mindspill

Kyrgyztan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:41:56 GMT

This weekend I watched Borat for the second time, and by coincidence today I came across and series of articles on gadling on how to distinguish between the ex-Soviet countries that end in 'Tan'; Kyrgyztan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan. Steppe Magazine, a magazine focusing on central Asia, also has a good map to help you distinguish between the 5 different countries.

Obviously the suggested way to remember Kazakhstan was to associate it with Borat. This association though is not looked upon favourably by the Kazakhstan government, as the government plans on running four-page ads in the NY times and other US media to counteract the bad press that Borat created. I sincerely hope that people in 2008 have the common sense to realise that the film wasn't meant to be taken literally. I hope nobody thinks that Kazakhstan space program launches toddlers in space and a traditional beverage is fermented horse urine. I still think it's a good idea to capitalise on the exposure Borat gave to Kazakhstan, and continue marketing the country hopefully people will be interested in seeing what the real Kazakhstan looks like.

Cheap flights between Malta and Oslo

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:53:43 GMT

There's no need to spend a fortune if you want to go to Norway. Norwegian.no are offering fares starting from 199 euros between Oslo and Malta.

I just compared some flights between the Norwegian site and Air Malta's website. One cost 1156kr and the other one cost 7906kr, guess who had which prices?

Find that 1 Euro flight you were looking for

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:54:37 GMT

How many times have you seen flights advertised for €1 on the Ryanair site and you ended spending the whole morning look for a flight that doesn't exist? Wouldn't you just love to have a website that finds you the cheapest fare without having to enter a date. I've just found a site that does just that. Skyscanner.

Skyscanner doesn't even need you to specify a city, you can specify a whole country. Say for example, I want to travel from Ireland to Poland in November. Here's what I get.

Say now I decide to fly to Krakow from Dublin. Voila! I get a bar graph of the whole month with all the prices of all airlines flying from Dublin to Krakow.

Perfect!

Another site that offers similar functionality is Momondo. Momondo can help you find:-

WHEN to go WHERE you want
WHERE to go WHEN you want

Momondo is similar to Skyscanner however I preferred the latter site for ease of use. Having said that, when looking for the cheapest flight from Finland to Malta Momondo was the one to find it because Skyscanner didn't provide the search option. Trabber did find alternative flights but they weren't as competitive. The positive thing of Trabber is that it offers the option to change days more easily than Momondo.

If you're interested to know who flies where, then FlightMapping.Com will give you all the flight maps from the UK and Ireland. Airfare watchdog also has a list of links to route maps in airline websites. Again Momondo and Skyscanner offer this functionality.

The best day to buy a plane ticket?

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:43:19 GMT

Wednesday Morning or late Tuesday.

Most airlines load their fares in the weekend and by Tuesday evening the other airlines are reducing their prices to match their competitors.

Read the rest of the money saving tips at SmartMoney.com