Glimpse Mekong Tour of Chiang Mai, Laos and Angkor (Cambodia)

An intimate itinerary for a glimpse reconnaissance of three neighbouring Mekong River countries.

DAY 1:  ARRIVE IN CHIANG MAI   (D)

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.  Be picked up at your hotel at 7pm for the khantoke dinner with northern Thai and hill tribe cultural show.  Return to your hotel at 9.30pm or drop off at the Night Bazaar.  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 parlours and health massage places for foot and traditional massages.

Overnight in your selected hotel in Chiang Mai.

Day 2:  CHIANG MAI – DOI SUTHEP MOUNTAIN MONASTERY   (B, L)

Buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Be picked up for the tour up the mountain of Doi Suthep to visit Wat Prathat Doi Suthep with its golden chedi, fine views of Chiang Mai below, the small museum of votive tablets and Buddha images.  Be sure to ring all the bronze bells surrounding the main chedi for merit.  Burn a joss-stick before the Buddha image to pray for good health and good luck. 

Lunch in a restaurant along the way.  After lunch visit Chiang Mai’s cottage industries of teakwood carving, celadon firing, silk and cotton weaving, lacquer ware and saa paper umbrella making in the Bo Sang village.  Northern Thai craftsmen are carrying on the artistic traditions of their forebears in the Sankamphaeng and Baan Tawai enclaves producing fine pieces of craft by hand and simple tools.  Return to hotel and be at leisure to relax by the pool, or go out and explore Chiang Mai on foot or go for a health massage.

Overnight in hotel, Chiang Mai.

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

Buffet breakfast at the hotel.  Today learn a whole lot about elephants at the Maetaeng Elephant Park.  Be picked up at your hotel at 8am to go to the park 50km north of Chiang Mai.  There are about 40 elephants free-ranging in this park.  You can see them taking their bath, feed them and ride on them for a romp into the jungle.  Ride an ox-cart to experience an ancient mode of local transport.  Then have lunch by the riverside restaurant before returning to Chiang Mai, and be free at leisure.

Overnight in hotel, Chiang Mai.

DAY 4:  CHIANG MAI - LUANG PRABANG  (LAOS)  (B, D) 

Buffet breakfast at the hotel. 

Free until 11am when we transfer to Chiang Mai airport for your one-hour flight to Luang Prabang by Lao Airlines, QV645, dep.1250/arr.1350 (on Tuesdays & Fridays) or dep.1540/arr.1640 (Sundays).  Upon arrival, meet your English speaking guide at the airport and be taken to your hotel.  Go with your guide on a walking tour of this heritage town which was once a royal city of Laotian kings, in particular in the main street, Thanon Sisavangvong.  You will not forget the wonderful simplicity of the town and its sedate flow of life beside the Mekong River and the smaller Nam Khan River.  Have a Lao coffee or tea with a baquette sandwich or pastry at Le Café Ban Vat Sene at the top end of the main street. Climb the 329 steps up Phousi Hill and see a panoramic view of Luang Prabang city nestling between the Nam Khan and the Mekong River.  Upon your descend see the tribal market at the foot of the hill as the Hmong tribesmen would have set up their makeshift stalls on the road to display their home-made embroidery and other products.

Have a good Lao dinner at Pakhuay Mixay restaurant that your guide will take you to.

Overnight at hotel, Luang Prabang. 

DAY 5: LUANG PRABANG  (B, L)

Buffet breakfast at the hotel. 

Morning sightseeing of Luang Prabang including the former Royal Palace now the National Museum for the memorabilia of the last Laotian King Sisavangvong and other cultural treasures of Laos before the Pathet Lao takeover.  Visit Wat Visoun, Wat Aham and Wat Xiengthong the best of them all.  Chat with the friendly English speaking monks in these temples and take photos with them.  Learn how they study and live the dharma.  Lunch at Malee Lao Food.  The afternoon is free at leisure.  (Suggest indulging in the herbal steam bath and massage at the Red Cross building.  Sauna is US$1 and one-hour massage is US$2).

Overnight at hotel, Luang Prabang. 

DAY 6:  PAK OU CAVES - KUANGSI WATERFALL   (B, L, D)

Buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Morning trip by road to the Kuangsi Waterfall about 30km to the south of Luang Prabang.   On the way visit the famous hand-weaving village of Ban Phanom where very good embroidery works are made by the villagers, and see some village life and the weavers busy at their looms underneath their houses.  The Kuangsi Falls have water tumbling over several tiers of limestone formations into several turquoise pools that people enjoy wading in.

Lunch at Indochina Spirit restaurant.

Afternoon excursion by boat upstream of the Mekong River to visit Ban Sanghai (a village producing very good Lao rice-wine and embroidery works) by the bank of the Mekong River.  It used to be famous for its earthen jars but today it imports such jars to contain its copious production of rice-wine.  Proceed by boat to the Pak Ou Buddha Caves (Tham Ting ) where local people bring various sizes and kinds of Buddha images and wooden elephants to place at this shrine for good luck and fortune.  By now there are hundreds if not thousands of these images inside the main cave. See the light of the setting sun strike the limestone cliff opposite the caves.  Return to Luang Prabang revived by this mystical experience.

Dinner of French set menu at the Elephant Blanc restaurant.

Overnight at hotel, Luang Prabang. 

DAY 7:  LUANG PRABANG - VIENTIANE   (B, L, D)

Breakfast at hotel.  At 9am depart from our hotel to transfer to the airport for your flight from Luang Prabang to Vientiane by QV102, dep.1140/arr.1220 (Mondays/Tuesdays/Thursdays/Saturdays), the capital of Laos. On the way stop at the sprawling market place to see buyers and sellers engage in bargaining of the day's victuals for the kitchen.  Upon arrival in Vientiane, meet and transfer to restaurant for lunch before to the hotel for check-in.  In the afternoon tour the city.  Sightseeing of Vientiane will include Wat Sisaket (built by Prince Anou in 18181 of Thai design that was not destroyed by the Thai invaders of the early Bangkok period), Haw Pha Kaew (a former royal temple built in 1565 to house the Emerald Buddha that is now in Bangkok since 1779), That Luang (the holiest of Lao temples that annually holds a huge religious fair that attracts devotees from all over Laos), and Patuxai (Laos' own Arc de Triomphe).  Dinner at Kua Lao restaurant.

Overnight at hotel, Vientiane. 

DAY 8:  VIENTIANE – SIEM REAP   (B, L)

Breakfast at the hotel.  Check out of the hotel after breakfast.  Visit the large sprawling morning market to have an insight into the kinds of food consumed daily by the Lao people in Vientiane.  You will see a host of edible products including frog legs so loved by the former French colonialists in the city, and baquettes by the basketfuls, a whole range of vegetables and many other things.  Early lunch in a restaurant and then transfer to the airport for your flight to Siem Reap (in Cambodia, by QV105, dep.1300/arr.1340).  Upon arrival, be met by your guide and taken to your city hotel for check-in.  Afternoon tour to the Rolous group temples of Lolei, Bakong and Preah Ko all built in the pre-Angkor period (850-893) to see the precedents of the great Angkor period temples. 

Overnight at hotel, Siem Reap.

DAY 9:  ANGKOR THOM, BANTEAY SREI, KBAL SPEAN  (B, L, D)

Breakfast at the hotel.  Morning sightseeing of Angkor Thom, the great city located next to Angkor Wat.  Angkor Thom was the greatest achievement of King Jayavarman VII.  Built in the 12th century, it extends almost 4 square miles and is enclosed by a wall 26 feet high, 7.5 miles long and surrounded by an originally crocodile-infested moat.  This great city contains many structures built to honour the Buddha and amenities for the king and people to enjoy.   The area is surrounded by five monumental gates more than 65 feet high, each dominated by 4 huge carved faces of the king himself represented as the Buddha Avalokitesvara, facing north, south, east and west.  In front of the south gate are giant statues of 54 gods on the left, 54 demons on the right.  In the centre is the Bayon, a massive cluster of towers carved with 216 faces of the king.  More great carvings are found on the 4000 feet of interior walls that are covered with bas-reliefs showing 11,000 figures engaged in battles, ceremonial pageants and everyday life of 12th century Angkor.  Visit Phimeanakas, a 10th century temple built by Jayavarman V; the Elephant Terrace, a viewing platform from which the kings of Angkor watched military processions; the Terrace of the Leper King, supposedly named after the founder of Angkor who legend says was afflicted with leprosy.  Lunch in a restaurant.  Drive to the temple of Banteay Srei, 38 km from Siem Reap.  It is the only pink sandstone temple exquisitely carved dated before Angkor Wat.   Its apsaras on the walls are regarded as the best in the whole Angkor temple complex.  Venture out farther into the Kulen Mountain area to Kbal Spean, which was the first capital of the pre-Angkor period.  There are over 20 not restored temple ruins here, but the marvellous carvings are of huge Hindu gods and the hundreds of carved lingas in the river-bed that you get to with a half-hour trek along a shady jungle path.  Return to Siem Reap in the late afternoon.  Dinner at New Bayon Restaurant. 

Overnight at hotel, Siem Reap. 

DAY 10:  TA PROHM & ANGKOR WAT   (B, L, D)

Breakfast at the hotel.  Morning departure at 8.30am to tour Ta Prohm which is unrestored and left to the elements with giant trees embracing its stone works, giving Ta Prohm its unique character.  Also Ta Keo, a 11^th century sandstone temple dedicated to Shiva.  Prasat Kravan, Banteay Kldei, Sra Srang and others if we have time for.  Lunch at Nests & Fins restaurant.   Continue sightseeing after lunch. 

Visit Angkor Wat, the great temple built before Angkor Thom.   Angkor Wat represents the spiritual and mystical grandeur of the Khmer people.  The kingdom was founded in the early 9th century by King Suryavarman II as a microcosm of the mythical world in which he identified himself with the god Vishnu.  At the heart of the city was a mountain temple - traditional home of the Hindu gods and also the centre of an earthly kingdom in which the king was regarded as sacred.  The temple also served as a mausoleum for the dead kings and was in use until 1431 when the Siamese eliminated the kingdom.  The lost city was re-discovered by western archaeologists in the late 19th century.   The temple complex of Angkor covers 200 acres, enclosed by a massive rectangular-shaped wall and surrounded by a moat.  The wall contains gates on all four sides, with the main entrance richly decorated with carvings and sculptures.   The temple comprised of five distinctive towers with 72 major monuments and an irrigation system, which together portrayed the harmonization of Indian roots in a Cambodian context – which was the very foundation of Khmer art and architecture.  This place is probably the largest religious monument ever built on earth, and is considered one of the most inspiring.  Angkor Wat was declared a world heritage site by the United Nations, and is regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  As the sun lowers itself beneath the horizon, climb up to the Bakheng Temple ruins to see the sunset on Angkor Wat.  Dinner at Sampheap restaurant. 

Overnight at hotel, Siem Reap. 

DAY 11:  SIEM REAP - DEPARTURE  (B)

Breakfast at the hotel.  Free until time to transfer to the airport for your departure flight.

End of Glimpse Mekong Tour

INCLUSIONS:

   -        Domestic airfare LPQ-VTE and its airport tax.

- 10 nights hotel accommodation with daily breakfast.

-  6 dinners (one with show) and 8 lunches.

- All transfers and transportation in air-conditioned car/van/coach.

- Tours as stated in the program.

- Elephant safari in Chiang Mai.

- All entrance fees when on tours including that to the Angkor Temple Complex, tolls and parking charges.

- Boat fare in Luang Prabang.

- English speaking guide services.

EXCLUSIONS:

- Regional airfares and their airport taxes: CNX-LPQ (US$63), VTE-REP (US$105), and departure flight from Siem Reap.

- Visa fees in Laos (US$30) and Cambodia (US$25) – both visa-upon-arrival.

- Drinks at meals other than what is served at table.

- Expenses of a personal nature like a massage, use of hotel mini bar, laundry, phone calls, room service and the like.

HOTELS:

SUPERIOR  (3-Star).

IN CHIANG MAI:  Royal Lanna Hotel.

IN LUANG PRABANG:  Phousi, Muang Luang, Manoluck, Le Parasol Blanc.

IN VIENTIANE: Royal Dokmaideng, Novotel.

IN SIEM REAP: Star Royal, Royal Crown, Angkor President.

FIRST CLASS (4-Star).

IN CHIANG MAI:  Rydges Amora, Imperial Mae Ping, Duangtawan.

IN LUANG PRABANG:  Grand Luangprabang, Maison Souvannaphoum, Villa Santi.

IN VIENTIANE: Tai-Pan, Lao Plaza, Park View.

IN SIEM REAP: Day Inn Resort & Spa, Angkor Star, Princess Hotel.

DELUXE (5-Star).

IN CHIANG MAI:        Rachamankha Hotel, Sheraton, Tamarind Village (boutique).

IN LUANG PRABANG:  La Residence Phou Vao, Maison Souvannaphoum (deluxe).

IN VIENTIANE: Settha Palace.

IN SIEM REAP: Angkor Palace Resort & Spa, Sofitel Royal Angkor.