Thailand and Laos in nine days

Day 1

Arrive in Chiang Mai

The airport is ten minutes from the old city, which is a good start. Nothing is scheduled. The walled square is a kilometre and a half across and the best thing to do with a first evening is walk a couple of sides of the moat and eat at a market.

Day 2

Chiang Mai, temples and a market kitchen

Wat Phra Singh early, before the tour groups

A guided morning through four temples inside the walls, finishing at Wat Chedi Luang, whose brick stupa lost its upper section to an earthquake in the sixteenth century and has been left that way. The afternoon is a cooking school that begins in the market, so that you learn what the ingredients are before you are asked to cook them. Doi Suthep, sixteen kilometres up the mountain, can be added at first light if you would rather have the view than the lie-in.

Day 3

North to Chiang Rai

Wat Rong Khun late in the day, when the white glare drops

Three hours north by road, with a stop at the hot springs or at the Mae Kachan viewpoint depending on the weather. Chiang Rai has three modern temples worth the stop — the white Wat Rong Khun, the blue Wat Rong Suea Ten and the Baan Dam house-museum — and they are not ancient, not subtle, and among the strangest buildings in Thailand. The afternoon takes them in.

Day 4

Across Friendship Bridge IV to Huay Xai

The first sight of the Mekong from the Lao bank

Chiang Khong is seventy kilometres downriver, about an hour and a half. You clear Thai exit control at the bridge head, take the shuttle bus across — walking the bridge is not permitted — and clear Lao entry on the far bank. The Lao e-visa IS valid at this crossing, which is the reason it is here: carry it printed, because a phone screen is refused. If you do not hold one, a visa on arrival is issued at the bridge in US dollars cash. Allow about thirty minutes for the formalities in ordinary traffic. The afternoon is free in Huay Xai, and the night here is what turns tomorrow into a civilised morning.

Day 5

Down the Mekong to Pak Beng

The last hour before Pak Beng, with the light going off the water

Aboard mid-morning and about eight hours downstream. The boat carries locals, cargo and travellers together; your guide has reserved seats and brings lunch, water and a cushion, which matters more than it sounds. The river runs through gorge and forest with villages on the banks that have no road to them, and it stops where it needs to. Pak Beng is a single street on a hillside above the water, with a handful of simple places to stay and a power supply that is not guaranteed all night.

Day 6

Pak Beng to Luang Prabang

Arriving by water rather than by road

The second day on the river, another seven or eight hours, with a stop at the Pak Ou caves near the end — two limestone caverns above the confluence holding several thousand Buddha figures left there over four centuries. You come in to Luang Prabang in the late afternoon, which is the best possible way to arrive anywhere in this region: the town appears around a bend, low and tiled, and you step off onto the bank.

Day 7

Luang Prabang on foot

Wat Xieng Thong in the first hour after opening

The alms round happens at dawn whether or not anyone watches, and our position is that you watch from a distance or not at all; your guide will explain what the actual rules are before you decide. Then the royal palace museum and Wat Xieng Thong, whose roof reaches almost to the ground and is the finest piece of Lao architecture standing. The afternoon is free, and Mount Phousi at sunset is 328 steps.

Day 8

Kuang Si, and a slow afternoon

The lower pools at half past eight

Twenty-nine kilometres out, about forty-five minutes: limestone pools stepping down through forest in a milky turquoise that nobody believes in photographs. Go at eight, before the minibuses, and swim in the lower pools. The bear sanctuary at the entrance is a genuine rescue operation and deserves twenty minutes. Back in town by early afternoon with nothing scheduled, which on a nine-day trip is deliberate.

Day 9

Luang Prabang, and home

The airport is fifteen minutes away. If the flight is late in the day, the morning market before seven and the weaving villages across the river are both worth doing.