Unwrapped travel

As far as independent budget travellers are concerned, Singapore has always been a bit of a budget buster. “S$20 for a dorm room?” Are you kidding? No we’re serious — anything more than a day or two in this fascinating city-state will leave your wallet in dire need of some slow time on Ko Pha Ngan to recuperate.

But it’s not all bad news, and our Singapore-based Travelfisher has put together a cheatsheet for some ways to stretch your Sing dollars out that little bit further. We’re not saying your stay won’t still cost a motza, but these tips will save you some money!

You can read the full story here: Singapore on a budget.

So you’ve heard of the spicy sauce, now visit its spicy home! Sri Racha, located midway between Bangkok and Pattaya barely rates a second thought in most travellers’ itineraries, but if you’ve got the time up your sleeve — why not? There’s a few half decent places to stay, an offshore island and a bucket-load of good eating!

You’ll probably need no more than a night to take in most of the town’s delights and luckily for you, we’ve summed them all up for you over on the main Travelfish site. So please do check out our Sri Racha travel guide.

We’ve just added a new Travelfish Guide to the store — the third edition of our top-selling Travelfish Guide to Ko Phi Phi in southern Thailand.

The guide is easily the most comprehensive guide to Ko Phi Phi available and as it was researched on the ground in October 2009, the information doesn’t get any fresher than this!

We’ve increased the font size a bit to make the guide a bit easier on the old eyeballs, so it’s a good deal longer than the previous editions. There are also four maps, detailed reviews on 50 (yes fifty) places to stay across the island. In our accommodation reviews we looked at all budgets — from 150 baht dorms to 15,000 baht private pool villas — and everything in between. There’s also information on where to eat and drink, a diving guide and tips on how to do the island on the cheap.

We’re also, for the first time ever, offering a couple of pages as a free download so that you can check for yourself and decide if it really is worth the US$4.95 we’re asking. You can download the sample pages here (in PDF format).

Of course there is the Travelfish 7-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked.

Sounds interesting? You can buy the guide online here — it is available for download immediately after purchase.

We’ve been busy deepening our coverage along the famous Mae Hong Son loop in northern Thailand and have just added seven new spots working south from Chiang Mai.

First stop is Hang Dong, followed in quick succession by Sanpatong, Chom Thong, Hot, Mae Chaem, the very little visited Mae Na Chon and last but not least, Thailand’s tallest peak, Doi Inthanon.

So if you’re doing some slow travel along this route, you might want to give some of these spots a looksee.

For most people doing the Mae Hong Son loop, the blip of a town of Khun Yuam is little more than a halfway point between the far larger town of Mae Sariang to the south and the provincial capital of Mae Hong Son to the north. But, if you’ve the time, it’s a comfortable spot to break up the journey.

As such, we’ve just added some coverage onto the main Travelfish site. Afterall Khun Yuam is an ideal spot from which to visit the breathtaking Mae Surin Waterfall and, in November and December the fields coime alight with flowering wild sunflowers, painting the hills yellow. There’s a good place to stay, a handful of cheap eateries and even a local wat to poke around in, so if you’ve the time, slow down and give Khun Yuam a night — our complete Khun Yuam travel guide is here.

When Bali institution Kafe Warisan shuttered a few weeks ago, those craving French cuisine with rice paddy views didn’t have long to wait to head out again. Warisan creators Said Alem and Nicolas Tourneville opened Metis just shy of two weeks ago and we thought we’d give it a test drive for a birthday dinner on October 27.

In summary: The food, in particular the sauces, are superb; the prices are reasonable; the service is friendly but needs a little work; and foie gras isn’t “legendary” when a new restaurant has only been open two weeks!

Reservations:
Their phone rang unanswered twice through mid-afternoon when we tried to make our reservation. Called in the evening and it was answered immediately. We had no problems making a reservation just a couple of days beforehand, booking in for a table for two at 8pm on a Tuesday. Courteous.

Layout & initial impressions:
Metis sits well back off Petitenget Road with adequate parking. We came by taxi. The dramatic pathway leading from the street to the restaurant — complete with water-borne torches ablaze — is somewhat lowlit, enough so that the half-dozen two-inch high steps along the way could be tripped on by the unaware. Brisk and polite security zapped our bags. When a mobile phone set off an alarm he asked, “Is that a phone?” to which we resisted saying, “No, it’s a bomb!” and entered the main foyer. The main entry has an Asian-inspired antiques store to the left and macaroon/chocolate shop to the right, with the main restaurant reached via a slight dogleg between the two. As you enter the dining area, you can immediately take in the splendid vista of the restaurant and rice paddy beyond.

The restaurant is configured as an open-plan “U” with the central area a small grassy tableau, behind which sits the paddy views, a la Warisan. A long, luminescently green bar and casual lounge area runs along the right leg of the U ending in a sunken bar that juts directly into the paddy. The long bar was held up by a few foreigners in shorts and flipflops — we’re not clotheshorses, but come *on* people! The left leg is partly given over to the enclosed kitchen area. The best seating is at the centre of the U, right beside the lawn — and that’s where we were seated.

The bar:
We arrived almost 30 minutes early but were seated to eat immediately — we would have preferred to be asked if we wanted a drink at the bar first, so we ended up asking. The sunken bar, open to the sky, was initially deserted save one other customer, and a rat that ran straight between my feet (a mouse, according to our waiter), giving the paddy setting a touch more authenticity.

The modular seating is somewhat problematic. It’s basically two concentric half-circle lounges, one bigger than the other — they fit together with a small table flush to both at the centre. But the smaller circle needs a few people to be moved out to allow people to sit down, with the table then at the centre. We had to get the staff to help us position the seats, as did two other groups who came later. We imagine they’ll eventually have the tables spun out and ready for customers in the future.

Once we were seated, service was prompt and helpful. We ordered a Fifty Seven Magnum (70,000 Rp++) and a Chamango (70,000 Rp++). We’re all too aware of the liquor pricing issues in Indonesia, but in a place like Metis, we expected to pay more for our drinks — and get a martini glass of the size KuDeTa serves up. Beer nuts with toasted garlic accompanied the drinks. A margarita served for round number two was a better size. Service had to be called over to make a second order, despite an empty glass on the table for five minutes or so. Napkins didn’t arrive till the second drink. Beer nuts were not refilled. The jazzy music was audible but not too loud and as it wasn’t crowded, it felt quite intimate. We can’t help but wonder what they will do in wet season though — as it was the lounges felt a touch damp and the rains haven’t even begun. When I asked a waiter about protection in the rain, she said they would cover everything in plastic sheeting.

Once back at our table, we perused one main menu each, a specials menu, a foie gras menu and the wine list. A small canapé was served and we asked for bread — twice — but it didn’t appear until our appetizers did, 30 minutes later. The lack of bread was annoying, as was the floodlight directed upwards into the frangipani beside our table, which needs some shielding.

The food:
The business end of the evening! If you were a fan of Warisan, you’ll not be disappointed with the fare at Metis. An expansive menu, one of us had a lot of trouble deciding just what to have. Describing a dish as containing the restaurant’s “legendary foie gras” when the paint is barely dry on the walls, was a little presumptuous. You *were* Warisan, and now you are Metis! We ordered grilled scallops with foie gras (195,000 Rp) followed by barramundi (165,000 Rp) and grilled fresh Japanese scallops with gratinated sea urchin sauce (180,000 Rp) followed by Moroccan lamb rack mechoui (215,000 Rp). We asked for and received a twenty-minute break between courses.

Unfortunately wine in Indonesia is taxed to a completely ludicrous degree and as we’re just not willing to pay $75 for a $15 bottle of wine, we tend to make do with the “local” Hatten wines. Metis had both their white and rose on the menu, at a slight mark-up, but not the red. I’m the first to say the Hatten red is far from memorable, but its drinkable and not outrageously expensive. We’d have got a bottle of the Hatten Red if Metis carried it, but their next cheapest, (3Rivers Shiraz Cabernet) carried a substantial mark-up — so we just went with a glass of 3Rivers (120,000 Rp per glass) with the main and a couple of Heinekens (35,000 Rp per bottle).

On the upside, water comes cheap — free flow Evian for the evening cost 25,000 Rp per person, though we’d suggest the water be decanted into something more attractive than 1.5 litre plastic bottles that look to be straight from the Circle K.

The Japanese scallops were fabulous. Set on a creamy sea urchin sauce, the dish was especially rich, but the scallops had a smooth, succulent texture and delicious flavour. The bread — at last! — was perfect for mopping up the sauce. That plate went back glisteningly clear. The fois gras with scallops and puy lentils was outstanding. We usually feel sufficiently guilty to never eat fois gras, but were tempted and it was delectable. Despite the fabulously rich sauce, even the flavour of the lentils came through.

By the time we’d finished the entree the restaurant was humming. The staff coped well and we were never left waiting. One distraction was that as the restaurant got busier the double swinging doors into the kitchen area were swung open and closed near constantly. This continual flicker of light and moving people was mildly irritating — and we were on the opposite side of the restaurant — yet people were being seated right beside this. Reserve ahead and specifically ask to be seated away from the kitchen doors.

If our scallops were fabulous, the lamb rack was superb — we’d go as far as to say it was probably the best lamb rack one of us has eaten — ever. Set on a base of vegetable ragout with a side of couscous, the etched crackle skin (easily removable for those who watch what they eat — not us!) sat atop lamb that fell off the bone. There was a slight spice-y aftertaste — star anise? — but the complex flavours were delightful. This was a hearty serving and it took a long, thoroughly pleasurable time to work through.

Our barramundi meanwhile was perhaps just a touch overdone, but the risoni underneath had perfect bite and was nestled in yet another amazing sauce. A win, but with some order envy alongside that lamb.

Dessert? We couldn’t fit anything in, but it must be said, after spending a lot of time trying to decide on the mains, the dessert offerings left us a little uninspired.

All food and beverage plus service (6%) and tax (10%) came out at 1,614,910 Rp which was a bit less than the expected million per head we’d have guessed ahead of time.

As we left, we suddenly found inspiration lurking again in the little sweet shop. We selected some chocolate mint truffles and a few macaroons to take home, with a selection of six coming to 33,000 Rp. We also perused the antiques — a lovely Chinese wedding box jad a cool price tag of 37,5000,000 Rp — not sure if the price includes a wedding ceremony.

Our advice?
Book ahead and ask for a table by the lawn. Specifically ask to be away from the kitchen doors. Get there early, perhaps 30 minutes beforehand to enjoy the bar area. Get the lamb!

Metis
Jl. Petitenget No. 6, Bali, Indonesia.
T: (0361) 737 888
info@metisbali.com
http://www.metisbali.com/

All images taken from the Metis website – note the last images is reversed on their website

Just walking down the footpath can be a memorable experience in Southeast Asia — you could easily cross paths with an elephant, meander past a blind musicians or step aside to make way for a column of monks — yet one of the most memorable facets is the food. Clayton, Chad, and Lyndon, three Canadian chef-travellers, decided to record their experience as they cooked — and ate — their way across Southeast Asia. We did a short interview with the guys and have showcased some of their videos on the site — you can read the full interview with Chefs Without Borders here.

What makes the perfect beach? Are you looking for stretches where no other speedo has swum or are sunset bars and thumping music more your thing? While Ko Tao is best known for its diving industry, it’s also home to more than its fair share of glorious stretches of sand. So here is a round up on some of Ko Tao’s best beaches — note though, this isn’t an exhaustive list — we don’t want to take away all the fun!

I’ve just added a new story onto Travelfish — an email interview with Daniela Ruby Papi of PEPY Tours.

PEPY runs “educational adventure tours” to rural Cambodia with a focus on supporting development in Cambodia’s educational system.

The interview may be of interest to anyone with an eye on the development scene there and with opinions on what forms good sustainable tourism.

You can read the full story here:
Sustainable tourism in Cambodia with PEPY Tours

Cheers

So now that the last of the Free Travelfish Guides have been credited out and leaving just some Twitter freebies to be tied up, here is a bit of a reflection on what worked and what didn’t — hopefully will be help to others thinking of running competitions on Twitter — and in general for that matter.

Summary
On Sunday, July 12 we ran a series of competitions commencing at 8am (GMT+8) and completing at midnight the same day. There were three major prizes and a bunch of smaller prizes (t-shirts, Flickr upgrades, Travelfish Guide giveaways).

The small prizes were given away via regular (roughly hourly) “Quick Quizzes” through the day — on both Twitter and the Travelfish Forum.

The big prizes were given away via a 30-words or less competition on the Travelfish Forum. For each prize a contestant had to say in 30 words or less why they should win the prize. These opened at 8am and closed at midnight.

Results at a glance
Including duplicates and double answers, we saw the following number of entries (and views) on the Travelfish forum:

$1000 travel voucher 48 (933)
Four day live aboard 23 (514)
PADI course 25 (511)
Free Travelfish Guides 56 (762)

Separately we saw the largest number of new members join the site ever, site traffic was up roughly 20% for a Sunday along with a significant spike in Adsense earnings (the easiest bit of advertising on the site to quantify). Travelfish Guide sales spiked on the celebration day (odd as we were giving them away) and the Monday was our largest day ever for sales (by value).

Pre publicity
Aside from a couple of tweets through last week, the competition was mentioned in the Travelfish newsletter and the Facebook group. As the prizes are being paid for by us (as opposed to being donated by a company looking for exposure) there was no pressure on us to overly publicise what we were doing. In our view the prime reasons behind the competition were about giving something back to the community (yeah I know a lot of PR people are probably gagging reading that — sorry) — rather than getting out there beating the drum.

Thoughts on the competition in general
It was a lot of work
It was far more work to manage than I expected. While the twitter and forum quizzes and the major prize quizzes were pre-written, it was still time consuming to pick winners, close old threads and add new questions. This was complicated by a spammer who repeatedly hit the forum midway through the competition. Tracking winners in Twitter was particularly problematic (see Thoughts on Twitter below).

It was too complicated
Some people complained they didn’t realise the big prizes were being given away all day; or that there were too many different quiz threads. I forgot to close some threads (when we were being spammed) which led to people adding their answers despite my already awarding a winner on the thread. These answers then bounced the forum thread back to the top of the forum, and more people answered. It was messy.

A lot of window shoppers, not many buyers
Almost one thousand people read the thread about winning a $1000 travel voucher yet less than 50 entered – a 5% entry rate. That’s pretty dire. It’s not like they had to undergo a chromosome test to enter. Particularly as the east coast of the US woke up we say a spike in reads, but not more entries. Admittedly we’re a travel website for independent travellers, but you can see similar hit rates with the diving prizes. Overall we were under whelmed by the number of answers. What did do better was free stuff.

People love free stuff
To get a free Travelfish Guide, all people had to do was add an entry to the message board saying which guide they wanted. It doesn’t get any easier right? We saw a better response rate (albeit still pretty poor) for this part of the competition. Interestingly, the Vietnam pack was by far the most popular request — something not borne out by site usage. So either there’s something wonky with how people use the site, or when people are offered a range of goods for free they take the most expensive — regardless of if they need it or not! (The Vietnam pack, retailing for US$19.95 is our most expensive good for sale — most guides are around the $4.95 mark.

It was difficult to pick the right question
Ask an easy question it goes in five seconds, a hard one (or not even all that hard actually) and nobody knows the answer. Some of our readership are totally new to travel and Asia, others are more expert. It was more difficult to find a balance. For example an easy question, “Name Singapore’s international airport” was answered immediately, while a vaguely difficult one “Name two islands in Laos” was never answered. Finding the right balance was difficult.

Why on Sunday?
That’s just when the Travelfish birthday is. Sunday actually isn’t a bad day at all for traffic for us.

Timezones
We’re based in Bali and some of our top readerships are in Australia, US, UK, Thailand and Singapore. As we didn’t want to let the competition run unwatched (a view vindicated by the spam attack) and I wasn’t up to staying up all night, we decided to start earlyish and finish late. This let people in North America and the UK/EU access the comp at the start and/or end of their day, while people in Asia and OZ/NZ got the most convenient viewing slots. There was never going to be a way to do this that worked for everybody and short of me deciding to stay up all night, I don’t see a better way to do it.

Some people struggle with simple instructions
The big prizes had a 30 word limit on the answer. Many entries went over 30 words. Our preferred entry for the $1000 coupon was for an entry that was over 30 words. Moral of the story? Enter a competition and follow the instructions and you’re already in with a good chance!

Thoughts on Twitter
The majority of the new site members came from Twitter. So, assuming we’re able to convert these new members into participating members longer term, the Twitter effort will be worthwhile.

While I use Twitterfox day to day, I used Tweetdeck to manage the competitions so that I could set up different columns to track the hashtags and mentions. There were a few problems with this.

a) When answering a quick quiz, people didn’t always use the hashtag. As a fictional example, a contestant may enter “Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia” as:

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia
Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia #travelfish5
Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia #travelfish

@travelfish Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia
@travelfish Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia #travelfish5
@travelfish Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia #travelfish

d travelfish Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia
d travelfish Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia #travelfish5
d travelfish Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia #travelfish

Or they’d Direct Message me and one Twitterer (who I know personally) insisted on emailing me his answers each time!

b) There seems to be a lag between the live feed (the left hand default column in Tweetdeck) and the search results (whatever columns you set up to the right). People who had a standing search on a word — for example “Cambodia” would also answer, thinking it was just a question, not realising it was a competition.

c) This was particularly complicated by people who would direct message me answers as initially I wasn’t even tracking that!

The easiest way to get around the above it to either (i) specify exactly how an answer should be formatted (good luck in under 140 characters!) or (ii) steer all answers to the TF board for answering. While (ii) would have seen some drop off as people who wanted to answer wouldn’t want to register on TF to do so, from an answer management POV, it would be how I’d do it in the future.

d) For the Twitter questions, we wanted to give away two prizes on each question, so sticking with the above example, we would say something along the lines of “2nd and 5th correct answer get a prize”. In practise this didn’t really work all that well. Generally the first prize would go, but the second — especially if it was above the fifth reply — would drift unanswered. I put this down primarily to people following large numbers of people and not tracking the #travelfish5 tag. If I was to do this again, I’d run more individual quizzes but one prize apiece.

Would I do it again?
Yes, absolutely — but not for a year

Any advice?
If you’re using Twitter for quiz questions and answers, set yourself up with some kind of a spreadsheet already loaded up with the questions. As the answers come in, add them in with the timestamp for each answer, along with the users TwitterID. If they’re a winner, follow them and direct message them telling them they’ve won and you’ll be in touch at the end of the day/next day with more details. Going back at the end of the day and dissecting all this information, which was my approach — was a real pain.

Choose a short hashtag — we should have used #tf5

If you’re posting URLs to promote the quiz midway through it, have one landing page and plug that and that alone. If you post different urls through the day, people retweeting may not use the URL you want — for example using a URL for a question that has already lapsed — and this is problematic. We switched landing page URLs midway through the competition and it was a big mistake.

In closing
It was fun and I’d do it again. Already some of the new members have been active since on the site and the winners were chuffed with their prizes — makes it all worthwhile!

Other experiences
Travelblogexchange has a dedicated discussion on the topic of running travel competitions.