I just discovered: AirAsia now connects Bengaluru directly with Bangkok, starting September 1st, 2015. This would make it convenient for Bangaloreans travelling to several locations in South East Asia.
This morning, I was looking up for air tickets to a few destinations in South-East Asia on AirAsia website. At one point, I was searching for Air Tickets out of Mandalay, Myanmar to Bangkok. In the list of destinations that AirAsia tickets can be booked out of Mandalay, Bengaluru also popped up to my surprise. This wasn’t the case when I was searching for travel options in the region a few months ago, early in May.
A quick research revealed that it is indeed possible to book Mandalay to Bengaluru (via Bangkok) on Air Asia in one reservation (single PNR), thanks to the fact that Thai AirAsia has started flying Bangkok to Bengaluru and return. The flights have commenced only recently, starting from 1st September 2015. They had announced this as early as end-June and perhaps started ticket sales immediately, but this had skipped my attention. What really makes me excited about this is not the connectivity to Bangkok alone, but how easier (and cheaper) it will become to fly from Bengaluru to some remote locations in South East Asia.
Last three months of the year are times when I am busy travelling and conducting photography tours–first in South East Asia and then back home in India. Here is a quick look at my photography tours coming up in the last quarter of 2015.
Cambodia Photography Tour (October)
Cambodia is a country full of extraordinary visual treats. The large ancient temples of Angkor Wat and surroundings that are now overrun by even larger trees is just the beginning of the story. A population living in floating villages of Tonle Sap Lake, verdant rural landscape dominated by rice-fields and palm trees, traditional lifestyle in the countryside and its colourful monasteries welcome a traveller and photographer in search of rich experiences…. See full details of Cambodia Photography Tour.
Myanmar Photography Tour (October)
I stayed at two OYO rooms properties last month to understand the value they offer, pros and cons of staying with them and what is their promise to travellers. I also spoke in detail with Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer at OYO on why a traveller should stay with OYO.
If you live in any large city in India, you are probably not very far from a hotel touting the name of OYO rooms. OYO has expanded rapidly in recent months and has a large number of budget accommodation choices, now spread over hundred cities across India.
OYO Rooms proposition: predictability, availabily, accessibility, affordability
Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer at OYO confirms that they are rapidly expanding and bringing in a large number of hotels under their brand name. This is evident when you look for a room on their website. A quick search for Delhi returns 223 hotels. In Bangalore, they have 154 and 59 in Ahmedabad. They also have a presence in holiday destinations such as Ooty, Alleppey or Darjeeling, though in much smaller numbers.
The rapid expansion has been possible by working with existing budget to mid-range hotels and branding them as OYO. The hotels are managed by the property-owners according to a given set of standards and are marketed by OYO. According to Kavikrut, having a large number of choices ensures guaranteed availability–one of the four key values that OYO intends to provide. Others being affordability, accessibility and predictability.
A considerable number of their accommodations are priced at Rs.999. On the higher side, prices rarely go beyond Rs.3,000. OYO intends to work with properties within this budgets range in large cities, while they may add more expensive accommodations in leisure holiday destinations.
For the predictability part, OYO makes some minor modifications and improvements to the rooms to fit to their standards. They boast of a 250-checkpoint standardization in their rooms that offers some certainty to the guests walking in. This includes the facilities available in the room such as the type of linen, mattress, air-conditioning, wifi, type of showers and consummable materials. A frequent quality audit conducted by an OYO staff at the property ensures that everything is maintained in order.
How much of these work as claimed? I had a chance to stay at two OYO properties last month to discover this myself.
