Southeast Asia trip - Thanksgiving 2025

Having written all the posts about almost every stop we did over the Thanksgiving break, here is the itinerary and links to the individual posts that you can actually read in chronological order.

When I blog about the trip, we go start to finish which ends up confusing for folks who have to navigate through posts in reverse order. The latest blogs show up first! The videos have day1 part 1 etc.. which starts off on the first day of seeing places. The first photo below is a cover photo for this post.. If you click on the rest of the images you will get to the detailed blog posts about that stop!

Day 0 : Afternoon Flight SFO-> Seoul (literally run gate to gate) -> Ho Chih Minh city in VIetnam

Day 1: Close to midnight Day 0 (go to airport hotel, 4 hour break) come back to airport for 6AM flight to Hanoi (We could not get a direct to Hanoi.. that would have been better.. see if you can do that).

Reached Hanoi, put bags in car and start driving to Old Hanoi to sightsee.

1. The lake area and the temple with turtles in the middle of the lake in the old quarter

2. Temple of literature built for Confusious

3. drive by Ho Chi Minh memorial

4. One pillar Pagoda

5. drive by the railroad street

A quick lunch and drive over to Halong Bay and back (it is a 2 hour drive each way). Came back from Halong bay close to 7PM, checked into hotel, walked around old Quarter in Hanoi and have dinner..

Day 2: Check out of hotel, drive to Ninh Binh, See the Trang An caves and do the 3 hour boat ride, drive back almost 3 hours to Hanoi airport. Fly from Hanoi to Siem Reap in Cambodia to a birthday fruit cake!

Day 3: 10 stops .. non stop sight seeing from 7AM to 7PM, then dinner and back to hotel.

Boeng Mealea Temple, Reclining Buddha temple (Wat Preah Ang Thom), Thousand Linga River, Thousand Linga Waterfall, private lunch at Banteay Srea cliff, Banteay Srei temple, Ta Som Temple, Neak Poen Temple, watch sunset at Pre Rup temple, time at SiemReap river park and dinner..

Day 4: Start at 4:30 AM to see sunrise at Angkor Wat, Bayon Temple, Ta Prohm (tomb raider) temple, Banteay Kdei temple, Kravan temple, back to Angkor Wat to see the temple, a nap in the hotel and spend the evening along the Siem Reap river and city temples followed by dinner and a walk back to the hotel..

Day 5: start again at 4:30 AM to see sunrise from the hill facing Angkor Wat at the Phnom Bakeng temple, come back to the hotel, have a late breakfast , see two more temples(Bakong and Preah Ko temples) and go to airport.. fly from Siem Reap to Bangkok and Bangkok to Chiang Mai (3 hour layover in Bangkok!), reach Chiang Mai hotel at 8PM

Day 6: 7AM to 7PM sight seeing with a 2 hour drive each way. 6 stops.. The long neck tribe, Dailom elephant rescue sanctuary, Land of Angels park, Doi Suthep temple, Wat Phra Singh and end the day with dinner, massage at Cloud massage and a tuk tuk ride back to hotel

Day 7: 7AM to 7PM sight seeing with another 2 hour drive in a different direction each way from Chiang Mai. 6 stops with a lot of hiking. Wachiratan falls, Do Inthanon national park Pha Dok Seio trail, Ang Ka trail to highest point in Thailand, King and Queen pagodas and end the day with massage at Peak Spa and dinner and back to hotel

Day 8: Late breakfast and fly from Chiang Mai to Phuket. Reach hotel just in time for wedding celebration start..

Day 9 : Trip to James Bond Island in the morning and Wedding celebration in afternoon and evening

Day 10: Actual wedding in the morning, some time at the beach in afternoon, reception in the evening and fly to airport late evening.

Day 11: Phuket -> Seoul -> SFO

We were off for 11 days …

We went to attend a wedding and saw all these by taking off early, given the wedding was the week after thanksgiving. If you are going to this area, take two full weeks off.. try to visit Bangkok as well as a few other places in Vietnam which are worth visiting.. Take two days in Phuket to see other islands in the area.

We do hectic traveling when it is just me and San. As a team we have shared goals when it comes to sight seeing.. over the years we have settled for certain things we value while sightseeing.. waking up every day at 4AM and sightseeing till 8PM to come back to the hotel only to crash may not be for everyone..

A compilation of slow motion clips of San walking and spinning.. She does not know that I made this video. Hope it is a pleasant surprise for her..

Bon voyage!

Wachiratan falls with three rainbows

The previous post in this series about our thanksgiving trip is here..

We started day 7 with a long drive.. but first we had some logistic trouble. Given the dip in falls and other hiking sessions that involved a lot of sweating, I was clearly out of clothes. The hotel laundry service was minimum 5 days out. Thankfully Joy and Goy knew a laundry service nearby. So we went and dropped our clothes there and they told the owner to drop the clothes back at our hotel if possible. They were nice and agreed to do so before 6PM. After this brief stop, we had to drive close to 2 hours to Do Inthanon national park. We told Joy we were happy his wife was joining us. He told us that she will not be hiking with us. Apparently the hike starts in one place and ends in another. So she will drive the car to the other lot and wait for us there to save time.

We went through the gum tree road.. where the trees are 150 years old to exit Chiang Mai city area. Once we reached the National park, our first stop was Wachiratan waterfalls. I was like a little kid. San promptly told Joy about her brave and stupid husbands escapades in Camodia a few days ago. Joy looked at me and diplomatically said we should go see the falls on our own and come back. He have us 30 minutes. We got a lot of yoga pictures as well…

Here are some landscape photos as well. Taking steady shots to get the long exposure was not easy with the hand with the wind. Enjoyed the falls thoroughly.. We did get wet and were worried about making the cold worse. Then again, we were on an adventure and were not going to miss out on anything!

A video highlights reel..

Our next stop was a drive away to do a hike from the park guide stop to the village..

A lucky escape from falling in a waterfall - Sahasralinga or 1000 linga falls Cambodia

The previous post in this series on the Thanksgiving 2025 trip is here..

After finishing the walk along the 1000 linga river to its source and back, we got in the car to go down to the 1000 linga waterfalls (Sahasralinga falls is the name). It was a short drive and we managed to find parking. The parking lot was getting full as by now a lot more visitors had shown up. It was almost noon. We ate some fruits and started walking towards the falls.

We walked past a bunch of shops that sold herbal remedies and trinkets. There were also a lot of cute dress shops. My attempts to encourage San to buy some failed. Eventually we did buy clothes at the night market the next evening. We were blown away by the width of the falls and the amount of water. Saruk took some nice photos. I showed him the trick of walking towards us steadily and pushing the iPhone between our heads to show the falls. He was impressed. Told him the credit for that doesn’t go to me but our guide in Giza plateau who showed us that. Now Saruk has this in his trick shot list!

Was about to walk back when he said “this is just the upper falls. we have to walk down narrow steps to go to the actual falls!”.. we were thrilled. After walking down narrow steps (which were also wet and slippery and reminded us of the waterfalls in Costa Rica), we were treated to an amaziing view of the 1000 linga falls. Thundering water and a mist that created a fantastic effect with the sunlight going through it.

Did not know that I was going to get in water. My BYSJ shorts was tucked away in the suitcase in the hotel room. But there is a guy making a quick buck here at the falls renting shorts and a changing cabin for a dollar and 50 cents. Rented the shorts and got in the cold water. Was doing yoga poses close to the edge (it was 4 feet deep). Then decided to swim a bit to the rock in the middle of the water and do yoga pose there. Apparently San was not okay with it but in the din of the falls, could not hear her protesting. Saruk was camera ready. That is all I could see. After bobbing up and down to the rock stood up on it and started doing tree pose. It was slippery. That is when the crowd started cheering for me.. or so I thought.

Apparently the wind had changed direction and the mist that was going right to left behind me was coming towards the crowd. That meant a wall of water was going to slap me from behind. Luckily I just finished doing the pose and had both feet on the rock when it hit me with so much force! Had to sit down to brace myself. It almost threw me off the rock.

Got back down safely but as I was trying to climb back up to San, slipped on a rock and scratched my leg. Just decided to let it go and find ointment later in the hotel. Changed back, took some more photos and hiked back up the narrow steps.

Here is the must watch video highlights reel..

We were hungry but our driver said “just hold on for another 45 minutes or so. Will take you to a beautiful spot where you can have lunch”. So off we went to our next stop..