Small Group Journeys
Highlights
Tour Details
Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Bangkok
Your guide meets you at Suvarnabhumi and takes you into the city, an hour on a good day. The rest of the day is free. If you have the energy, the river ferry at sunset costs almost nothing and shows you the shape of the place.
Day 2: Bangkok — the old royal island
An early start for the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, home of the Emerald Buddha, before the heat and the crowds arrive. Wat Pho follows, with its forty-six-metre reclining Buddha and the massage school that has taught there since the eighteenth century. In the afternoon a longtail boat runs you through the Thonburi canals to Wat Arun. Dinner is yours.
Day 3: Bangkok — markets and the modern city
Morning at Chatuchak if it is a weekend, or Or Tor Kor and the flower market at Pak Khlong Talat if not. The afternoon is deliberately unscheduled: Jim Thompson's teak house, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, or the shade of Lumphini Park all sit within a short ride. We eat together tonight, somewhere with plastic stools and a queue.
Day 4: Ayutthaya by road and river
North to Ayutthaya, which ruled Siam from 1351 until 1767 and was, at its height, among the largest cities on earth. Wat Mahathat holds the Buddha head grown into a fig root; Wat Chaiwatthanaram stands in Khmer style beside the river. We return downriver by boat in the late afternoon, then transfer to Hua Lamphong's replacement at Krung Thep Aphiwat for the northbound sleeper.
Day 5: Arrival in Chiang Mai
The train pulls in mid-morning. Check in, sleep off the night if you need to, and take the afternoon at your own pace inside the old walled square, where more than thirty temples sit within a kilometre of each other. Wat Chedi Luang, half-collapsed since an earthquake in 1545, is the one to see first.
Day 6: Doi Suthep and a cooking lesson
Up the mountain to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, 306 steps beside a naga staircase, with the whole valley below. Back down for lunch, then to a market with a local cook to buy what the afternoon's lesson needs: khao soi, a curry noodle dish the north makes and nowhere else does properly.
Day 7: Elephants, and the last evening
A morning at a sanctuary in the hills outside town where the elephants are neither ridden nor made to perform. You watch, you help prepare food, and you keep your distance when they want it. Back in Chiang Mai the evening is free; the Sunday walking street, if the day falls right, is the best market in the country. Farewell dinner together.
Day 8: Departure
What´s included
- 7 nights in described hotels or similar
- Daily breakfast and 2 dinners
- Overnight sleeper train Bangkok to Chiang Mai, second-class air-conditioned berth
- Transport in air-conditioned vehicles
- All entrance fees listed in the itinerary
- English-speaking tour leader throughout
- Arrival and departure transfers
- Cooking class and sanctuary visit as described
- All tipping
Excluded
- International flights
- Thailand entry requirements and any visa fees
- Travel insurance
- Lunches and the meals not listed above
- Drinks, laundry, telephone and other personal expenses
- Optional activities during free time
Other journeys you may like
