Three countries,,
arranged without the guesswork.
Southeast Asia is familiar to Indian travellers — and that familiarity is where the risk lies. The difference between a well-arranged trip to Thailand or Vietnam and a poorly arranged one is entirely in who is operating on the ground, which properties you are using, and how the days are actually structured.
The region most visited,
least often done well.
Thailand, Vietnam, and Bali are among the most visited destinations in the world — and among the most variable in quality. They are close enough to India to feel accessible, visa-friendly enough to be manageable, and different enough from home to feel genuinely foreign. The temples, the street food, the water, and the quality of light are collectively unlike anything else in the region. What they require, in return, is a ground operation that knows the difference between what is marketed and what is actually worth the time.
Travalive works with in-country ground operators in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hanoi, Hoi An, and Ubud whose standard we have verified through direct client feedback and, where possible, firsthand review. These are not wholesale-sourced suppliers — they are small operators with driver-guide networks they have built themselves and properties they have visited and selected. The difference is most apparent on the ground, not in the itinerary document.
What you come here for.
Bangkok's temples, markets, and food culture are genuinely extraordinary — Wat Pho's reclining Buddha, the Grand Palace, the Chatuchak weekend market, and a street food scene that runs from 6am to 2am. Chiang Mai, 700km north, is teak-house temples, elephant sanctuary visits, and cooking schools. Koh Samui, Koh Lanta, and Krabi offer the Thai beaches without the Phuket density. We connect these as a coherent journey rather than a list of stops.
Hanoi, Hoi An, and Ho Chi Minh City are arguably three different civilisations within a single country — the Confucian north, the Cham-influenced trading port centre, and the Chinese-French colonial south. The train from Hanoi to Da Nang through the Hai Van Pass is one of Southeast Asia's great rail journeys. Halong Bay, over-visited on a standard cruise but extraordinary on the right vessel, closes the north.
The Bali that most travellers see — Seminyak, Kuta, and the Ubud rice terrace circuit — is real but incomplete. The north (Munduk, Lovina) is quieter, higher, and more genuinely Balinese in its cultural texture. The east coast around Amed has better diving and fewer villa-development crowds. Sidemen valley is the Ubud that Ubud used to be. We design Bali programmes that include the well-known because it is worth it, and the less-known because it is often better.
Halong Bay is one of Vietnam's two UNESCO World Heritage Sites and has been severely over-touristed for two decades. The solution is not to avoid it — the limestone karst landscape is genuinely extraordinary — but to be on the right vessel. A forty-berth junk is a very different experience from a twelve-berth boutique cruise with a kayak programme and no designated photography stops. Travalive uses a small number of vetted operators.
Thailand's wellness infrastructure is the most developed in Southeast Asia — from Chiang Mai cooking schools staffed by culinary instructors, not guides, to traditional Thai massage courses and formal retreat centres in the north. We arrange cooking sessions in private kitchens and retreat stays that are calibrated to the client's actual interest rather than the standard day-tour format.
Hoi An's old town — a UNESCO-preserved port of Japanese merchant houses, Chinese assembly halls, and French colonial shopfronts — is the most photogenic town in Vietnam. The tailors, the lanterns, and the riverside food stalls are legitimately excellent. The surrounding Central Highlands offer coffee plantation visits and a quieter, less-travelled counterpart to the coast. We build these as a single three-to-four day circuit.
The experiences that define the journey.
Bangkok by River and Tuk-Tuk
The standard Bangkok sightseeing day covers Wat Pho, the Grand Palace, and Wat Arun — all legitimately worth visiting and all, if done in sequence on a hot afternoon, exhausting. Our Bangkok ground team separates these across a morning and a late afternoon (Wat Arun specifically is best lit from the east bank at 4–5pm), uses the Chao Phraya express boat for river sections, and replaces the standard lunch stop with a 45-minute walk through the Pak Khlong Talat flower market and a lunch of pad kra pao at a shopfront near the Grand Palace where the clientele is entirely local. The day ends in Chinatown's Yaowarat Road at dusk — arguably the best street food strip in Asia — with a guide who knows which stalls to use and what to order.
Halong Bay — A Two-Night Cruise
The operator we use on Halong Bay runs three vessels, all under twenty berths. The two-night itinerary is non-negotiable for anyone who wants to reach the outer bay — the quieter, less-congested zones that day-trippers and one-night cruises never reach. Day one: the main karst circuit and the floating fishing village at Cua Van, best understood from a kayak rather than the deck of the boat. Evening: squid fishing off the stern with the crew. Day two: the inner caves by kayak at dawn before the day-trippers arrive, then drift south through the outer bay before disembarking at Tuan Chau. The food on this vessel is specifically designed for the cruise — not a hotel kitchen menu adapted for a boat.
A Morning in a Chiang Mai Kitchen
The cooking school we use in Chiang Mai is run by a culinary instructor who trained in Bangkok and returned north to document northern Thai cuisine — a distinct tradition from the central Thai food that most Indian travellers know. The morning session begins at a local market at 8am, where the instructor explains the northern ingredient palette: khao soi paste, makhwaen pepper, the difference between holy and Thai basil in actual cooking use. The kitchen session runs from 9:30am and produces five dishes including khao soi, a northern larb, and a sticky rice dessert steamed in banana leaf. The session is small — maximum six participants — and genuinely instructive rather than performative.
12 days in
Southeast Asia.
This twelve-day itinerary covers Thailand and Vietnam — Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hanoi, Halong Bay, and Hoi An — as a single connected journey. Bali can replace the Vietnam segment or be added as a standalone extension. All three destinations can also be arranged separately as standalone trips of seven to ten days each. The routing and duration are both flexible; the ground team quality is not.
Arrival at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok. Private transfer to the hotel in the old city area — close to the river and the temple district, which is the only neighbourhood in Bangkok that rewards walking. Evening walk along the river at the Tha Tien pier, the local market below Wat Pho, and dinner at a riverside restaurant.
Morning: Wat Pho at 8am (before tour groups arrive) and the Grand Palace. Midday rest at the hotel through the heat of the day. Late afternoon: the river crossing to Wat Arun, the view back across to the Grand Palace from the west bank, and a tuk-tuk to Yaowarat Road for the evening. Dinner in Chinatown — three or four stalls, guided selections.
Early morning departure for Damnoen Saduak floating market (90km from Bangkok) — the most photographed market in Thailand, genuinely worth visiting before 8am when the commercial activity is real. Return to Bangkok for Chatuchak (Saturday or Sunday) if the timing coincides — 15,000 stalls across 35 sections, and the plant section alone is worth an hour. Transfer to airport for evening flight to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai's old city is a moated square of Lanna-era temples — Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phra Singh are the two essential ones. Afternoon drive to Doi Suthep, the mountain monastery above the city, for the panoramic view of the Chiang Mai valley and the sunset from the temple terrace.
Morning market visit and cooking session (5 dishes, northern Thai curriculum). Afternoon at an ethical elephant sanctuary — not a riding camp, but a sanctuary model where the mahout relationship and the elephant's daily routine are observable without the animal being put to work for the visit. Our ground team has vetted the specific sanctuary and can explain the distinction clearly.
Morning flight to Hanoi (approx. 2 hours direct or via Bangkok). Arrival, transfer to the hotel in the Old Quarter — 36 streets of French-colonial shophouses, each historically devoted to a single trade. Evening walk and dinner at a bun cha restaurant in the old quarter (the dish Hanoi invented and owns completely).
Morning at the Temple of Literature — the country's first university, founded in 1070 and still architecturally intact across five courtyards. Afternoon walk around Hoan Kiem Lake and the Ngoc Son temple on its island. Evening: water puppet performance at the Thang Long theatre — a northern Vietnamese folk art form performed in a waist-deep pool, genuinely extraordinary and rarely more than sixty minutes.
Morning transfer from Hanoi to Ha Long (4 hours by private car). Embarkation at noon, lunch on board as the vessel moves through the outer bay. First afternoon: the karst circuit and the Cua Van floating village by kayak. Sunset from the top deck as the cruise anchors in a protected cove in the inner bay. Squid fishing off the stern after dark.
5:30am sunrise from the top deck. Kayak excursion to the inner caves while the day-trippers are still in transit. Late breakfast, then the drift south through the outer bay before disembarkation at Tuan Chau at 1pm. Transfer back to Hanoi for the evening flight south to Da Nang.
Transfer from Da Nang to Hoi An (30 minutes). A day in the old town: the Japanese Covered Bridge, the Tan Ky merchant house, the Chinese assembly halls. Afternoon at the tailors — Hoi An has some of Asia's most skilled garment makers; a suit or dress made overnight requires the right fitting process, and our ground contact knows which workshops are genuine artisan operations rather than tourist-volume shops. Evening lantern-lit riverside.
Morning by local boat from the old town to Tra Que herb village — a farming community that has supplied Hoi An's restaurants for centuries. A cooking class here uses herbs picked minutes before preparation. Afternoon bicycle ride through the paddy fields south of town to the coast at An Bang beach. Return by boat at dusk.
Transfer from Hoi An to Da Nang International Airport (30 minutes). Da Nang operates direct flights to Delhi, Mumbai, and several other Indian cities on IndiGo and VietJet, which makes it a clean exit point for the Vietnam segment. Travalive manages the transfer and all onward documentation.
Southeast Asia, on your terms.
Tell us what you are thinking — a timeframe, a mood, a question — and one of our consultants will come back to you with something worth reading. No automated quotes. No fixed packages. A real conversation.