Central Thailand

Thailand's capital mixes gilded temples and royal palaces with chaotic markets, riverside food stalls and a skyline of rooftop bars.

Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam for four hundred years and one of the largest cities on earth before a Burmese army destroyed it in 1767.

The province and town at Thailand's far southeastern corner, against the Cambodian border, and the route to Koh Chang, Koh Mak and Koh Kood.

A flat coconut and rubber island between Koh Chang and Koh Kood, about thirty square kilometres, quiet enough to cycle across and owned for generations by a handful of families.

Thailand's fourth-largest island and one of its least developed: about two thousand people, a few villages, no nightlife and no town, at the far eastern end of the country near Cambodian water.

Thailand's second-largest island, in Trat near the Cambodian border, and the one most people have not been to.

Koh Samet is the island Bangkok goes to for the weekend: three hours by road and forty minutes by boat, inside a national park, with white sand on its eastern side and very little on the rest of it.

Pattaya is a city of a hundred thousand people on the Gulf, two hours from Bangkok, with a reputation that belongs to one street of it and three beaches that are three different holidays.