ASIAN PRIVATE JET JOURNEY
Saturday, October 13, 2007: Los Angeles
Sunday - Monday, October 14 - 15, 2007: Bangkok, Thailand
Tuesday - Wednesday, October 16 - 17, 2007: Yangon, Myanmar
Thursday - Friday, October 18 - 19, 2007: Cochin, India
We take a traditional Kettuvalam boat into the famous backwaters of Kerala, through emerald green rice paddies and lush cashew, banana and rubber plantations. We stop in various villages, meet the people and have tea with them in their homes. At lunch we have a demonstration and tasting of delicious Southern Indian cooking featuring rice, fish, coconut and spicy aromatic curries. Relax and enjoy an Ayurveda massage and spa treatment, before participating in a traditional Kerala wedding (or vow renewal), a Hindu ritual involving the couple encircling a sacred fire, the placement of the bride's foot on a grinding stone, and of course a joyful and lively feast afterwards.
Visit the remarkable Yekshenba Bazaar, Kashgar's bustling Sunday morning market, the largest open-air market in the world with over 100,000 vendors from as far away as Pakistan and Uzbekistan offering their wares and services. You can buy everything from camels to carpets, fine silks to barbequed goat heads and hooves. You can have your hair cut, your knives sharpened and your donkey cart repaired. Haggling in the traditional Middle-Eastern fashion is expected. Taste a wide variety of new and exotic Central Asian delicacies. Lively dinner with a Uyghur dignitary along with prominent local leaders and the intelligentsia, with singers and dancers as entertainment.
The ancient Islamic city of Kashgar has a fascinating history as an important Silk Road trading hub dating back over 2,000 years. Wander through the narrow winding streets and enticing shops of this vibrant medieval city. Visit the Id Kah Mosque (built in 1442) and the Abakh Khoja Tomb, and watch the renowned Kashgar tightrope walkers. Divide up into small groups and dine at the homes of local chefs and their families who show us how to make delicious Uyghur specialties including lamb kebobs, meat pastries and thick rice noodles with chickpeas. Alternatively, have a truly intrepid adventure and go into the countryside and spend one night in a traditional yurt with an ethnic Tajik family. Have dinner with the family and some of their friends, and taste a variety of home-cooked Tajik foods, including lamb stews, dumplings, round unleavened bread and sweet halva. If you do choose this option, it will be the least extravagant evening of your journey...but it may prove to be your most memorable.
Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, October 23 - 25, 2007: Bhutan
Choose from a variety of activities including a visit to an orphanage and lunch with the children; a private tour of an impressive Dzong (monastery) hosted by a reincarnate Lama; a private tour of the National Museum, Textile Museum or National Library and lunch with the director; an archery match (Bhutan's national sport) and a private lunch with the players; or private tours of an art school, the Traditional Medicine Institute, or a handmade paper factory. Private reception with HM The Queen of Bhutan, who will tell us about her favorite charity, the Tarayana Foundation, which helps the disadvantaged and underprivileged.
Choose from a variety of activities including a visit to an orphanage and lunch with the children; a private tour of an impressive Dzong (monastery) hosted by a reincarnate Lama; a private tour of the National Museum, Textile Museum or National Library and lunch with the director; an archery match (Bhutan's national sport) and a private lunch with the players; or private tours of an art school, the Traditional Medicine Institute, or a handmade paper factory. Private reception with HM The Queen of Bhutan, who will tell us about her favorite charity, the Tarayana Foundation, which helps the disadvantaged and underprivileged.
Friday, October 26, 2007: Homeward Bound
The journey begins in Los Angeles, where champagne corks pop as we begin our journey to Asia, where local time is one day later.
Arrive in Bangkok and check into an opulent 5-star hotel with service unsurpassed in the world. Enjoy a massage or spa treatment and relax before sunset cocktails and dinner with some of Thailand's most renowned artists and celebrities, business leaders, intelligentsia - and a surprise guest!
Choose from a variety of interesting activities, such as exploring the captivating narrow lanes of Bangkok with the endless little shops and stalls, buying knick-knacks and sampling some of the tastiest Thai street food. Have lunch at a top local restaurant preceded by a a Thai cooking demonstration by one of Bangkok's top chefs, with entertaining commentary from Gael Greene. In the afternoon, witness colorful everyday Thai life along the vibrant riverfront of the Chao Phraya on an old teak rice barge. Thai nobles throw a dinner party for us at their magnificent riverbank villa and show us their gorgeous art collection, as we sip champagne and feast on succulent Tahi delicacies.
We board our jet for a one hour flight to Yangon (Rangoon), the capital of Myanmar (Burma), a seductive country with congenial people, astonishingly rich culture and stupendous architecture. Go to a Buddhist monastery and sample the monks' dinner, their last meal of the day which they eat before noon. Attend a private young monk ordination ceremony, where the boys endure ritual head-shaving and the kindly old Abbot explains the symbolism. Wander the bustling back streets and markets of old Rangoon, interacting with the vendors and meeting the very friendly local people. Sunset at the gold-encrusted Shwedagon Pagoda, one of the great man-made wonders of the world, which every person should visit during his lifetime. Dinner is hosted by several of Burma's most prominent business leaders and their families.
Visit an exotic food market with a famous local Burmese chef, taste some local delicacies, and help select the fresh vegetables, fish and meat for lunch. Go back to the chef's kitchen and watch an informal private cooking demonstration before tucking into a delicious home-cooked Burmese meal. In the afternoon visit your choice of the International Buddhist University, a martial arts kickboxing gym, a training school for handicapped children, a supernatural fortune teller, or the private collection of a famous tribal textile supplier. Dinner party with noteworthy Burmese intelligentsia, and entertainment by Naga tribal singers and other ethnic minority dancers.
Fly to Cochin in Kerala on the Southern Indian coast. Now known as Kochi, this ancient port town is an enchanting blend of medieval Portuguese, Dutch, British, Arab, Chinese, Indian and Jewish cultures (Cochin once had a large Jewish community who settled as traders on the Malabar Coast as early as 700 BC). Wander through the enthralling streets with 500-year old Portuguese houses, a 16th century synagogue, a fragrant spice market, the oldest church in India, and one of the world's only pepper exchanges. Watch the local fishermen ply their trade using their massive, ingenious and highly unusual cantilevered Chinese fishing nets. In the evening we throw a fabulous party with Kathakali, Moiniattam and other South Indian dancers and singers with some of Kerala's most interesting people.
Saturday, Sunday & Monday - October 20 - 22, 2007: Kashgar, China
Fly to the fabled Silk Road city of Kashgar, just west of the Taklamakan Desert in far western China near the borders with Tibet, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Kashgar, home to the minority Muslim Uyghur people, is an extremely remote destination with very few foreign travelers and only basic hotels and facilities. We stay in the best hotel in town, but that is still roughing it, and it will be worth it in order to visit this far-flung and undiscovered corner of Asia.
Fly to Bhutan (possibly via Kathmandu, from which we might have to take a different aircraft into the unusual little airport in Paro). Bhutan holds on fiercely to its rich cultural heritage; the magical little Buddhist kingdom perched high in the Himalayas has been almost untouched by the outside world until a few years ago. The people dress in gho and kira robes as they have for hundreds of years, and all architecture is in the centuries-old Bhutanese style, straight out of a fairy tale. A Chipdrel ceremony welcomes us into an ancient farmhouse, where we attend a traditional Bhutanese marriage ceremony (or vow renewal) with red-robed monks chanting, playing lovely music (bells and six foot trumpets) and serving exotic food and libations (yak butter tea, rice-fermented arra liquor) to the guests in this lively yet highly spiritual event.
Fly home.
| Date | Priced from |
| October 13 - 26, 2007 | $49,950 |
| Single Occupancy: | $54,950 |
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