Isan and Cambodia
The Khmer trail
Phimai, Phanom Rung and the sandstone road toward Angkor, walked at first light with someone who reads the lintels.
Day by day
A shape, not a schedule. Every one of these is rewritten around the people travelling it.
Bangkok to Khorat
Out of the city early, onto the Khorat plateau. Isan food for lunch, which is the sourest and hottest cooking in the country.
Phimai
The largest Khmer sanctuary in Thailand, entered at opening. An archaeologist walks it with you and the carvings stop being decoration.
Phanom Rung
Up on the rim of an extinct volcano, on a processional walkway that lines up with the sunrise. Early start, and worth it.
The lesser sites
Muang Tam and the ones with no coach park. Lunch with a family that farms beside a thousand-year-old baray.
Silk
Weaving villages where the mudmee dyeing is still done by hand. You will buy something.
Border
Across into Cambodia, overland, arranged so it is dull rather than interesting.
Angkor, the quiet parts
Not the sunrise crowd. The outer temples with nobody in them, and the famous ones at the hour everyone else eats.
Out
Siem Reap, and home.
What it includes
Included
- Every stay, chosen against the standard
- Private guiding and a driver where the roads ask for it
- Boats, transfers and internal flights
- One designer, start to finish
- A 24-hour line while you travel
Not included
- International flights
- Travel insurance — required, and we do not sell it
- Visas where they apply
- Personal spending and tipping
Suppliers on this route are held to the standard published on the homepage. Where a place is on our list because we trust the person running it rather than because we have slept there ourselves, we say so when we suggest it.
Start with a conversation.
Four questions, a minute of your time, and a designer reads it within one working day.
Begin planning