging and my artery clogging.

When I return home tomorrow, I'm going to eat healthy and exercise at least 4 times a week.

In the mean time, waiting for my cousin to pick me up for dinner at Bamboo Sushi.

Currency Conversion

Whenever I travel abroad, I prefer to use my Capital One card for big expense and withdraw cash using ATM because I get the best currency exchange rate via credit card and ATM.

However, this turn out not to be true in Colombia. Our hotel's exchange rate is 1 USD = 2,000 COP. Most Colombian banks charge 1% fee and at an exchange rate of 1 USD = 1,900 COP. I thought I would get better deal with my credit card and ATM (and the Locals we met told us so as well)so I paid for my expense using those cards. When I look at my credit card and bank statements today, I was sadly disappointed. Charges on credit card are at approximately 1 USD = 1,900 COP and the ATM exchange rate (including the fees)is at 1 USD = 1,822 COP. Furthermore, our hotel charged us additional 10% surcharge for using credit card.

I brought extra USD to Colombia too, I should have just exchange it at the hotel.

Surprising Things I learned About Colombia

-Colombia is NOT a place to visit for CHEAP vacation. Everything here cost about the same as in USA (hotels, food, clothing, books, etc).
-Living standard in Bogota is about the same as in USA. Food cost about the same ($4-$10 for fast food, fine dining entree are at $20-$30/plate, food in grocery store is about the same as in US).
-Living standard in Cartagena is much lower (75% live in the ghetto) BUT it is more expensive to vacation in Cartagena than in Bogota. Since it is a touristy town, all tourists are charged a much higher price (i.e. restaurants in safe area are at $20-$30/plate for crappy food. Local restaurants charged about $2-$5 for fast food but they are all in crappy area with no AC. Same souvenirs in Cartagena cost twice as much as in Bogota).
-I felt very safe in Bogota.
-Bogota and Cartagena felt like two countries. One (Bogota) that I really like and would highly recommend it, the other (Cartagena) I really don't like and would advise others not to visit (especially Asians).
-Despite all the beauties that Cartagena has to offer, the residents ruined what could have been a great vacation.
-Cartagena vendors are very blatant at ripping you off. Their aggressive pushes appalled me and led me to not buy anything in Cartagena.
-Coffee is call "Tinto" while red wine is call "Vino Rosa"
-Colombian food reminds me of Costa Rican food.

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena is a beautiful city! Old town Cartagena (inside the fort wall)is very walkable and full of colorful colonial buildings from two hundreds years ago, I can imagine this being an architectural geek´s dream vacation spot. Playa Blanca is a white-sand beach, with crystal blue water, and coral reefs for snorkelings.

Walkable town, colorful buildings with lots of history, goregous beach, crystal blue water for swimming and snorkeling, what more can a vacationer ask for? And these are also the reasons that lead to us planned majority of our Colombia vacation in Cartagena.

In many ways, Cartagena would have been my ideal vacation spot. Alas, that was not the case. What could have been a perfect vacation spot was ruined by the constantly harassment from locals. Since there are no Asians here, the locals know we are tourists. The street vendors are annoyingly agressive. They would not go away even after we repeatly told them no. And when we did buy something, they jacked up the price. For example, we know a bun cost 25 US cents (because we bought it for that price before at another bakery) but most places want to charge us $1-$2 USD. We felt we are being constantly rip off. Furthermore, many local men whisper perverted phrases (in Spanish) as we walked by.

Originally, we were going to go diving here and diving requires us to not fly till 48 hours later; which is another reason why we choose to spend 4 days here. However, we decided not to go diving because from our snorkeling shows there are not that many interesting things here to see (squids were the only cool thing we saw) and it was more expensive than we thought (they are asking for $100 USD). At the end, we ended up spent majority of time walking around town and being slightly bored. I even did research online again on what to do, which leads me regretting not doing thorough research ahead of time. Most people recommended only stay here for couple days and I thoroughly agreed with them. Also, there seem to be quite a bit of prostitution in this town. At Hardrock Cafe, we saw several old men with very young women. Sad!

Anyway, with the constant harassment, the heat, and the mosquitoes, I can´t wait to get back to Bogota (the Colombians there are respectful and no one harass us).

Random Thoughs on Colombia

Bogota and Cartagena are totally different. I felt like I am visiting two different countries on this trip.
-Bogota residents are mostly whites. Cartagena residents are mostly blacks.
-Bogota feels like a major metropolitan city, Cartagena feels like a carribean town.
-Bogota is very clean and quite safe (I saw many females walking on the street at night, by themselves).
-Cartagena is not safe to walk alone. Doors to all the hotels are locked with giant lock. We have to ring and wait for someone to open doors for us.
-Drivers are crazy at both places. Seat belts are available for backseat passengers in both cities but there are no buckles for seat belt to lock into in Bogota. Taxi are cleaner in Cartagena.
-There are no mosquitos in Bogota.
-There are many mosquitos in Cartagena.
-Bogota weather (in Sept.) is cool (50-65F) in the morning, warm (60-75F)during the day, and cold (40-50F) during the night. Remind me of SF during summer.
-Cartagena is hot and humid. Water around Cartagena is dirty (looks like L.A. water but warm). Water surrounding the islands near Cartagena are crystal blue, just like those in Bahamas and all those tropical magazines.
-Fishes in Cartagena (near Playa Blanca) are not very colorful. :(
-Colombia don´t have many Asians. Thus, it was very obvious that we are tourist.
--In Bogota, people are more well off, we felt like a celebrity (most stares, the brave one talk to us and want pictures taken with us). I enjoy being Asian in Bogota.
--In Cartagena, a very touristy town and probably poorer citizens, we are constantly harassed to buy stuff. Furthermore, I felt we are constantly being rip-off. For example, my friend speaks Spanish and we agreed to pay $1,000 peso (50 cents) for one coconut. We got two coconuts and paid him $2,000 pesos, but the guy refused to leave and wanted us to pay him $4,000 pesos. We argued with him a bit, so he finally left us alone.
--People remember us. Several people we chatted sometime later told us they remember us from seeing us on the plane or other places (because we are the ONLY Asians).
-Cartagena beach is gorgeous (though many told us Playa Blanca is the best beach here so other beaches may be not as nice) but I hate the constantly harassments. I am looking forward to go back to Bogota but I am not sure if I want to visit Cartagena again. We still have 2 more days here, hopefully Friday and Saturday will change my impression.
-Cartagena is full of tourists from Latin America.
-In Cartagena, meals are very expensive in the safe part of the town (entree are around $12-$25) but very cheap in the shady part (entree are around $2).
-EVERYONE has a facebook account!

Bogota, Colombia

Bogota is nothing like I have imagined.

Bogota turns out to be just like any major metropolitan city. There are tall skyscrappers, men and women dressed in nice suits, the city is pretty clean, the residential areas are nice, there are many luxurious aparment complexes and western malls (selling stuff like D&G), and there are many street vendors like in NYC. If someone drop me off here and tell me this is a US city, I´d believe them (aside from the fact that everyone speaks Spanish and there are no Asian).

Colombian are tall and look European. Since there are very few Asian here, we became an attraction for the Colombians. Everyone stare at us as we walked by, little kids come up to us and want to take pictures with us, teenager boys try to flirt with us and want our numbers(no, we didn´t gave it to them).... It was an interesting experience; I´d imagine this is probably pretty similar to what my tall white friends felt when they visited remote areas in Asia.

Majority of tourists here are from nearby Latin America countries. If you don´t speak Spanish here, you are screw. I don´t speak Spanish, luckily I´m traveling with a native Spanish speaker. Everyone here are very friendly and very helpful to us, even though we stuck out like a sore thumbs.

So far, Colombia is great.

Random Thoughts about Canada (Niagara Falls & Canada)

• Toronto reminds me of NYC.
○ Big metropolitan city with great public transportation. But Toronto is cleaner (did not see rats running around the subway in Toronto).
• Majority of people dress in black.
• Majority of people seem to be in a hurry.
• Vancouver seem to be more like California, everyone is more chilled. I wonder if it's a cities are more similar to each other if they are on the same coast, regardless of what countries they are in.
• Toronto is similar to L.A. in such that Chinese food in Chinatown are horrible and expensive. For good Chinese food, go to the suburb. The Chinese food in Toronto suburb are much cheaper than in L.A.; many entrée are only $4-$6 CAD.
• On the Chinese food quality, it's comparable for L.A. and Toronto.
• The background for Toronto highway number is the Queen's crown
○ http://www.thekingshighway.ca/signs2.htm
• In Toronto, dotted-lines are drew all the way to the end and connect to the left lane for the on-ramp merger. This is different from L.A., where the dotted-lines stop good 50 feet prior to the lanes merger.
• CN Tower is the tallest tower in the world, but CN Tower does not look very tall.
• The elevator ride in CN Tower is more scary than many rollercoaster I ever went on. Do NOT ride in this elevator if you are afraid of height.
• Public announcements are in both English and French. Does that mean all public officials speak both of these languages?
• Niagara Falls reminds me of Old Town Las Vegas, except Niagara Falls seem more empty and depressed.
• Niagara Falls is like a big amusement park, where every restaurant offers average to crappy quality food but cost an arm and a leg.
• All the public toilet stalls in Niagara and Toronto do not provide toilet seat covers.
• Drivers in Toronto are very inconsiderate. Cars randomly park on the right lane of roads. Cars change lane without signal lights. A lot of honking.
• In Asian restaurants, they give you a pen and a piece of paper. You wrote the dishes you want (the # on the menu) on that piece of paper. Very efficient!
• The electronic highway signs give driving tips.
• Toronto Chinese cafés do not add sugar to the milk tea and it has too much cream. Yuck! I like LA milk tea much better.

[Written on the flight to LA, posted in LA]

The Charm Life

I just got back from the Pink Martini Concert at Hollywood Bowl! It was awesome, totally worth the 6+ hours flight back. I have such a fun time that I vow to try my best to attend all their shows whenever they are in town.

At the concert, with delicious wine & food, good friends, I feel very lucky. I have a job that I love and also allows me to work from whereever I want. I got JetBlue's "All You Can Jet" pass that allows me to fly back just for this concert.

Gawd, how did I get so lucky?

However I end up here, I am very very grateful and very very happy!

2009 has been very good to me and it still got another quarter to go. :)

Washington, District of Colombia

Thanks to my friend, my first visit to D.C. was action-packed!

I just showed up and he took me all over the places. In one weekend, I visited all the big tourist spots, three states, and even volunteered in a half-marathon (though waking up at 5am was painful). Furthermore, all the meals were delicious and the weather was pleasant the entire weekend. D.C.

I think D.C. would be a wonderful place to live (if you don’t mind snow) and to play (great food and the museums are free!).

Tourist spots that I visited and can check-off: Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, FDR Memorial, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, National Garden, Battle of Antietam Park

Tourist spots that I pass by and will check-off: Washington Monument, The White House, The Capitol, The U.S. Supreme Court building, Library of Congress, National Archive Museum, The Reflecting pool

States I visited: Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia

D.C. Extras:
•Saw a political protest about health care (but there are also quite a few Palin for President and white supremacy signs. The latter remind me of the scene from “The Fifth Element,” where Leeloo is disillusioned and unwilling to perform her role to destroy the Great Evil because from her observation, humans seem compelled to destroy themselves with wars and crimes, in spite of all efforts that were made to save humans. Considering this is 2009 and we have a black President, it is quite depressing to see people would still hate others just because of their skin color).
•Went to a house party. The houses here are very nice.
•Went to a farm.
•Then eat the food from that farm for dinner.

(Written at IAD, JetBlue Terminal. Posted at Toronto, ON)

Hotels

Colombia is a developing nation and everything there cost much cheaper.

Canada is a developed nation and everything there cost about the same.

The travel information to Colombia is pretty limited because not many people have visited Colombia. Also, with the safety issue, I'm pretty conservative in term of booking my hotels.

However, because Canada is a developed country and speak the same language, I feel more comfortable traveling there and able to find more travel information. I will be renting a car, so I am also ok with staying at places that are not in the downtown. Hence, I was able to use Priceline and Hotwire to find crazy hotel deals.

In the end, our hotel cost in Colombia is twice as much our hotel cost in Canada (and the hotels in Canada are probably nicer).

Mediation

Currently reading "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert.

She talks about the difficulties to still her mind during meditation.

I tried meditation this morning. I couldn't still my mind at all and I got bored after 5 minutes.