Southeast Asia
Temple bells at dawn, night market by ten
The place
Thailand is the country most Indians fly to twice — once on the standard Bangkok and Pattaya circuit, and again, properly, when they realise how much of it they missed. The first trip is cheap for a reason. The second one goes to Krabi, or Chiang Mai in the cool season, or the limestone islands off Khao Lak, and costs barely more.
Bangkok is not a stopover city. The Grand Palace and the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho are the obvious morning; the better afternoon is a river boat up the Chao Phraya to Thonburi, or an hour lost in Chatuchak on a Saturday. Ayutthaya, the old capital burned by the Burmese, is ninety minutes north and best seen from a hired bicycle.
The seasons are not subtle. November to February is dry, warm and busy. March to May is genuinely hot. June to October is the southwest monsoon — cheap, green, and fine on the Gulf coast at Koh Samui even while the Andaman side is closed by swell. Plan the coast around the month, not the other way round.
Best months
The months in gold are when Thailand is at its best — weather, crowds and price together.
Gold = best months to travelDroplets = how wet the month isHigh / low °C
Holiday Packages
Best seller7N / 8D · Flights includedBangkok 2N · Pattaya 2N · Phuket 3N
The full Thailand circuit on a Gujarati-speaking escorted departure — Safari World and the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Coral Island and Alcazar at Pattaya, then an internal flight south for three nights of Phuket and a Phi Phi speedboat day.
₹65,490 on Flamingo Travels
*Indicative — final price confirmed on live availability.
Best sellerPrice drop5N / 6D · Flights includedPhuket 3N · Krabi 2N
Two coasts of the Andaman without a coach tour in sight. Phi Phi and Maya Bay by speedboat, the James Bond Island sea caves, then Krabi's four islands and the Railay limestone walls — with the Phuket–Krabi transfer done privately by road.
₹56,900 on Flamingo Travels
*Indicative — final price confirmed on live availability.
Worth your days
The palace opens at 8.30 and by eleven it is unbearable in both heat and crowd. Do the Emerald Buddha first, then walk ten minutes to Wat Pho for the 46-metre reclining Buddha and the oldest massage school in Thailand, where an hour of traditional Thai massage costs less than a coffee at your hotel.
Maya Bay reopened with hard limits — no boats in the bay itself, a fixed daily cap and no swimming at the beach. Go early, take the Krabi departure rather than the Phuket one, and pay the extra for a smaller boat; the large joiner boats spend more time queueing than snorkelling.
Riding, painting and circus tricks all rest on the same training method, and the good camps have stopped. Elephant Nature Park and a handful of others let you feed, walk beside and bathe rescued elephants instead. Book direct, weeks ahead; the tout stalls on Nimman Road sell riding camps under sanctuary names.
Fifteen thousand stalls across twenty-seven sections, open weekends only. Go at nine when it is still bearable, start from the clock tower, and keep the section number of anything you liked — you will not find it again by memory. Prices drop sharply after four in the afternoon.
The ruined capital is a ninety-minute train ride from Hua Lamphong and costs almost nothing. Hire a bicycle at the station, ride between Wat Mahathat, Wat Chaiwatthanaram and the Buddha head held in the roots of a banyan, and be back in Bangkok for dinner.
The good classes begin with the teacher walking you through a local market — galangal against ginger, three kinds of basil, why palm sugar behaves differently. Ask for the vegetarian track when you book: they will build the curry paste without shrimp paste rather than lifting it out afterwards.
Indicative
Spending money on the ground, per person per day — food, local transport and entry tickets outside your package.
Shoestring
₹1,800
a day, per person
Street food, public transport, one paid sight
Comfort
₹4,500
a day, per person
Sit-down meals, taxis, a tour or two
Luxury
₹13,000
a day, per person
Fine dining, private car, premium experiences
Visa
Practicalities
The default recipe carries fish sauce, dried shrimp and egg. Say "jay" (เจ) and the cook switches to soy — that word means strictly vegan in Thailand, no fish sauce, no egg, no onion or garlic, which is why it happens to suit a Jain traveller better than the English word vegetarian does.
Green papaya salad is pounded with dried shrimp and fish sauce as standard, so it is not vegetarian unless you ask. Across Thailand a yellow flag with red Thai script marks a jay kitchen — those stalls are wholly plant-based, and during the nine-day Vegetarian Festival in Bangkok Chinatown, whole streets become one.
Lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime and chilli — a broth that tastes like nothing in Indian cooking. The clear tom yum is usually prawn-based; the coconut tom kha is easily made with mushroom and tofu, and most kitchens will do it if asked at the point of ordering.
Glutinous rice, thick coconut cream, a whole ripe nam dok mai mango. Entirely vegetarian, entirely eggless, and best from a street cart in April when the mangoes are at their peak rather than from a hotel dessert trolley in December.
Bangkok has real Gujarati and Jain kitchens around Pahurat and Sukhumvit Soi 11, and Pattaya has a cluster on Soi Buakhao. Outside those pockets, assume nothing — Krabi, Chiang Mai and the islands run on fish sauce. We brief hotels in advance and, for Jain groups, carry the requirement to the resort kitchen at contracting.
Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.
In Bangkok the BTS Skytrain and MRT bypass the traffic completely and a Rabbit card covers both; Grab is metered and honest where tuk-tuks are not. Between cities, budget airlines are cheaper than the train and the overnight sleeper to Chiang Mai is a genuine experience rather than a saving. On the islands, the ferry timetable collapses in monsoon swell — never plan an island hop on the day of an international flight.
Travel Guide
Month-by-month weather, money, plugs, food, shopping and the small things nobody tells you.
