Clear Blue Dei

We are getting ready to go to Thailand for our 20th anniversary and I hope to put up blog posts while we are there to keep family, friends and interested parties, informed.  I will also write a little travelogue of our trip and include any tips, tricks and useful information we run across.  And I will give our opinions of tours, hotels, etc that we use while we are there.

So here are the basics of our trip.  We are traveling with Smartours, an inexpensive tour operator that consistently gets good reviews on TripAdvisor and other places.  Smartours has quite good prices (especially when they run specials – signup for their emails). Our Thailand trip with Smartours starts at $1199 for 14-days and includes:

• Round-trip airfare from Los Angeles via Korean Air
  (New York departure add $100)
• Airline fuel surcharge
• Intra-Thailand flight and ground transportation
• Accommodations at Superior First Class hotels
• Full buffet American breakfast daily (B)
• Welcome dinner in Bangkok (D)
• Sightseeing tours as per itinerary
  and all transfers
• Professional English speaking
  Tour Director throughout

We did not go during the cheapest priced times (April on) so our cost was $1299. The best time to go to Thailand is Nov-Feb (“cool” season). And we flew out of JFK (NY) instead of LA so that was an addl $100. And there were $84 ea. in government taxes and fees.  So our price was a total of $2966 for the two of us. Which I think is a great price. Airfare is at best, $900 or more per person. Hotels for 14 days is at least $720 ($60/night for 12/nights). That is $2520 at a minimum. And adding in the extra meals (breakfast would probably be included in hotel price), convenience, transportation to/from airport and between cities, along with a guide and some tours included, it is a very reasonable price and one that would competitive, even if you went on your own.

The only few negatives I have heard regarding this tour are: the Bangkok hotel is not in a very convenient location, there are some days with long bus rides interspersed with long shopping stops, you get somewhat nickeled and dimed and the groups are large and unwieldy and slow to accomplish anything.

I know my way around Bangkok so I’m not too concerned about the hotel location. It is a long way from the waterfront area (Wat Po, Grand Palace, Khao San street (backpacker’s paradise and fun place). But it is close to the Sky Train and I want to go the the Chatachuk Saturday Flea Market that is easy to get to by riding the Sky Train (and something I didn’t get to do last time). As far as the long bus rides, at least we aren’t driving and the guide usually points things out and it is nice to see the scenery and to get to go to a lot of different places. And I am sure the bus will have soft seats and be air-conditioned (unlike the pickup trucks with benches of my last trip) and that is a downright pleasant way to travel. The shopping stops (gems, pottery, local crafts, whatever they have arranged to get a commission on) are usually an issue with any group tour and Sean and I just go wandering around or talk to the bus driver during the stops and try to enjoy wherever we are. Also, anything you do that is organized will nickel and dime you. It is just part of the total cost. Cruises are probably the worst for that. Large groups are frustrating, but if you don’t dillydally when a group something (like hotel check-in) is occurring and get towards the front, it helps.  So does patience.

We are flying from Fort Wayne to JFK ($311 pp) on Feb 1 (a day early in case of bad weather) and staying overnight at the Fairfield Inn New York JFK Airport ($151 total). The Fairfield Inn has a complimentary shuttle, serves a decent breakfast buffet included and has good reviews on TripAdvisor. I always check TripAdvisor to find everything associated with travel (except airfare). We leave about 12:30pm on Korean Air and arrive at Bangkok 11:10pm the next day. There is a 3 hour stopover in Seoul. Returning, we leave Bangkok at about 1am and arrive JFK at 10:40am (same day) with about a 3 hr. stop in Seoul. We also purchased World Wide Trip Protector travel insurance from Travel Insured (an independent travel insurance company, not through the tour group or airlines). It was $224 for the 2 of us. This includes emergency medical and emergency evacuation. Bangkok has extraordinary hospitals (I know, I was there last trip at Bangkok Nursing Hospital – highly recommended), but it is good to be able to get back to the U.S. with all associated costs taken care of.  And with older parents and long travel overseas and traveling in the winter with weather delays, etc, I think trip insurance is well worth the cost and I just consider it part of the total cost of the trip. Again, Travel Insured is a good trip insurance company. I use Squaremouth travel insurance broker to find the best insurance for us. They have a good reputation and have been around for a long time and are recommended by many places. I may or may not book through them though. In this case I went straight to the Travel Insured site to buy the insurance.

So our trip so far is $3963 total, or $1981 per person for 14 days.

I will post as often as I can and let you know about our trip.

By the way, to see all my posts from my February 2010 Smartours Amazing Thailand trip, you can select the category “Thailand” from the category drop-down on the right.

Until then, take care,

~Susan Mellott

In the process of getting and using my Creative Zen (see my post on my Creative Zen), I found that you can view online or download movies, TV shows, videos and more to your PC, as well as downloading to your Zen (portable audio/video device).

Online: The network websites are slowly starting to stream their popular TV shows. It was a godsend for my sister when she was working as a traveling surgical tech because she could watch some of her favorite shows and soap operas without needed a TV or cable.  And that was before the digital conversion which makes it more difficult to just hook up a TV and watch network TV. And of course, she could watch at her convenience. A couple of shows that she watched online were Lost and 24.  ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox all have full episodes of some of their shows online. Even shows on cable stations like HGTV and MTV (which also has many music videos).

There are also websites that gather different TV shows and movies together in one place, making it easier to access them. If you are a Comcast customer with high-speed internet and Digital video with On Demand, you can go to a site called Fancast that, with a little setup, lets you view a huge amount of TV shows and movies from your cable selections.  We have HBO and I can watch movies from HBO as well. Without Comcast, you can still use Fancast, it is just more limited as to what you can access. It does still have quite a few movies and TV shows.

Hulu is probably the most well-known website for video content. It has a large amount of content to choose from. Hulu also has a desktop version that I originally thought would let you download and view later without the internet but after trying it and looking at it closer, it “Hulu Desktop runs directly on your computer and does not require a web browser. It provides an alternate way to browse and view content from the Hulu Library”. In other words, you don’t need your brower like firefox or IE open, but you do still need to be connected to the internet.

For more recent movies, Amazon Video on Demand lets you rent movies for about $2.00 to $4.00 each and watch them on your PC.

But all these sites require that you are online to view their content.  So what if you want to download movies to a device like a netbook or portable video device and watch them like you would a DVD?

Download: I actually have a hard time finding easy and safe legitimate copies of movies, whether free or purchased.  Many people recommend iTunes (according to their website, most are around $10). However, even if you buy a legit copy, in order to download it to your Zen (or any non-apple device) you have to convert it which breaks the iTunes copy protected format, which is illegal. I can say though, for informational purposes only, that if you are still interested in this, go over to epiZENter and check their forums and they can help you with the software you would need.

Another inexpensive, legit option may be Starz Play (formerly Vongo), especially (and actually, maybe only) if you are a Verizon user. From the Verizon website it says: Get unlimited movies and videos for just $5.99 per month. ($9.99 per month for customers who are not subscribers to verizon FiOS or Verizon High Speed Internet). This is the FAQ for Starz Play from the Verizon website. Once you have finished downloading a Starz Play movie, you do not need to be online to watch it. Which means that you might also be able to download it to a portable device, although it says Some titles are in the service for many months, and others last a few weeks or days. Once a title expires from the service it will automatically delete from your hard drive. So I am guessing you have to use their media player and that they use some sort of encryption.  They didn’t seem to have a huge collection of recent movies.

And I’ve just heard about Roxio CinemaNow.  They were offering a free download of Terminator: Salvation a few days ago and I followed the link but it was no longer valid (for the free download). But it appears that you can rent movies from like other places, but also you can buy movies and download them, even to portable devices.  The movies look like they cost approx. $15-$20 to buy and about $4 to rent.

bitTorrents: But really, I have not found a good, free/cheap, legitimate site to download movies or TV shows to my PC or Creative Zen.  I have, however, found some good, free sites from which you can download movies or TV shows.  These sites are search engines for searching BitTorrent files. The best-known of these sites are Pirate Bay and isoHunt. BTJunkie is also supposed to be good. Unfortunately, a lot of the bitTorrents they find are not legitimate so I cannot recommend them and I am providing this for informational purposes only.

These sites work by using bitTorrent protocol (peer to peer). Here are the wikipedia entries for BitTorrent Trackers and BitTorrent protocol. It is pretty interesting reading. I am going to give you the basic instructions for this. There are many different ways and software but this is easy and works.

How to Download bitTorrent files: Go to Isohunt to find the movies you want to watch (and get the isohunt toolbar if you want, to make it easier to find) Note: torrents from axxo and fxg are particularly well done.  If  you scroll down the home page, there is a list of top searches on the right side and you can see that axxo and fxg are top searches. When you find something you want to get (like if you do a  search for a title), you will get a list.  To the right of each one is a number and a star and another number.  The first number says how it was rated (can also have negative numbers for especially poor ones). The second number is the number of comments for that copy. When you find one that has a positive rating, click on it and read the comments to make sure it is a good (and real) copy. The “kingben” and “axxo” ones (if real, check comments) are usually good.  You should also check what files they download to make sure it is an .avi file.  some of them are zipped using .rar and you have to go find the software to unrar them.

If you want a rar, go to WinRar and you can download a trial copy to unrar it.

Then click on Download .Torrent and then Open. When the uTorrent popup pops up, just click OK and utorrent will start downloading it.  It will take a while to get it downloaded. It’s probably a good idea to start some uTorrent downloads before you go to bed.

How to Play on PC/netbook: Download the VLC media player to play the videos http://www.videolan.org/mirror-geo.php?file=vlc/0.9.2/win32/vlc-0.9.2-win32.exe The VLC media player has the best ability to play a wide variety of video formats and that is why I recommend VLC media player. Many times the downloads cannot be viewed correctly in the Windows media software and this is much easier. Then you can open the VLC media player, pick media/open file and open your movie and watch it. It has a fullscreen mode too.

The downloaded files can be transferred to a netbook along with the VLC media player and then played at your convenience, without needing internet access. The downloaded files can also be transferred to a portable media device, like my Creative Zen. But before they can be loaded to the Zen, they have to be run through video conversion to put them into a format that the Zen can read.

Convert file to Zen readable format: The easiest way to convert the files is by using the Badak file conversion program.  Badak is a simple video transcoder. It is free and although it is not the prettiest looking software, it really is the easiest and best that I have found so far to convert videos to a format a Zen can play. Just click on the “Open Preset” button at the bottom left of the window (next to the “Settings” button). Then click on the Creative Zen in the list of settings and it will be set for the proper settings for the Zen.

To convert a file, either click the “Add File” button at the top and add the file, or drag the file to the top and drop it in the window. You can change the Setting Destination to another folder if you want.  And unless you change it (in File Name Header), all files will start with [Z].

Now just click start and it will convert the file to Zen compatible format and put it in the setting destination. It takes a little less than an hour to convert a regular 2+ hour movie and about 15 minutes for an hour (42 min) TV show. It also cuts the size of the (typically .avi) file in half.

Then you can attach the Zen to the USB port, open it to show files and folders (or go to the drive it creates) and load the video to My Videos.

That is all you have to do! Now you can watch your movies or TV shows on your netbook or Zen or other portable media player.

~Susan Mellott

I have been meaning to post about my Creative Zen for a long time.  But I hadn’t used it for a while so I didn’t think of it again until just recently.  We are getting ready to go on our 20th anniversary trip to Thailand and the Zen is a great device to use on the exceeding long (24 hr+) plane ride. The battery can last 30 hours for audio or 5 hours for video. I have definitely watched at least 2 movies on it with 1 charge (I can’t remember exactly but it lasted for quite a while).  Both the audio and video quality is extremely good.

I have used it when taking road trips so I can watch videos or listen to music or audiobooks.  It keeps any photos and will display in slideshows of your choice so it is also works as a small digital picture frame. It plays FM radio stations and has a date/time. clock/alarm, and an organizer feature. It also has a microphone for recording notes and things.

This is my Zen. It came with the short mini USB to USB cable. I believe it also came with some earphones. I added a set of earphones that store very well without tangling (they pull out and lock and then zip back into the round case). I got them in a Brookstone store at the airport for about $25.  I highly recommend buying the Creative Hard Plastic Case for Zen, Zen MX (Clear) to protect your zen. I attached a lanyard to mine so I can hang it around my neck. It is about the size of a conference name tag.

I have the Creative Zen 4 GB Portable Media Player (Black). It is not the latest version of the Zen nor does it have the most storage, even for the regular Zen.  But it has everything I need or want.  The Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver) has wireless access, built-in speakers and improved audio. The X-Fi stands for Xtreme Fidelity Audio technology. You have to get at least the 16 GB version to get the wireless lan capabilities. It is described: You can now stream music and photos wirelessly from your PC to your player within a home network. With the Zen X-Fi, experience the sound of perfection wherever you go. Stay connected with friends on Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live Messenger on the go (at region-specific public wireless LAN hotspots). This is interesting sounding but I think it is a very basic access and not that worth it to me. It is easy to transfer files with mine and the rest doesn’t cut it since we have a Droid that does much, much more than that.

I have the 4 GB version and I added a 2 GB SD card for extra storage.  This is plenty enough for me.  On the basic 4 GB drive I have 5 audiobooks, 9 full length movies and am loading a zencast video at the moment (to try it out).  On the memory card I have about 55 pictures, 4 audiobooks and 2 movies and have about 550 meg left. I just have no need for more than this. On the Creative website they have a comparison of the different Zen players to help you decide which is right for you.  Mine is not on there since it was the very first version. You can still buy them though.

This is a picture of my Zen on a piece of paper to get an idea of its size.  The bag is a bag I use to carry it and it’s bits in.  It is just a small makeup bag.

I like almost everything about my Zen. I think Creative is a good company that makes solid products. The one thing that is a little awkward with my original Zen is that the memory card is not integrated into the rest of the storage.  In order to load it, you have to put the Zen on Memory Card/Removable Disk and then it connects as a regular drive.  The regular drive on the Zen attaches to the PC with the different directories for videos, music (audiobooks), etc.  The memory card has all the different styles of content all mixed in together and is not as well organized.  In addition, I had a problem listening to my WMA (iPod compatible) audiobooks from it. It gave an error that it was copy protected.  The MP3 audiobooks worked fine from it and both kinds work fine from the regular storage. It is nice that it will play both since I can download both versions from our library and not all audiobooks come in both versions.

There is a lot more information on the Zen that you can view on the Creative Zen 4 GB Portable Media Player (Black) page. Just look through the customer supplied images. They show many different functions and have descriptions that describe the Zen thoroughly.

To get the media from the PC to the Zen, the easiest way is to attach the Zen and go to Explorer. The Zen shows up as My Zen. Go into Storage Media and the different folders relate to the different options on the Zen.  This is an example of my audiobooks that I had copied to my Zen. Click on the image to get a full size view.

Most people have downloaded audio files to an MP3 player, but it is a little different getting video content.  To see how to download content such as movies, etc. to your PC and then to your Zen, see my upcoming/next post.

Ommm, baby,

~Susan Mellott