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!

The king and queen pagodas of Doi Inthanon

The previous post in this series is here..

After going on the Ang Ka trail to the highest point in Thailand we came down that mountain and went up to another mountain within the park that overlooked Chiang Mai. Forty years ago the royal family commissioned two pagodas in memory of the previous king and queen with a beautiful park on top of this mountain as a tourist attraction.

The place is amazing. First you have to wait for a Hummer looking vehicle to take you to the top. Once up, there were escalators you could use to go up. We did use them where they worked. We walked around the pagodas and soaked up the views. Took some pictures. Then we had to wait in a station for a return vehicle. Joy managed to squeeze us in, given we were only two people and not part of a large group!

This was our last stop in the park. The next two hours was a ride back towards our hotel.. so we could rest.

The one pano shots I took from the top…

San dozed off while I watched the landscape change from mountain to traffic!

Here is a video highlights reel..

We finally made it back to the city center after a long day of travel and constant hiking..

The Ang Ka trail to highest point in Thailand

The previous post in this series is here..

After going on the trail to the village, Goy had already got the car to the trail exit. We hopped in and went to another parking spot. Here we were to go on the Ang Ka trail to see the forest inside the top of a volcanic crater. We also got to see the highest point in Thailand which was within this park. There was a memorial for the king who used to hunt wild elephants in this park near this spot.

The whole ecosystem with walking birds, a spongy moss that releases water in a controlled way to form streams at the top, moss covered trees, a beautiful walkway with clear explanations.. loved it.

There is a Ho Chih Minh rain forest trail in Washington State in Olympic national park. This must be close to the original.. similar trees but different ecosystem because of the ground moss..

Here are the pictures..

A video highlights reel..

There were a. couple of vista points from which you could see the mountain ranges and clouds. We were ready to go to the next spot within the park. We also told Joy and Goy that we had lunch thanks to lefover breakfast and the to go we packed from Raj Dharbar the night before. We ate in the van while they also had their packed lunch. Then we drove slowly through the vista point areas while I clicked photos from the open window. It was chilly and we did not want to make the cold worse.

We were on to our next and last stop within the park..