Thailand Cultural Circuit

Your guide meets the group in the arrivals hall at Suvarnabhumi Airport and a private coach runs into the city, around forty-five minutes outside the worst of the traffic. The drive is the first measure of Bangkok, a capital built on a scale the rest of the country never attempts.

After check-in beside the Chao Phraya, the afternoon opens at the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the ceremonial centre 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.

A welcome dinner at a riverside restaurant, the lit prang of Wat Arun standing across the water, with the rest of the evening free to rest after a long travel day.

An hour and a half north by private coach to Ayutthaya, the capital that ran the kingdom for four centuries until a Burmese army burned it in 1767. At Wat Mahathat a sandstone Buddha head sits cradled in the roots of a bodhi tree, grown around the stone over the centuries since the city fell, the single image most travellers carry away from the old capital.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet and its three restored chedis on the royal palace grounds, then Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, where rows of robed Buddhas line the cloister wall beneath a chedi tall enough to climb for the view across the ruins. The scale of the site only registers from inside it.

Overnight in Ayutthaya, dinner at the hotel, and a quiet evening by the river that rings the old island.

North again to Sukhothai, around three hours through the central plains by way of Phitsanulok. The name means the dawn of happiness, and this was the first independent Thai capital, the place where the script and the art of the country were first set down in the thirteenth century.

A bicycle tour through the UNESCO Historical Park, flat and unhurried, past more than a hundred and ninety monuments set among lotus ponds and lawns. At Wat Si Chum a seated Buddha fills a roofless brick mondop, the fingers of one hand alone taller than a person, the gilding worn thin by six hundred years of weather and the touch of pilgrims. Late afternoon is the hour the park was built for.

Overnight near the historical park, with dinner included.

The long drive north into the hills toward Chiang Rai, the country's far northern province on the old border country between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. The landscape changes on the way up, from the flat rice plains to forested ridges.

Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, a contemporary work an artist began in 1997 and is still building, finished in white plaster and mirror glass that throws the light back in pieces. Across town the Blue Temple, Wat Rong Suea Ten, answers it in cobalt and gold, proof that Thailand is still making its temples rather than only preserving them.

The Chiang Rai night bazaar for dinner and the crafts of the northern hill communities, then overnight in the town.

South to Chiang Mai, around three hours, the cultural capital of the north and once the seat of the Lanna kingdom. The road climbs the mountain on the city's edge to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, the gold chedi that has looked down on Chiang Mai since the fourteenth century, reached by a staircase flanked by two long nagas or by funicular for those who would rather save their legs.

Back down into the old walled city, square inside its moat, for the Lanna temples the north built in its own style, Wat Chedi Luang with its half-ruined royal chedi and Wat Phra Singh at the western gate. The afternoon closes with a northern Thai cooking class, a short market walk for the ingredients and a hands-on session over the dishes of the Lanna kitchen.

The evening is free, useful for the Saturday or Sunday walking street if the dates line up, or a quiet dinner inside the old city.

Breakfast at the hotel. 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 Chiang Mai International Airport for outbound flights, whether a domestic connection through Bangkok or a direct international departure. Groups extending onward in the north or across the border into Laos can be routed from here.

The route ends at the airport. Safe travels.