Your guide meets you at Suvarnabhumi and drives you into the city — an hour when the expressway behaves, closer to two at the wrong time of day. Nothing is scheduled after check-in. If you land early and want your bearings, the Chao Phraya express boat runs until around seven in the evening and costs roughly the price of a coffee for the whole length of the river.

An eight o’clock start for the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, while the courtyards are still shaded. Wat Pho follows, with its forty-six-metre reclining Buddha and the massage school that has taught on the site since the eighteenth century. After lunch a cross-river ferry takes us to Wat Arun, whose central prang is faced in broken Chinese porcelain that arrived as ship ballast. Evening free.

The morning is on the water: a longtail through the Thonburi canals, past stilt houses, temple landings and market boats. We stop at Wat Kalayanamit and the Santa Cruz church, both older than most of what stands on the other bank. The afternoon is deliberately unscheduled — Jim Thompson’s teak house, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, or the shade of Lumphini Park. We eat together in Chinatown tonight.

A domestic flight to Krabi, about an hour and twenty minutes, then forty minutes by road to Ao Nang. The afternoon is for settling in and a first swim. Your leader runs through the week: which crossings are by scheduled ferry, what happens when the sea gets up in the shoulder months, and why Maya Bay now works on a queue system with a one-hour limit ashore.

By longtail from Ao Nang to Railay, ten minutes across the water and the only way in — no road reaches the peninsula. We walk to Phra Nang beach and the cave shrine stacked with carved offerings left by fishermen, then take the rough track up to the East viewpoint. The afternoon is spent on the Hong Islands, where the sheltered inner lagoon stays calm enough to swim in most conditions.

The scheduled ferry from Klong Jilad pier to Tonsai takes around two hours, with an open upper deck and the karsts going past. Phi Phi Don has no cars; luggage moves by handcart. After check-in we walk up to the viewpoint above the isthmus, a set of steep steps and a clear look down at the twin bays. Dinner together on the quieter side of the village.

An early longtail to Phi Phi Leh, timed to reach Maya Bay as the rangers open it. Boats moor in Loh Samah Bay behind the island and you walk in over a boardwalk; you may wade to your knees but not swim, and you have about an hour. We carry on to Pileh Lagoon and the Viking Cave, then snorkel off Bamboo Island. The bay closes entirely from 1 August to 30 September, and departures in those weeks go to Nui Bay instead.

A late-morning ferry to Rassada pier, about two hours, then twenty-five minutes into Phuket Town. The afternoon is on foot along Thalang and Dibuk roads, where Sino-Portuguese shophouses were put up on tin-mining money in the late nineteenth century by Hokkien Chinese families whose descendants still run several of the coffee shops. The evening is yours; the Sunday night market on Thalang is worth the walk.

A full day by longtail on Phang Nga Bay — limestone stacks rising straight out of shallow green water, the sea caves at Koh Panak entered by canoe when the tide allows, and Koh Panyee, a Muslim fishing village built on piles against a cliff since the eighteenth century. We are back in Phuket in time for a last swim, and we eat together tonight.

A transfer to Phuket airport when your flight requires it, about an hour from town. Connections run to Bangkok through the day and direct to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and several Gulf hubs. If you would rather not stop here, we can add nights on Koh Yao Noi, or send you north to Chiang Mai; say so before you book and we will build it in.