SE Asia is painful for many, why has it become a preferred destination?

[Christian Hopps <[e-mail]>]

I've read the mtgvenue drafts and they seem to indicate that travel pain should be minimized as much as possible.

With IETF 109 we will have chosen SE Asia as a destination for the Asia part of 1-1-1 policy for 4 years running. Also troubling there's a pattern of SIN BKK SIN BKK developing.

The *fastest* flights I can find to BKK involve 24h hours of air travel (airplanes and too short layovers for this type of travel). It is incredibly painful to spend 24-30 hours  in airplanes and airports. At least for me (A non-west coast NA based participant) SE Asia is maximizing pain.

Japan and Korea both seems to be 1/3 less travel for much of NA, and also seemingly no worse or not as bad for much of Europe.

Could the powers that be please consider changing the SIN,BKK,SIN,... pattern to NRT,ICN,NRT,... or at *minimum* mixing more NRT or ICN in there?

I think this would benefit a large percentage of IETF participants w/o adding undue pain elsewhere.

Thanks,
Chris.