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 mother of all temples - Angkor Wat

The previous post in this series is here..

We had seen the outside perimeter of the Angkor Wat temple earlier in the morning when watching the sunrise. Instead of going into the temple with the crowd, we had visted Bayon temple, the tomb raider temple, Banteay Kdei temple and Kravan temple and finally made our way to Angkor Wat.

Our driver said we could walk around ourselves and follow the crowd or better take an official guide from the entrance for 15 USD. So he found a guide who was his friend. This guy had practiced English lines with a Boston accent and he recited the lines at the right locations. He happened to be a decent photographer (not the same caliber as our driver but not bad). He told us there are 3 courtyards. The outer which we were in, the middle courtyard and a top courtyard which involved climbing a bunch of steep stairs.

The sun was up and there was no shade once we reached the middle courtyard. So we told our guide “while we have the energy, lets go to the top and do the difficult stuff first”. He was surprised by the request but said “whatever you want!”. So up we went, saw the main shrine first, then we came down and everything else was relatively a piece of cake.

The building below is the library in the background. No books. That building was just amazing. The moat around the temple was equally amazing. 1.3 km by 1.6 km with a 90 feet moat around the entire perimeter that was manually dug and filled !

The four main corridors converging below a square rock that align perfectly on a compass with the main directions.. marvellous engineering from a 1000 years ago!

We walked around the middle courtyard and made our way out through some stores to the parking lot. The guide said “I have to walk back a km to the point where we started our tour. you guys go straight up and turn right and your driver will be waiting for you”.

So in an hour and a half we had seen Angkor Wat Temple instead of 3 hours.

A video highlights reel..

When we came out, our driver asked us if we saw abc, xyz etc.. and we were like “Nope”. He skipped those. Later we had to google the Ramayana mural and dasavatar and figured out he had casually shown us some stuff but we did not go around the middle courtyard completely because we avoided a crowd. I was temporarily upset but got back to reality pretty quickly. We saw as much as we could see at that speed.

It was really hot and humid and I was getting a migraine. We really wanted to eat and get back to the hotel for a nap. We had started at 4:30 AM and it was close to Noon. We had walked miles in each temple. So we told our driver to tell his guide friend to do more coverage next time. He realized we were exhausted and suggested we drink some coconut water (we had wanted it the previous day). The coconut water outside the temple in the shacks was delicious and sweet. Next stop was our hotel. We stopped on the way at the market and while our driver waited we went through the market and shopped for T-shirts and linen pants with elephants on them.

We had some leftover from the breakfast that had been packed in the morning before seeing Angkor Wat. So we skipped lunch and took a nap in the hotel. The headache was getting pretty severe and San was tired as well. We rested for almost 3 hours and it was time to visit Siem Reap by ourselves in the evening.. We were to start at 4:30 AM again the next morning!

Sunrise at Angkor Wat - a meh experience

The previous post in this trip series is here..

The previous night we had crashed early but not before telling our hotel to pack us breakfast (it was included). They know folks go for sunrise and pack you a breakfast! We left the hotel shortly before 4:30 and drove to the temple complex. It was pitch dark in the area. There were still the ticket checkers working diligently with flashlights. The tickets have our photographs in them. We walked to a nice spot where a few hundred others were waiting.

Our driver warned us already that March 21 and Sept 21 are best times for sunrise viewing. In late November the sun goes to the side and is rising from the forest behind the fog. You see the light but not the sun for some time.

I had setup the iphone for a timelapse.. or so I thought. it was between my shoes on the steps.. must have had butterfingers and I turned it on and off right away! Realized it only after the sun came out and there was a photo instead of a timelapse video! It was a big missed opportunity. Next time, going to get a gorilla tripod so this doesn’t repeat. Did get some shots over the one hour we waited there. Once it became light, we took some shots of me doing yoga in front of Angkor Wat.

Our driver said at this point the entire crowd was going to visit the temple. We should go to Bayon temple instead and get great photos where there is no crowd and then come back to this temple. Given this one has shade and Bayon has none, he said that is a better plan.

We trusted Sarak given our entire previous day with him. Off we went..

A very short video reel..

Next time if at all we visit this place, should go in September. It will still be hit or miss because it rains during that time! One has to be lucky to get sunrise at this place.. There is always photoshop…