cjon

I have written previously requesting help with planning for our family trip to Thailand & Cambodia and had some great suggestions. I am finalizing our plans & would like some help refining our itinerary. My husband & I are travelling with our 17 year old daughter, 26 year old son & his fiance (grad students). My husband, daughter & I have 18 days, the college students only 10 days. We are travelling from 12/12 to 12/31. I have worked out the following itinerary:

12/13 arrive BKK (stay at Chatruim - not yet reserved $90 per nite per room on Agoda)
12/14 Tour BKK (planning on massage for all 5 of us, followed by visit to major sites & long tail boat ride on river)
12/15 BKK - day trip to Ayutthaya & Chatuchak Weekend market
12/16 BKK - lunch at Oriental Hotel, Jim Thompson House &/or Prasat Museum (if they are open on Sunday. If not, switch visit to Ayuthaya to this day)
12/17 Chiang Mai (early morning flight not yet reserved) (No hotels yet - any suggestions?) Tour Chiang Mai, visit night market
12/18 CM - cooking school for my husband & college students. Morning bike tour for my daughter & I at Wiang Kum Kam, followed by visit to orphanage to give gifts to students (the director is a friend of a friend)
12/19 CM - visit Elephant Sanctuary (the girls are keen to work with & wash elephants) (my husband says he spends enough time washing dogs at home! Yoga class for him.)
12/20 Mae Kampong , Doi Inthanon, or Mae Sa Loop with a stay somewhere where we could hike or back to Chiang Mai
12/21 Older kids leave for BKK, hotel near airport & flight back to San Francisco the next morning.
I am not sure what we should do after our older kids leave. My daughter would like to do an overnite trek to some Hill tribes. I'm considering spending one or two nights in Chiang Rai & visiting the Golden Triangle area. If we did both the Hill Tribe trek and an overnight in Chiang Rai, that would take us to 12/23 when we could fly from Chiang Rai to Bangkok & then to Siem Reap (assuming there are no direct flight to Siem Reap or from Chiang Mai to Siem Reap if there is a direct flight)

We would then have from 12/23 to 12/29 to see Angkor Wat, Tonle Sap Lake, do a bird trip with Sam Vasnas at Prek Toal, etc.

My main questions for you Thailand & Cambodia experts is: Are there things I'm not including that I should in the Chiang Mai area? We are hikers and love bird watching, wildlife viewing & exploring nature. While we appreciate cultural activities, we are all happiest when we have our boots on and are tromping through a forest. The kids love biking. We had considered going to Krabi but are not really that enamored with beaches, plus my husband tends to fry in the sun. Does anyone have suggestions for a hilltribe trek they enjoyed & was culturally sensitive. i know there are some good guides & NGO's that support the local communities more than others. Should we stay in Chiang Mai until our older kids leave or should we give them a chance to stay in the country side for a night or two. If so, which areas? Given their short time in Thailand, I am sensitive to their getting the most of their time without moving around a lot.
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

rhkkmk

you have packed in a lot, maybe too much on some days: 12/15.

have you taken into account the heat and humidity? it is severe, esp. for your husband..??

for lunch at the oriental, make a res for Lord Jim and ask for a table by the window--fabulous buffet--expensive but worth it..

12/16, both are open sundays--prasart requires a reservation and will eat up 1/2 day, but is worth it.... i suggest you hire a driver to take you there and wait... JT house is a must visit--good place for lunch or dinner also..

Kathie

I think you are over-scheduled. Remember that the best travel experiences are unscheduled.

I'm not sure what you mean by "tour Bangkok." There is much too much to see and do to do it in a part of a day. I'd say to start your day by visiting the Grand Palace?Emerald Buddha, Wat Po and Wat Arun. Are you planning to have your massages at the massage school at Wat Po? These sites are all in one area, so it makes sense to do them together. You'll want to be indoors at mid-day, and the klong tour is a good late afternoon activity.

In Bangkok, you are trying to go to Ayutthaya and the weekend market in one day. The trip to Ayutthaya is pretty much a full-day trip. And if you want to go to the weekend market, you want to get there first thing in the morning as it is beastly hot.

The Prasart Museum usually closes for the last two weeks of December. So check on this.

You have a mere three days in Bangkok, and you plan to spend much of it outside of Bangkok. I'd add at least one day to Bangkok, and build in time for exploring.

In Chiang Mai, you say "tour Chiang Mai" - do you mean inside the city walls? Do spend time visiting wats inside the old city walls, but a trip out to Doi Suthep is a must as well.

I'm assuming you have done your research on the elephant camps and will only visit one of the two very good camps, either the Thai Elephant Conservation Center at Lampang or The Elephant Nature Park.

You are all over the map with what else you might want to do in the north. Choose one more place, don't try to cram everything in. The whole family might enjoy a stay at the Fern Resort in Mae Hong Son - a great place for hiking.

To get to Siem Reap, you'll have to fly from Bangkok. The only airline that flies from bangkok to Siem Reap is Bangkok AIr. Check now and see if you can take advantage of the Discovery Pass - they may not offer it over the holiday period.

It sounds like a wonderful trip!

crosscheck

I humbly disagree about the heat and humidity in December. We were in BKK, Siem Reap and the Golden Triangle area at the exact same time of year with our kids (then teens). BKK and SR were in the mid '80sF during the day, not too humid, low '70s at night. And northern Thailand was quite chilly - 50s - 60s. We did some hiking and often needed fleeces.

For your extra time, I recommend Anantara in the Golden Triangle area. Pricey for SE Asia, but a real travel highlight. We went into Burma for our hilltribe experience (not a trek, but we visited two tribal areas, not technically "hill" tribes). I believe the Anantara offers an overnight trek into a remote area of Laos for a tribal festival. The other activities there might be redundant for you - elephant camp, cooking school, but all were stellar. Opium Museum is a must-see - well done - a sobering look at how drugs have influenced world history.

In Siem Reap, you should contact Ponheary Li www.theplf.org - excellent NGO supporting local schools. You can visit or volunteer at one of the schools she supports and she is also a fabulous guide. Since our visit, I have recommended the PLF to many people - One ended up spending a year volunteering.

We stayed at the Victoria Angkor - Vietnamese owned, great colonial vibe, reasonably price in a perfect location on a park between downtown and the temples.

We flew Siem Reap-BKK-Chiang Rai in the opposite direction (on two different airlines), and it worked out fine (but we are carry on people).

rhkkmk

cross--that must have been an unusual year... while it is cooler in dec/jan, the humidity is almost always constant, at least imo..

cjon

Thank you for your suggestions. The humidity is not of concern to us as we have traveled in the Amazon, and tailor our activities accordingly. I will change our plan to not do the weekend market the same day as Ayutthaya and plan to get to the market early in the morning. Our kids will get burnt out being in the city for longer. I was considering which places to visit in Northern Thailand, besides Chiang Mai & not planning to go to all of them. Fern Resort looks like a good option.

I checked the Lord Jim menu. It looks wonderful but several of us are allergic to shellfish so will have to try one of the other restaurants. I will make reservations, as rhkkmk suggests.
In terms of Siem Reap, I have seen plf.org mentioned on Fodors a number of time & it certainly looks like a wonderful organization. We are health professionals & had planned to take supplies & do some fundraising for the orthopedic hospital that treats landmine victims, but thank you for the suggestion. The Victoria Angkor looks great. Unfortunately the Anantara Golden Triangle is beyond our budget at $1000 per night! It looks phenomenal! I might never want to leave if I stayed there.

Again, thank you for your suggestions and prompt responses. Other than the area around Fern Resort, where else did people enjoy hiking in Northern Thailand?

crosscheck

Wow - the Anantara was under $200 a night for 4 of us when we were there! (booked on the Small Luxury Hotels site which resulted in an upgrade to a suite) I see that they've turned it into an all-inclusive, which explains the steep rate increase. A shame...it was one of those places I wanted to visit again, so cool living on the Mekong with the elephants. We met a guy from Australia who was spending three weeks there as his sole SE Asian destination, writing and taking cooking classes.

Cambodia is full of fantastic NGOs. As health professionals, you might be interested in The Global Health Committee in Phnom Penh. I know one of the board members and have done some volunteer media work for them. They are working to eradicate tuberculosis and AIDS and have an impressive record. http://www.globalhealthcommittee.org/index.html

Click on my name for my trip report. Unlike many others on this board, we were not huge BKK fans. It's a fascinating city, but it was CLOGGED with mind-blowing traffic when we were there, plus awful pollution. We live in LA, so even though we enjoyed the sights, we felt relieved to get to Siem Reap and into rural Asia.

Bob, I guess it was a cold year...or I too am used to the steamy jungle climates of Central and S. America. We needed light sweaters most mornings and are wearing long sleeved shirts in many of our Angkor photos.

Kathie

Prices do rise. We stayed there right after the Anantara opened for something like $120 a night!

cjon

Kathie, I reread your previous post re. spending much of our BKK time outside of BKK. I didn't realize that Prasart & Jim Thompson House were outside of Bangkok. Are they near each other? I know that sounds like a silly question but one I can't quite figure out. I'm not sure whether to eliminate those two or Ayutthaya. My preference is to go to Ayutthaya as my background is in archeology & I've dragged my kids all over the world looking at ruins. They tend to speed walk through museums, ruining the experience for my husband & I.

We are planning the Elephant Nature Park. They seemed the most ethical to me.

Re. Anantara - what a shame it's become so expensive as it must be a real experience to stay there. Crosscheck & Kathie - you were fortunate!

Crosscheck - did you like Phnom Penh better than Bangkok. We had not planned to go there as I figured one big city was enough for us.

cjon

Kathie - how long is the drive from Chiang Mai to Fern Resort? Would you suggest two nights there? It looks lovely. I had looked at it previously but was concerned with spending a lot of time driving (read - the 5 of us cooped up in a car together with my husband driving all over Thailand!) Otherwise, it would definitely fit the bill in terms of hiking, visiting hill tribe villages & bird watching...

crellston

The drive from Chiangmai Mai to Fern Resort will take the best part of a day but most of the journey is very scenic along the way. Two or even three nights would be good. There is an excellent half day trek directly from the resort around. The valleys &through the forest . The resorts dogs will even guide you (if they are feeling up to it!) . It is also possible to fly from CM. The Soppong River Inn is also worth a look although not as lux as the Fern. There is some further detail on my trip report from last dec on CM and MHS http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...n-thailand.cfm

The hill tribes around MHS are much less visited than those around CM with a number of community based operators around which are more sensitive to the needs of the villagers than many

Kathie

The Jim Thompson House is in Bangkok, the Prasart is outside the city. The Prasart is an indoor-outdoor "museum" and will be of more interest to your teens than a more usual museum. The only question is whether it will be open when you are there.

Since you love archaeology, you should visit Ayutthaya. At least you'll see it before Angkor...

The drive time from CM to MHS is about 6 hours. If you wanted to do it, I'd make some stops along the way and plan to spend a whole day driving each way and a couple of days at the Fern Resort.

I'm sorry to see the Anantara at the Golden Triangle has gotten so expensive. We felt it was a magical place.

BTW, crosscheck, I have to chuckle about someone from Los Angeles complaining about traffic in Bangkok. I rarely have to deal with Bangkok traffic, as we use the water taxis and the skytrain to get around. My first 4 or 5 visits to Bangkok were in the "old days" before they even had the expressway from the old airport - now THAT was traffic! Anyway, we all like different things.

crosscheck

LA traffic is truly a nightmare - exactly what we want to avoid on vacation! Now, on top of the normal intolerable congestion, we're dealing with the Rampture: http://la.curbed.com/tags/the-rampture

Kathie

You know, I thought about that after I posted - I may be more tolerant of the Bangkok traffic not only because I know how to avoid it, but also because I don't deal with LA-level traffic every day.