Phuket to Singapore for B1,838; Thai AirAsia Airbus at Changi Airport, Singapore. - Photo by Terence Ong.

Travellers to and from Phuket have three more days to book special cheap flights with AirAsia during the period from August 9 to November 15.

People booking travelling during that period and booking before August 2 can get one-way flights from Phuket to Bangkok, Chiang Mai or Udon Thani for B990, Jakarta for B1,590 and Singapore for B1,838.

The flights are part of a network-wide promotion by AirAsia that ends on August 1. For details, see here.

Thai Airways International is also trying to get in on the discount game, offering a two-for-one deal during August. The deal, titled “Buy 1, Get 1 Free for Your Mom” is, the airline explains, “part of the ‘Love for the Nation’s Mother’ project that the Government initiated to celebrate Her Majesty Queen Sirikit’s Birthday” (which falls on August 12).

The deal applies only to round-trip tickets in economy class. This gives a an effective price of B4,500 per return ticket Phuket-Bangkok-Phuket or vice-versa. Oddly, the deal does not appear to be listed on the airline’s website.  Not yet, at any rate, so you may need to visit a ticketing office if you and Mom plan to take advantage of it.

In any case, Phuket Observer is more impressed with the AirAsia deal, which works out at B1,980 return. Even Nok Air, Thai’s budget offspring, beats the parent, with fares in August ranging from B1,300 to B1,800 each way, or around B3,000 return.

Thai’s only winning argument is the frequency of its Phuket-Bangkok service, which makes it a lot easier to get convenient connections via Bangkok to elsewhere in Thailand, or the world.

But it must be hard being the flag carrier in these days of budget airlines.

The shut-down is pretty much all-encompassing. The airline warns it includes service online, at AirAsia sales offices and counters, and through the call centre.

Travellers are therefore “strongly encouraged” to make bookings today or tomorrow to “avoid disappointment”.

Flying during the shut-down will be rather more tedious than normal. For a start, the entire check-in procedure will be done without benefit of computers, so travellers are advised to check in at least three hours before departure to avoid missing their flights.

Passengers will not  be able to self check-in – through the web, by mobile phone or at the kiosks – or manage bookings online. The self check-in service was suspended today (July 7).

In addition, your plastic won’t work. AirAsia will be accepting cash only for purchase of any ancillary products, including excess baggage fees, at the check-in counters during the shut-down.

The upside of all this, the airline says, is that the new system, once up and running, will “a huge improvement” on the current booking system, and will allow almost a million flight bookings to be made per day.

Kathleen Tan, the airline’s Regional Head of Commercial, said that “guests” (ie, passengers) can expect “countless benefits” as a result, though in the event, she counted only one: “savings that will come as a result of the more efficient operational processes”. Does that mean cheaper flights? We’re not sure.

AirAsia’s website is here. The notice about the booking system upgrade is here.

Qatar Airways is on a big expansion drive.

Qatar Airways is planning to launch daily flights to Phuket from October 11, one of six destinations it says are “underserved” from the Middle East.

The others are Budapest, Bucharest, Brussels, Nice and Hanoi. The Phuket flights will come in via Kuala Lumpur. The Hanoi route will go four times a week via Bangkok.

The six markets, said Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer, Akbar Al Baker, are “excellent opportunities for us to tap into. We spend a lot of time diligently analysing new route opportunities and I am pleased to say that [these routes] will not only open up new markets, but also strengthen our network strategy over our Doha hub.”

The airline is on an expansion drive that it hopes will see it serving 120 destinations worldwide by 2013, using a fleet of 120 aircraft, including five double-deck Airbus A380 ‘super jumbos’, which are currently on order.

Dawn breaks over the Mekong at Nong Khai, close to Udon Thani, with Laos on the far bank. - Photo (c) by Alasdair Forbes.

AirAsia, which recently set up a regional hub in Phuket, today launches its new direct service between Phuket and Udon Thani.

The biggest group of passengers is likely to be people from Udon working  in Phuket. They can now get home in a couple of hours, as opposed to having to fly via Bangkok with the usual couple of hours’ wait in Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The new service also makes it convenient for tourists to get from Phuket to Laos. From Udon to the Lao capital, Vientiane, is a short bus journey via Nong Khai and the Friendship Bridge across the Mekong river.

Better yet, the flight is currently priced at B690 for the less-than-two-hours one-way trip. Compared with the 10-hour drag by overnight bus from Phuket to Bangkok, costing B500 or more, then another 10 hours to Udon, costing an additional B260, it’s a no-brainer.

The AirAsia service takes off from Phuket at 14:40 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, arriving in Udon at 16:20. The flight in the other direction takes off at 16:50 on the same day, landing in Phuket at 18:30.

For those contemplating a visit to the old capital of Laos, Luang Prabang, Lao Airlines has daily flights from Udon, taking about 50 minutes. However, Lao Airlines is no budget carrier – this flight costs around B2,800 one-way.

Bang Bao, right, with a guest in front of one of his two homestay bungalows.

When the sophistication and pace of Phuket, its five-star resorts, its highways, its faaabulous homes, its gogo-bars and tailor’s touts all begin to seem a bit much, a bit unreal, it’s probably time to sample the Thailand that people encountered on arriving in Phuket in the 1980s.

One way to do this is to arm yourself with a dictionary and head off deep into rural Thailand, in the hope that you’ll find a place to lay your head at night and a restaurant where they serve food that is not too frighteningly alien.

Alternatively, you can take the short trip halfway across Phang Nga Bay to Koh Yao Noi.

Water buffaloes are still used to cultivate rice.

Even here, the gorgeous five-star white-wrinkled-cotton life has gained a foothold, but apart from small enclaves such as Evason’s Six Senses Hideaway and the Paradise Koh Yao, life in general goes on much as it did in Phuket 30 years ago.

People still grow rice and use water buffalo as draft animals, timber houses on stilts still sit comfortably in rubber or coconut plantations, restaurants still use little squares of pink paper instead of napkins (and there’s no sign of table cloths), and if you want breakfast at the local eatery, you need to be up early or you’ll go hungry. Mains electricity arrived just seven years ago.

You can also go local for accommodation in a Home Stay – what, in many other countries, would be called “bed & breakfast” – staying with a local family and learning a bit about how they live and, in the process, getting a much better sense of “belonging” than you’d ever get staying in a resort.

Darn, the beaches are crowded. In the distance, the fascinating islands of northern Phang Nga Bay.

The Home Stay programme started about 15 years ago in response to villagers’ worries that Phuket’s aggressive tourist industry would swallow up their mainly Muslim island ethos. Villagers decided to band together to create a kind of tourism that they could control. They would welcome visitors into their own homes, but on their own terms.

It’s been a great success, earning visits from Thai royalty and a slew of awards including, six years ago, the Destination Stewardship Award in the World Legacy Awards co-organised by National Geographic Traveler magazine.

Managing Koh Yao Community Based Tourism is Dusit Butree, known to the island’s 5,000 inhabitants as Bang Bao. He says he has some 50 families signed up, with about 75 rooms on offer. In the high season occupancy overall is about 60 to 70 percent.

Cheerful and talkative, Bang Bao used to make his living as a fisherman, and still enjoys taking visitors fishing. Part of his charm is that he is never frightened, as so many Thais are, of speaking inaccurate English. “I used to tell them, ‘This is girl crab. This is boy crab.’ They maybe laugh, but they know what  I mean,” he says with a big smile.

He has also taught himself to type in English and to use email, a big step up in attracting foreign visitors to add to all the Thais who use the Home Stays.

The guest book at the highly polished home of Bang Yan and his wife Yam is full of compliments about their warm hospitality and especially about Yam's cooking.

Visitors can choose where they will stay or, if they have never been before, can trust Bang Bao to assign them to whichever family is next in the rota, thus ensuring that every family gets a fair shake. In most cases accommodation is in the family’s own home though some who joined right at the beginning, like Bang Bao himself, have made enough money to build separate small bungalows for guests.

Families also act as tour guides; many have a background in fishing, and know the sea around the island, and the secret places to go among the soaring limestone islands just to the north. Others are farmers, and can give fascinating insights into growing and harvesting rice, coconuts or rubber.

They also get to do things on their own terms. At the office of Koh Yao Community Based Tourism is a sign with four rules for visitors: “Proper and modest dress in the village community; No alcohol or drugs in the community; No littering; and No collecting of seashells or coral from the sea.”

Handmade batiks by the local Women's Group are a colourful memento of a visit to Koh Yao Noi.

This is not, it has to be said, for those who like their drinks (alcoholic or otherwise) to come with an orchid on a stick, or their coffee to be made only by Illy or Lavazza. Pork naturally makes no appearance on menus. There is one bar on the island, with live music on Fridays, in what Bang Bao calls “the Zone” – a concession to the outside world which Bang Bao does not comment further on but which, his atypically solemn face tells you, he’s not terribly enthusiastic about.

Home Stay accommodation is basic – no DVD players, no in-room Wifi. Beds tend to be on the hard side (or may consist of a mattress on the floor), and bathrooms have the basics, no more. But the homes are kept scrupulously clean and, at B500 a night per room, with breakfast, they are good value.

Koh Yao Community Based Tourism also has a variety of 2- or 3-day packages with accommodation and tours, ranging from B2,000 to B3,500 per person, depending on the number of people in the party.

The evening long-tail ferry from Phuket approaches Koh Kao Noi's main pier.

To see more, visit the Home Stay website. It’s not quite up to date, so for the current situation or to book, email Bang Bao at dusit999@hotmail.com or call him on +66 (8) 6942 7999.

Ferries to Koh Yao Noi leave from the Bang Rong Pier on Phuket’s east coast. The large longtail boats cost B120 per person, one way, and take about an hour. The speedboat ferries cost B200 per person and take about 35 minutes.

The island can also be reached by ferry from Tha Dan pier in Phang Nga (B200) or from Tha Lan pier in Krabi (B150). Short journeys and small prices for going so far back in time.

The Hotel de Ville (City Hall), an architectural confection preserved from the French colonial days, is just one of the delights of Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by Thomas Schoch

AirAsia has added yet another destination linked by direct flights to its Phuket regional hub – Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. The service, launched on November 4, consists of one flight a day each way, leaving Phuket at 19:20 and arriving in HCM City at 21:10, with the return flight leaving at 21:40 and landing in Phuket at 23:35.

To celebrate the official announcement of the new route, AirAsia is offering special promotional fares from as low as USD25 (from HCMC to Phuket)  and B999 (in the other direction), for bookings for the travel period from December 3 this year to April 30 next year.

Guests may book through the AirAsia website or by pointing their phones to mobile.airasia.com.

Ho Chi Minh City, often referred to by its pre-Communist name, Saigon, has a mass of historical sights, a vibrant night life, good food and great coffee. It’s also close to such wonders as the Viet Cong tunnels of Cu Chi and the vast rice fields of the Mekong delta.

Jetstar A320 at Singapore's Changi Airport. - Photo by Terence Ong

If budget airlines have their way, one of Phuket’s biggest source of tourists in the coming “high” season will be Australia. Following Virgin’s announcements of direct flights from Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane from mid-November, Jetstar has announced it will add two more flights a week to its Sydney-Phuket Service from mid-December.

Jetstar currently flies to Phuket on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays (with return flights the same evening). From December 15 it will add Saturdays and Sundays to the schedule. Jetstar also flies three times a week between Melbourne and Bangkok.

The new flights will be aboard Jetstar’s seventh A330-200 aircraft, adding 1,200 seats to the route.

Phuket will also benefit from another Jetstar decision, to revive its twice-daily service from Singapore, starting on December 15. The airline dumped the route in March last year.

Jetstar’s Sydney-Phuket flights times will be as follows:

From Sydney: Mon, Fri, 14:15; Sat, Sun 14:35; Wed 15:15.

From Phuket: Mon, Fri, 21.00; Wed, Sat, Sun, 22:20

The Singapore-Phuket service will be as follows:

From Singapore: Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat, 08:35; Mon/Fri/Sun, 06:35; Daily, 20:35.

From Phuket: Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat, 10:00; Mon, Fri Sun, 07:50; Daily, 22:00.

Thai AirAsia Airbus at Changi Airport, Singapore. - Photo by Terence Ong.

Thai AirAsia has been giving more details of its plans for its new regional hub in Phuket, including a decision to base in Phuket two of three new Airbus A320s it has on order. That number may rise to four later.

The airline’s chief executive, Tassaporn Bijleveld, said that, from mid-November, AirAsia will add direct daily flights from Phuket to Hong Kong and Jakarta to its existing services to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and its eight daily flights to Bangkok.

New AirAsia route Phuket to Hong Kong from November 15th 2009. Introductory one way fare 999 baht. Book from October 5th to 11th. Travel from November 15th to July 31st, 2010. Book online at www.airasia.com

In April last year, Airports of Thailand, which owns Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Phuket airports, along with three other international airports in Thailand, offered discounts of up 95% off its landing fees at the non-Bangkok airports. Parking and landing fees are still considerably lower in Phuket than they are in Bangkok, Tassaporn noted.

Reports quoted him as saying that later on, AirAsia plans to link Phuket direct with other regional points such as Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Siem Reap in Cambodia and Vientiane in Laos, as well as other Indonesia cities.

The direct service between Phuket and Hong Kong is being welcomed by the local tourism industry and by Hong Kongers who are regulars in Phuket or have vacation homes on the island. There are other airlines on the direct route, notably Dragon Air, but competition from a low-cost carrier will definitely be applauded.

Meanwhile, the Bangkok Post reports that AirAsia will begin scaling back its existing services between Bangkok and Hanoi, Macao and Penang in October.

An increasing number of airlines, especially from Australia, are flying direct to Phuket. See here and here for earlier stories.

Flying high: Computer impression of one of the Phuket hydrofoils in flight in Phang Nga Bay. Photo courtesy Phuket Hydrofoil