Despite its expanding, modern suburbs, the old, moated, low-rise core of Thailand’s second city retains the ambience of a traditional market town. Numerous antique houses survive in the winding back lanes of its old quarter, along with a bu…

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In the far north of Thailand, Chiang Rai served briefly as the capital of the medieval Lan Na kingdom before the rise of Chiang Mai. Today, it’s known primarily as the gateway to the Golden Triangle region – “golden” because of the wealth t…

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Most of northeastern Thailand, known as ‘Isaan’, is made up of the vast Khorat Plateau – a dry, red-dirt scrubland undulating between 200m and 300m (650–1,000ft) as far as the Mekong Valley and Laos border. Though it’s the poorest corner of…

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Nowhere is more emblematic of the sufferings endured by the Allied PoWs and other Asian labour slaves co-opted by the Japanese into constructing the Siam–Burma Railroad than the bridge over the Kwai Yai River, just north of Kanchanaburi tow…

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Khanom is a provincial town in Southeast Thailand, reliant on small-scale fishing and farming. Although easily reached from nearby Surat Thani airport, its long sandy beach is gloriously unspoilt. The few travellers that frequent it may be…

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Hua Hin is a well-known beach resort about three hours’ drive south of Bangkok. Less well-known is that a short drive from here is a beautiful coastal national park with gigantic limestone cliffs soaring up from the coast, overlooking tropi…

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Located close to several of the main resorts on Thailand’s southwestern seaboard, the Khao Sok National Park encompasses a wondrously scenic tract of karst islets and pinnacles that rise in dramatic style from a tangle of turquoise bays. In…

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A three-hour drive north-east of Bangkok takes you to Thailand’s oldest-established and largest national park, Khao Yai. Spread over 770 sq miles (2,000 sq km) of forested mountains, the sanctuary is laced with a network of tarred roads and…

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Scattered amid lawned grounds on an island encircled by the Lopburi, Pasak and Chao Phraya rivers, the crumbling chedis (stupas) and Buddha images at the Ayutthaya Historical Park, 49 miles (80km) north of Bangkok, are all that remains of t…

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At the eastern extremity of Issan, on the Laos-Thai border, the small town of Khong Jiam clusters on the tip of a peninsula overlooking the confluence of the Mekong and Mun Rivers. The mingling of the different coloured waters (the Mekong i…

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This large, rugged island near the Cambodian border is one of Thailand’s few remaining undeveloped Edens. An hour’s flight south-east of Bangkok, it’s a place of sleepy fishing villages, untrammelled rainforest, rubber plantations and deser…

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An hour’s boat ride south of Krabi, Koh Lanta Yai is a predominantly Muslim fishing island – the largest in an archipelago of 52, protected by the Koh Lanta Marine National Park. Low, forested hills sweep from its shoreline, scalloped by pr…

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