CHIANG MAI-CHIANG RAI TOUR & COOKING CLASS,

5 DAYS / 4 NIGHTS.

Day 1: Arrive in Chiang Mai

 Arrive in Chiang Mai airport, meet and transfer to hotel.

Orientation tour of Chiang Mai city visiting the old city moats and walls, a fruit market, a couple of the most important temples like Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phra Singh and Wat Suan Dok, and other sights. If the monks are gathered under the tamarind tree at any of these temples they welcome visitors chatting with them about Buddhism, Thai culture and history, or their daily life in the temple. This evening, stroll in the interesting Night Bazaar which has a wide range of handicrafts and souvenirs as well as coffee cafes, money-exchange booths, restaurants, bars, ice cream parlors and health massage places for foot and traditional massages.

Overnight in hotel, Chiang Mai.

Day 2: CHIANG MAI – COOKING CLASS (B,L)

 Buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Be picked up and transferred to the Thai Kitchen Cooking School to meet the teaching chef who will take you to the market to buy the fresh ingredients for the 3 or 4 Thai dishes that you will be cooking. Know at first-hand how to choose the herbs, vegetables, and meat in the market. Then return to the cooking school to prepare the dishes.

You have to eat what you have cooked for lunch!

Return to hotel and be at leisure to relax by the pool, or go out and explore Chiang Mai on foot or by tuk-tuk on your own.

Overnight in hotel, Chiang Mai.

Day 3: CHIANG MAI – ELEPHANT SANCTUARY PARK (B,L)

Buffet breakfast at the hotel.  Today learn a whole lot about elephants at the Elephant Sanctuary. Be picked up at your hotel at 7.30am to go to the market to select the fruits for the elephants before proceeding to the Sanctuary. Elephants are free-ranging at this park. You learn how to feed them, bathe them, give them commands to be obeyed and ride on their necks like mahouts do from 20 to 60 minutes as you prefer. Great fun. Then have lunch before driving through teakwood forests, mountain ranges and valleys to Chiang Rai, a drive of about three hours. Upon arrival in Chiang Rai, check into hotel.

Overnight in hotel, Chiang Rai.

Day 4: CHIANG RAI – COOKING CLASS (B,L)

 Buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Accompany your teacher-chef to the main market to buy the ingredients for the new dishes you will be taught how to cook in this Chiang Rai Cooking School. Again you have to eat the lunch you have prepared, so learn well! Return to hotel and be free to walk around the town after an orientation tour.

Overnight in hotel, Chiang Rai.

Day 5: CHIANG RAI – DEPARTURE (B,L)

Buffet breakfast at the hotel. Morning tour of ancient Chiang Saen, drive along the Mekong River to the Golden Triangle for a photostop, visit the Big Golden Buddha, view the low hills of Laos on the opposite bank of the Mekong River, see the Opium Museum to know about the Golden Triangle as the linch-pin of the opium trade in the past, then onwards to the border-town of Mai Sai opposite which is Tachileik (Myanmar).

(If you wish to cross the border into Burmese Tachileik, the border fee is US$5.)

Lunch in a restaurant before transfer to Chiang Rai airport for your departure flight.

  End of Program

Prices above include 4 nights hotel accommodation with daily buffet breakfast, 4 lunches, tours and all entrance fees, cooking school fees, transfers and transportation in air-conditioned vehicles, and services of station guides.

NOT INCLUDED: Airfare and airport tax, use of hotel minibar, laundry and phone calls, and drinks at meals other than what is served.

HOTEL  CHIANG MAI  CHIANG RAI

SUP:  Royal Lanna   Wang Come

FIRST: Rydges Amora  Wiang Inn

DELUXE: Tamarind Village  The Legend