Cultural Icons of Thailand & Cambodia

Overall, it was a great vacation and we all enjoyed it very much. Thailand is a beautiful country with very friendly people, a deep and rich culture and awesome food!

When we set out to book our family vacation to Thailand, at first we were overwhelmed by the choices and the planning. Which cities to visit ? What are the tours ? Where do we stay ? Flight travel etc. Luckily, I came across Zicasso – a new way to book travel – that connects you with a travel advisor who has local knowledge of the place you want to go. This is how I got referred to our tour planner and travel team.

The travel team really helped us experience Thailand with local guides who know the place well.

First of all, our tour planner is awesome – she and the travel team helped us plan our trip – everything from airline, to hotels to the day by day itinerary and travel insurance. Even before we left on the trip, we felt both prepared and excited by the program. The app is amazing – it feels great to have your complete itinerary including local tips around guides, phone numbers, flight details all available in the app when you need it. Our agent gave us many good choices for local tours and helped us pick the itinerary that best suited our family.

Flights – The tour planner connected us with an airline which did a great job with our flights. We flew from Vancouver and within Thailand. The flights were great, good service and generally on time.

Hotels – the hotel in Bangkok was great. We got rooms on a high floor overlooking the Chao Praya river – amazing views! The best part was seeing the fireworks display on the Chao Praya river for the New Year. The hotel was packed since it is high season for tourists and yet we got good service overall. In Chiang Mai, we stayed at a hotel. It is a quaint, homely place to stay and within walking distance to local markets. A couple downsides – lots of mosquitoes in Chiang Mai – the hotel does a mosquito spray in the evening sometimes and we had to be out of our rooms for an hour in the evening for that. The Wi-Fi also was not great. They serve a great buffet breakfast in the morning.

Local guides – Chatcha in Bangkok and Oil in Chiang Mai – were awesome! They were very flexible with our family needs, knew the local conditions well and really helped us get the most out of each day in Thailand. Having a guide and vehicle exclusively for our family needs each day was amazing! The pickup and drop-offs at the airports were great and both our guides helped us all the way from check in to the point of entry into security. Both guides had extensive knowledge of the history of Thailand and the local tours and this helped us understand things better. Finally, the guides helped us experience the amazing Thai food – including in local places and street food. We felt safe wherever we ate and always had bottled water available for our needs.

Tours – the original tours planned had more temples in the program. After a couple, we decided to improvise and change things up which our local guides helped with a lot. We added an Elephant camp tour at the last minute – this turned out to be the highlight of the entire trip for our kids (and us!). I did not know that Elephants can paint and seeing the Elephants paint some great pictures is an experience we will never forget! For the temples, there is a dress code – our guides helped us buy elephant pants where needed so we could go in. The Doi Suthep temple in Chiang Mai is a must see – you need to climb 300+ steps to get to the top – stunning temple and great views of Chiang Mai city. We loved the boat rides – the long tail boat ride in Thonburi and near the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market were super fun! Lots of history – if you like that, the Ayutthaya day trip is worth it. The Jim Thompson house in Bangkok is a short tour but very interesting and well worth it.

Food - always lots of food choices – a noodle dish restaurant in Chiang Mai is soooo good! Loved the foodie tour with street food in Thonburi, the floating market and Chatuchak market. Tom Kah soup, Mangoes, Coconut pancakes and of course Phad Thai, Fried rice, sticky rice – if you love great food, Thailand is like heaven!

Shopping – lots of great shopping opportunities and we bought many interesting things for the house. Its good to have local currency for small purchases. We loved the shopping at Chatuchak market, floating market and the malls – MBK and Siam Paragon.

We had an amazing trip to the travel company, truly a life-changing experience!  We visited Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hoi An in Vietnam, then traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia, and ended our journey in Bangkok and Chaing Mai, Thailand.  The travel company assigned us to very friendly, informative and knowledgeable guides in each city.  Our excursions led us through the streets of Hanoi, sampling street foods and beverages, visiting floating fishing villages and the sheer serenity and beauty on Halong Bay, experiencing the Vietnamese countryside on the back of a scooter, sunrise tour of Angkor Wat, and other temples in Cambodia, Thai massage and temple tours in Bangkok, and hands-on cooking class in Chaing Mai.  But our favorite adventure was caring for the elephants at a sanctuary in the mountains outside of Chaing Mai.  

I cannot properly articulate how special and easy this trip was for us.  Every transition to each country was smooth and relaxed.  Our guides were always there to help us navigate the new cultures, tastes and experiences.  The hotels the travel company booked were comfortable, luxurious and classy.  

Working with the travel company was a joy!  Our travel specialist adjusted our itinerary to match our interests and pace.  While planning our trip, if we had questions or wanted to adjust the itinerary, our specialist returned our emails within 24 hours, and would tweak our itinerary until we were satisfied.  I highly recommend the travel company!  

We had a very enjoyable trip to Bangkok, Cambodia (Angor Wat) and Phuket.  Most of the arrangements were carried out well.  The visit to Siem Reap, Cambodia to see Angor Wat and related temples was amazing and well coordinated from landing at the airport to return to the airport.  The coordination of the Phuket leg of our visit was more chaotic as our guide there did not provide us with an updated itinerary and we had to keep calling in to see when and where we were to meet.  Overall, I requested 4 star to 5 star accommodations, but the venues in Bangkok and Phuket seemed to be quite aged and closer to 3 star accommodations.  The planning of activities by the agency was excellent and we enjoyed the bike ride tour, elephant sanctuary, snorkel trip, and cave kayaking.   In general, I would recommend this agency however, I might make changes to the guides used in Phuket and also upgrade the accommodations suggested via Zicasso as most of the clientele of Zicasso is looking for at least 4 star accommodations if available.

We recently traveled to Thailand and Cambodia and were connected through Zicasso with this travel agency and one other travel company about 3 weeks before our intended trip (we tend to work better under pressure :0). We also reached out to 3 other travel companies on our own to request help with our partially built itinerary. TThe agent from this travel company reached out to us and within the week, had put together a 15-day itinerary based on some very specific requests. During this time, the other 4 companies also sent us itineraries. I can't stress enough, how closely this agency and her team hit the mark in regards to how we wanted the trip structured, what we wanted to see and do, and how we were going to get around, whereas the other companies ignored several of our major requests and often did not acknowledge specific questions or concerns. This agent also answered every single question we asked her, not only at the beginning of the planning, but even throughout the final stages. 

After we decided to follow through with booking the trip through this agent and her company, I have to admit, that we were a bit negligent in getting all of our travel information together (my boyfriend discovered that his passport had expired, our dates changed, we added a few things, subtracted a few others.....) but she was patient and made sure to follow up on all the details and never once became pushy or appeared frustrated with our changes or requests.

In regards to the trip itself, everything went smoothly. The itinerary was followed, but remained flexible, and our guides and drivers were all stellar. We had different guides and drivers for each leg of the trip: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Krabi, and Cambodia, and the hand-off between each city and country was seamless. Checking into the hotels and getting entrance into temples and to our other booked tours was also smooth.

Our guide in Cambodia and for Angkor Wat was particularly impressive. His communication skills were almost perfect, and he was extremely personable and informative, not only about Angkor Wat, but about Cambodia and its history. He even took us off path a bit to visit a landmine museum which we were not aware existed in Siem Reap. At Angkor Wat, he made multiple efforts to take us off the beaten tourist path so that we could enjoy the temple complexes in almost complete privacy. We also visited temples that were less known, some of which seemed more impressive to me than the Angkor complex. We also liked the way the 3 days were divided, as well, starting early in the morning and finishing around 1-2pm, so that we could relax and recoup in the afternoon (it is freaking hot, humid, and buggy).

It was also helpful to have such a detailed and thorough itinerary emailed to us before we left. It had contact and emergency information and tips on making the trip more successful. My only critique would be to have more discussion on food with each guide as two of the pre-set places weren't necessarily what we would have picked out. It would be nice to have more flexibility and also more input on options.

I had a fantastic solo trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand and Siem Reap, Cambodia thanks to the attention and service provided by this travel agency and the wonderful guides assigned to me. They took care of every detail allowing me to focus on the best parts of the trip. The hotels were superb and all of the transportation went extremely smoothly.  I especially enjoyed spending my time visiting the various temples in Siem Reap both on foot and bicycle with my guide. He knew how to avoid the crowds and correctly assessed my interests and needs.

My agent put this trip together and did a spectacular job. 

I highly recommend Zicasso travel and this travel agency and wouldn't hesitate to book with them again.