Bangkok & Southern Islands

Your guide meets the group in the arrivals hall and a private coach runs into the city. Arrival times vary by flight, so the day is built around the schedule rather than against it, with the check-in beside the river timed to when the group actually lands.

Time to settle in and shake off the flight. Bangkok announces itself slowly from a riverside base, a capital built on a scale the rest of the country never attempts, the Chao Phraya carrying the boat traffic past the hotel through the afternoon.

A welcome dinner by the river to open the route, the first of the meals taken on the water as the express boats and the dinner barges work the channel after dark. An early night against the next morning in the old city.

A full morning at the ceremonial heart of the city, the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the seat of the kingdom for more than two hundred years, then Wat Pho next door, where the gilded reclining Buddha runs forty-six metres end to end and the country's first centre of public learning still teaches traditional medicine in the side halls.

Across town to Wat Traimit and its solid-gold Buddha, five and a half tonnes of it, hidden under plaster for generations and uncovered only by accident. From the temple the route walks into Chinatown along Yaowarat, the gold shops giving way block by block to the street kitchens.

Yaowarat is at its best after dark, the carts and the open-fronted kitchens taking over the side lanes, roast duck and noodle stalls and mango with sticky rice. The guide leads the walk and the group eats its way down the street at its own pace.

Across the Chao Phraya to Wat Arun, the temple of dawn, its porcelain-clad prang best seen from the water, then the Royal Barges National Museum on the Thonburi bank, where the long ceremonial barges of the royal river processions sit under cover, gilded and carved and rarely afloat.

A longtail boat threads the canal communities of Thonburi, the old city that still lives at the pace of the river behind the high-rise one bank over, then back across to Talat Noi, the riverside quarter of old trades and engine shops given over now to street art, walked on foot through its lanes.

The evening is free, useful for the river by night or a quiet dinner in the city before the route turns south in the morning.

A morning domestic flight south to Krabi, the capital and the river temples traded for the Andaman coast in a little over an hour in the air, the limestone karsts standing out of the flat country on the descent.

A transfer to a beachfront resort at Ao Nang and the first afternoon of resort time, the pool and the sand after three days in the city, with nothing on the schedule but the coast and the karsts offshore.

A free evening at Ao Nang, the beach road and its kitchens a short walk from the resort, the longtails drawn up on the sand for the island day in the morning.

A full-day longtail tour to the four islands off Ao Nang, starting at Phra Nang Cave Beach under the headland, the limestone wall rising straight from the sand and the shrine cave at its foot, then out across the bay to the snorkelling water with equipment provided.

The boats work between Chicken Island, Tup Island and Poda Island, the sandbar that joins them at low tide and the shallow reef off the beaches, with a beachside lunch on one of the islands and time in the water for snorkellers of every level.

Back to Ao Nang by late afternoon, the longtails in before dark, for a last evening on the Krabi coast.

A speedboat day across to the Phi Phi Islands, the cliffs rising out of the water on the approach, with a pre-booked access slot for Maya Bay, the cove ringed by limestone walls. Access there runs on a controlled timed slot under national-park rules, so the visit is held to the window and the cap the park sets.

On from Maya Bay to Pileh Lagoon, the flooded basin held inside the cliffs, and the Viking Cave viewpoint, with snorkelling stops over the reef through the day, before the boat continues to Phuket and a beach resort for the last two nights.

Check-in on the Phuket coast and a free evening on the beach, the speedboat day behind the group and the old town and Phang Nga Bay still ahead.

A sea-canoe day in Phang Nga Bay among the limestone islands, the canoes paddled by licensed crews into the sea caves and the hidden hongs, the collapsed cavern lagoons reached only at the right state of the tide and only by low boat.

Back across to Phuket Old Town, the Sino-Portuguese shophouses of Thalang Road in their faded pastels, the legacy of the tin-mining merchants who built the town long before the beaches were the draw, with the cafes and the lanes walked on foot.

Sunset at Promthep Cape, the headland at the southern tip of the island where the day ends over the water and the Andaman opens out to the west, to close the route.

Breakfast at the resort. The guide coordinates the departure transfers, timing each vehicle to the individual flight schedules so no one waits at the airport longer than they have to.

Private transfer to Phuket International Airport for outbound flights, whether a domestic connection through Bangkok or a direct international departure. Groups extending onward in the south or across to the islands can be routed from here.

The route ends at the airport. Safe travels.