September in SE Asia (Thailand?)

August 2, 2016 2:55 PM

Partner and I (both late twenties females) are looking to spend ~4 weeks of September escaping the UK. Neither of us has spent much time in Southeast Asia and we're hoping to visit Thailand to see temples/countryside/waterfalls/elephants, do a cooking class, spend some time on beaches, eat, drink, meet some people. Where else should we consider other than Thailand, what else might we enjoy?

Our current tentative half-itinerary is:

Fly to Bangkok, 2-3 days there

Take overnight train to Chiang Mai,
spend 4-5 days there (jungle trek? Cooking class)

Possibly get to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party

Spend some time relaxing on beaches, enjoying islands, snorkeling. I have heard the Gulf Islands are *likely* to have better weather than eg. Krabbi in September, so may stick to that side.

???

Questions.

1. What was the highlight of your trip to Thailand?

2. Is it...'extravagent' to plan to spend all/most of our time in Thailand? We don't know if or when we'll be back on that continent so would like to make good use of our time but equally don't want to feel overly rushed or scheduled. I found a previous thread where many posters were recommending eg 1 country/week, but equally a more drawn out version of kadia's itinerary: http://ask.metafilter.com/297468/How-unrealistic-is-a-tour-of-multiple-countries-in-Asia-in-two-weeks#4309905 sounds lovely! Would you recommend adding other destinations? Which and why? And...

3. Should we take a ~3 day side trip to see Angkor Wat? It looks worth the trip! If so should we prebook flights for this?

4. How much beyond our flights and the overnight train should we try to prebook? Accommodation around the full moon party?

Thank you!

posted by limoncello to Travel & Transportation (7 answers total)

Several people who adopted from a rescue I'm involved with have gone to this elephant and wild dog sanctuary, which, if you are at all interested in animals, sounds like an extraordinary experience.
posted by praemunire at 4:43 PM on August 2, 2016

Best answer: I came back this weekend from a trip to Angkor Wat (I spent 3 days touring and one day relaxing in Siem Reap) and Vietnam (Hoi An & Hanoi, but my trip to Halong Bay was cancelled due to a typhoon). I thought the temples/ruins in Cambodia were so amazing to see, but I will admit that by the third day, I was feeling a little templed out, even after having a chill day after two days of touring. Granted, I tried to cram as much as I could see into the days. You may have a more sensible plan of what you want to see!

I was also quite comfortable traveling through both countries as a woman on my own. Memail me if you decide to do Cambodia and have any questions.
posted by icaicaer at 6:32 PM on August 2, 2016

One thing worth remembering about SE Asia in September is the climate.

I went to Thailand from SE Australia in September a few years ago and found the weather very difficult. And I live in a place where it regularly gets over 40˚ during summer. In fact I suffered from heat stroke for the first and hopefully only time in my life there. This was in Bangkok when we went out sightseeing and where it was 35˚C and 95% humidity at 10:30AM and got hotter from there.

You may really like that kind of weather, I know people do, but it's worth knowing about it beforehand just in case.

I also hear that Vietnam is considered to be a very safe place for women travellers. It's a lovely place and Hanoi and the surrounding hills would probably be a bit cooler than Thailand too.
posted by mewsic at 7:57 PM on August 2, 2016

Best answer: Chiang Rai is definitely worth a look: the White Temple is bizarre, unlike any of the other temples in Thailand, and you can visit the Burmese border / Golden Triangle, long neck tribespeople (if you're into the whole people zoo thing), the Black House, and other cool stuff. You'll need a tour guide for that day, and I had this great guy Mr. Addy that I highly recommend if you can find him.

Pai is a cool mountain town you can reach from CM that makes for a leisurely couple days. If you rent a scooter you can see some beautiful scenery in the surrounding area.

Definitely don't miss Angkor Wat. I can't speak to how easy it is to get there from Thailand, I went there on a Cambodia-only trip, but it's an incredible site and there's lots of cool stuff to see there. Get a tuk-tuk for the day and you'll see all the ruins, stone faces, temple trees, etc that's worth seeing there.

Also, you should probably allow for another day or two in BKK and the surrounding areas, there's a bunch of important palaces and things there plus the floating market to the south, the ruins in Ayutthaya an hour away to the north, the legendary seedy nightlife, etc.

Others can speak to the best beach scene, I've only spent a little time in Phuket (beaches aren't really my bag).

As for logistics: if you can find flights at comparable prices, you might want to fly into Chiang Mai and out of BKK (or Phuket, which also has a lot of international flights). Then you can work your way down (or, alternatively, up) the country and avoid the redundancy of shuttling from BKK up to CM back to BKK down to the peninsula, and then back to BKK to fly home.

Happy travels, you're gonna love Thailand!
posted by charlemangy at 8:14 PM on August 2, 2016

I really recommend Sukhothai on your way to Chiang Mai. We tossed that in at the end of a Thailand trip - bused from Chiang Mai to Sukhothai one afternoon, spent the night, went to Old Sukhothai super early the next day (within 30 minutes of opening time), and left Sukhothai for Bangkok that afternoon. Getting into Old Sukhothai very early was so great - it really felt like we were the only ones there for the first hour. The ruins aren't that big and can be easily, thoroughly enjoyed in a half-day, but they're really cool, and I liked it as a place that was still easy to navigate but not as developed and massively touristy as Bangkok and Chiang Mai. (Don't get me wrong, I loved Chiang Mai, but Sukhothai was a cool change of pace.) I suspect that Pai and other smaller destinations could get you a similar feel but the Old Sukhothai ruins were very cool.

If you do Sukhothai, though, do it before Angkor Wat so you ramp up the amazingness. It's cool if you consider it as its own thing but I think it might be a little bit of a let-down right after Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is spectacular. With how much time you have in SEA, I definitely think it's taking a couple days for.

How long to spend in a country: Well, it's sort of a question of breadth vs depth. Do you like taking it slow, lingering in a place and really getting to know it? Or do you like hitting the big sights and cramming as much in as you can? I don't think there is one objective right answer here; it's all about what style you like. In a four-week trip, I think anywhere from 1 to 3 countries would be reasonable. There's so much to Thailand that I'm certain you could fill four weeks with an amazing variety of stuff and still wish you could stay longer. One country per week sounds like you'd be quite rushed, and travel would eat up so much of your trip, unless you just had one or two destination(s) per country. On my last SEA trip I did about nine days in Vietnam and nine in Thailand (not counting three travel-only days) and it did feel a little rushed to me. (In Vietnam we did HCMC, Hoi An, and Hue. Thailand was mostly Chiang Mai but with a 3-day backpacking trip in the middle and Bangkok on either end.)

FWIW, I bought all my flights in advance, but I really like to have things planned out; I'm not great at the spontaneous-adventure type of travel. I have friends who just show up in a country and wing it from there and they always seem to turn out fine, but I've never given that a try, to be honest.
posted by mandanza at 9:43 PM on August 2, 2016

Best answer: The Elephant Nature Park was one of the highlights of my trip, I recommend it (I did the standard day visit to the park from Chiang Mai). I really enjoyed Chiang Mai as a change of pace from Bangkok. Angkor Wat was another highlight and I would take a few days out to do that. There are a lot of flights from Bangkok to Siem Reap, it might be a bit more expensive if you don't prebook but I don't think they'll sell out.
posted by penguinliz at 12:46 AM on August 3, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks all for your answers! Just home from a fantastic trip. We loved Chiang Mai and lots of other recommended locations. We did take a detour to Siem Reap and are really happy we did, and charlemangy's advice about returning from Phuket saved us a good chunk of travelling time. Thank you!
posted by limoncello at 7:01 AM on October 1, 2016 [1 favorite]