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Best places to visit in Thailand!
Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles for a reason. From white-sand beaches, stunning rainforests and temples to night markets, shops and big city hubbub, there’s something for everyone. Whether you want to scuba dive round some of Thailand’s 1,430 islands, explore the countryside or bar-hop in Bangkok, you’re certainly spoilt for choice. To help narrow things down, here we round up some of the best places to visit.
1. Chiang Mai
A 90-minute flight north of Bangkok, Thailand’s second city, Chiang Mai, remains resolutely everything that Bangkok is not: smaller, cooler, artier, ringed with verdant temple-topped hills and bursting with beautiful and distinctive wooden buildings. Stay on the quiet eastern edge of town for the better spa hotels with dreamy Ping River views. Browse the craft and night markets and wander round the wooden temples (Wat Chedi Luang is laced in filigree carving every bit as riotous as Versailles’ rococo). Wake early to watch saffron-swathed monks collect alms in the misty morning light around the mountain-top temple at Doi Suthep. Then make for the mountains — cooling hill-forest hikes have been a Chiang Mai staple since the 1970s.
Chiang Mai’s smaller sister, Chiang Rai, is within driving distance, with its spectacular White Temple and longboat rides on the Kok River. Adventurers can go white-water rafting at Pai, while culture fans will love the 13th-century ruins of Sukhothai, the teak houses of Nan and historical Phrae.
2. Bangkok
Bangkok is a buzzing, baffling and mesmerising mix of ancient and modern, palaces and temples, gleaming skyscrapers and crowded alleys. Among the big-hitters, wander among the gilded roofs and ornate murals of the Grand Palace, the revered jade sage at adjacent Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and the vast reclining Buddha at Wat Pho (make time for a traditional treatment at its respected massage school), then bar-hop or shop through the travellers’ enclave of Khao San Road.
Escape the capital’s crowds by exploring Bangkok as it used to be. It’s still there along the river, in the early-morning marigold markets and the narrow alleys and canals of Thonburi district, where the city began in the 1780s. You’ll find fruit sold from dug-out canoes and locals playing mahjong in teak-wood shop-houses. Allow at least half a day to visit Thonburi by bike or take a river boat. Then go ultra-modern with a Blade R
To really touch the heart of Thailand’s “City of Angels”, though, take to the water. The Chao Phraya River is the city’s throbbing artery. Whether you cruise it aboard a private boat, a restored rice barge or a 10-baht (25p) express ferry, you’ll pass sacred shrines including the luminous Wat Arun, or “Temple of the Dawn”. Climb the vertiginous central tower for sweeping views. Hire a longtail boat to explore the khlongs (canals) of old Bangkok and a nearby floating market. Tha Kha at Samut Songkhram is the most authentic, crammed with boats laden with flowers, fruit and vegetables.
Khao Yai National Park in Isan is an easy-access wilderness, doable in a day trip from Bangkok. As well as housing cheeky macaques and muntjac deer, there’s nowhere better in Southeast Asia to see wild elephants.
3. Ko Khao Phing Kan
This toothy outcrop in the waters of Phang Nga Bay, northeast of Phuket, often goes by a more memorable moniker: James Bond Island. Ever since its starring role in the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun, it’s been a hit among visitors hoping to relive Roger Moore’s romps across beautiful beaches with Britt Ekland, and following the trail of Christopher Lee’s evil assassin, Francisco Scaramanga, through dense jungle. The location is every bit as dramatic as it is in the film and a day-trip by boat is a serene way to experience it. Departing from the Thai mainland, a Phang Nga Bay trip takes you across a sea seemingly equal parts milk and mouthwash, below cliffs that drip limestone like melting wax, around bays of cookie-tan sand. And the only shady characters you’ll see are those hiding from the sun under the palms.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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