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Thanks exacto -- look forward to reading your thoughts. You're always welcome to wax lyrical about places from your previous trips!

We've had our first submissions, Dongphuvieng on Ko Rattanakosin and beachgirl of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya -- great stuff all three, please keep them coming.

Somtam, just finished a detailed submission on Koh Lipe after logging on but tried to submit and was told to log in again, so submission lost mmm
Swag

Somtam, no worries will get around to redoing it, doesn't help doing it at work so obviously went over the 25mins
swag

Thanks to Archmichael for a great report on Vietnam's My Khe Beach -- good to see some Travelfishers getting a bit off the beaten track!

We've just had another new submission, by beachgirl (now our top contributor) on Kanchanaburi . Thanks!

Jon,

First question: What are you doing posting stuff on TripAdvisor when you could be posting it on Travelfish!!! ;-)

I wasn't sure of the answer to your question as it really revolves around "ownership". So I did some digging around and according to the TripAdvisor website, they own your reviews now, not you, so they're not really yours to republish anymore!

From the horses mouth:

"After you write a review, it becomes the property of TripAdvisor."

And so I'll ask the question again, why are you posting anything on TripAdvisor!

That said, all our submissions are edited by yours-truly and Mrs yours-truly before they surface on Travelfish, so we'll be sure to give anything you submit a good scrubbing through the detripadvisor machine. I can't imagine they'd get too excited about that -- but who knows.

But we would LOVE to get you contributing!

As an aside, regarding ownership, from the get go, when we started Travelfish ... wayyy back all those years ago ... anything that gets posted on Travelfish you retain 100% ownership of. BUT you grant us a "non-exclusive, royalty-free, international licence to use your postings in anyway that we see fit". That means, we can take your missives, wrap them around a coffee cup and flog the cups for $100 a pop and not give you a penny -- but you could do the same ... and, ahhh, you could post your missives wherever you damn well wanted to -- because they are, after all, your missives.

And on that note, I'm going to bed.

Hi,

I just wrote a review of Phimai, but after hitting "Submit", the page refreshed but the submission was not there. I had copied the text just in case of a problem and my subsequent 3 attempts to submit the copied text also didn't work.

And then I threw my computer out the window in frustration so I'll need you to reimburse me for that too. (kidding:)

By the way, nice to see Travelfish expanding (Malaysia).

Ah, I forgot that you look them over first... I'm used to the hotel reviews and forum posts that show up immediately. My apologies.

Hey Somtam, I don't really know why I reviewed a load of stuff on Trip adviser. I guess it was because I came across it when I was researching Budapest recently and just thought that some of the reviews/comments on Thailand were a joke so I just got stuck in!

Never really thought about doing it on TF and again I don't know why. :(

BUT, I will be now!!! :)

The reviews I wrote are my thoughts, and saved on my computer and I am also going to be using all of them on my own blog so Trip Advisor can blow me if they have a problem with that.

So, I if you want I can send you all my reviews and you can edited them to comply with Travelfish all you like. Where shall I send them?

somtam,

hey, i know you are busy writing code for the edit function on the forum and all, but i have a suggestion for a possible future upgrade to these new place reviews if you are interested. i've noticed that on many websites there is a chance to review the review, or more specifically, to vote if the review was useful or not. i thought that as the number of reviews grows, it might be a useful tool to help sort out the more useful reviews from the others. i'd imagine you'd want us to be logged in so that there was some accountability to the voting. :-)

anyway, if you think that might be useful in the long term, have fun with it. if not, no worries. thanks.

Great entry in from brucemoon -- on Umphang in northern Thailand -- a terrific and very under visited (by foreign travellers anyway) spot.


Keep em coming!

Just added a bunch of new reviews -- including Pai Udon Thani That Phanom Yasothon Don Dhet Pakse Champasak and Vientiane -- keep em coming!

Just got in a terrific entry by elocin on Phnom Penh and SBE on Bangkok's Taling Chan floating market -- well worth a read -- thanks! June entries finish soon!

Another entry in, this from BruceMoon on Vietnam's Mai Chau -- keep the entries coming!

Vientiane in Lao PDR.

Well, for a quiet place there is still a lot to see and do. Hundreds of hotels and restaurant choices, temples and markets galore.

Be careful about getting a 'bargain' iPhone as they are copies and the battery doesn't last long, as well as some of the functions of an iPhone not being available.

If you're going there from Thailand for a visa run, many of the problems that were there at the embassy have gone and it's quite a quick process. They were still giving out free double entry tourist visas as of August 2009.

The Lao people are a lot more friendly and less 'Lets rip the tourists off' than some Thais are in many resort towns.

Food is cheap, freshly made and tere are many choices, from French cruisine topizza to Thai/Lao food.
A nice, if a little expensive cafe, is Joma, not far from the Thai embassy and next to a swimming pool complex.

Hotels as anywhere, you get what you pay for. Lao Ong Dao is 600 baht and not far from the Thai embassy, clean, TV, air con, hot water shower, towels and soap.

Check out the temples, they are so old, but still amazing.

They're all up now -- including yours. Just delayed due to distractions with the iPhone thing and Christmas etc.

I've just turned on a bunch of submissions -- thank you everyone.

As promised, Tshirts, Travelfish guides or iPhone Apps to the following:
christay2009 for Phanom Rung
Exacto for Ko Maak
encoredupoulet for Ko Sdach
and tezza for Kuala Perlis

Will be in touch by email re what prizes you want.

Cheers

No I'm just behind in getting through them (we normally go through them at the end of each month). Should be done by end of the week -- you put in some great ones!

Ok, submissions for March are (finally) online. Lots of good thought on places, including:
Luang Prabang
Muang Ngoi
Udomxai
Phu Quoc Island
Prachuap Khiri Khan
Ko Lanta
Ko Lipe
and more!

caseyprich will be in touch by email re a prize - can be tshirt, iPhone apps, Flickr voucher etc.

Thanks all!

um - do you have my email address?

Hi
I just got back from Thailand and the information on this site was massively accurate. My trip was Mumbai-Bangkok-Koh Samui and the data provided here was more than impressive.
The hotel lists, as well as beach reviews was a sure fire!!

Many thanks

Pranjal