Wonders of Thailand | Most Amazing Places in Thailand | 4K Travel Guide

Thailand, land of golden temples, land of paradise beaches, land of smiles and spirituality. There's a land that begins among the misty peaks of the north and dissolves to the south into a thousand islands scattered between two oceans. It's the only kingdom in Southeast Asia that no empire ever bent to its will. It guards ancient capitals, golden temples and a boundless faith that marks every dawn. This is Thailand. They call it the land of smile and it takes very little to understand why. Here that gesture is among the first things you encounter and it's never merely politeness. It can express welcome, respect, embarrassment, gratitude or simply the desire to keep the peace. Behind the very same expression in short, very different emotions and intentions can coexist. And to understand where all of this comes from, you first have to look at how the country is made. You only need to glance at a map to notice that Thailand has a shape you won't forget. A compact body in the center in the north and then a very long strip of land that runs down toward the south like the trunk of an elephant. It's no accident that the elephant has always been its symbol but that silhouette tells far more than an image. It tells the story of three countries within a single nation. The north is mountain. There are peaks and valleys blanketed in fog and in winter a cold that no one would expect from a tropical country. The center is the great rice paddy of Thailand. A vast fertile plain crossed by rivers that for centuries has fed the entire nation. And then there's the south which is something else entirely. Here the protagonist is no longer the land but the water. It stretches out into an ever narrower tongue of land that plunges into the Malay Peninsula, squeezed between two seas. And these two seas are not alike at all. Thailand is one of the few countries in the world facing two oceans that behave in literally opposite ways. On one side there's the Andaman Sea, on the other the Gulf. The monsoons reach them at different times so when it's pouring rain on one side the sun is often shining on the other. It's a country where summer in a certain sense never truly ends because you only have to switch coasts. But the real thread that holds all of this together can't be seen on any map. Here spirituality isn't one aspect of life. It's the fabric on which everything rests and you notice it right away even before stepping into a temple. In front of houses, hotels and even in front of skyscrapers there's almost always a tiny house in miniature set upon a pedestal. It's the spirit house. The dwelling of those who according to tradition inhabited that place before the living. Every day people leave flowers, incense, food and brightly colored drinks there so the spirit will protect the building and above all won't disturb those who live in it. Once a year then this spirituality turns into light. It's during Loy Krathong celebrated all across the country. On the water people set adrift small rafts made of banana leaf with a candle and a bit of incense. They serve to let go of the grudges of the year just passed and to give thanks to the goddess of the rivers. At the very same moment in the north thousands of paper lanterns are released into the sky until the darkness fills with lights that drift upward. It's one of the country's most beloved images and it alone is enough to explain why it's so hard to forget. Then there's something simpler but just as revealing of the way people live here. In Thailand in fact much of life takes place in the street. Bangkok has been crowned more than once the street food capital of the world and that's no small title. For a great many Thais cooking at home is almost the exception. People eat out at every hour of the day and night amid the smoke of the carts and the clatter of big pans over the fire. Eating here is a collective affair and within everyone's reach and there's no place where all of this explodes with more force than in its capital Bangkok. A city that smells of spices and gasoline but also of jasmine and river all at the same time. Bangkok is the disordered heartbeat of Thailand where 12 million people move among glass skyscrapers and golden temples. The Chao Phraya river cuts it in two and on that water the bus boats still move loaded with people with sacks of rice and with monks in orange robes. In the alleyways the stalls fry from dawn until deep into the night. There are skewers, noodles and kinds of fruit that few know how to name. It's curious to learn that the city's full ceremonial name is the longest in the world with over 160 letters and children learn it by singing it at school. And yet all the swarming has a fixed point, an ancient heart around which everything has grown. Because Bangkok wasn't born by chance. On the contrary it was born around a temple built to safeguard the most sacred thing in the kingdom, Wat Phra Kaeo. In 1782 a king founds a new capital and the first thing he wants to build isn't his palace but this temple. Rama the first erects it to enthrone the Emerald Buddha and to give his young dynasty the seal of heaven. From that gesture the entire city takes shape like a tree around its seed. Inside the walls of the grand palace everything dazzles. There are gilded spires, glass mosaics and guardian monsters as tall as houses standing watch at the gates. The Emerald Buddha is the most venerated in the country but in truth it's not made of emerald but of green jade and it's barely 60 centimeters or about two feet tall. But not far from here across the river another temple answers all this splendor with a silence of pale stone and broken porcelain. Wat Arun. It's on the west bank of the same river that cuts through Bangkok and its name means temple of the dawn. Wat Arun is a single spire pointing at the sky 70 meters or roughly 230 feet of pale stone that from a distance looks like gold. Then you get closer and the magic reveals itself. It's not gold that covers it but thousands of shards of Chinese porcelain. They're fragments of broken plates and vases which were the ballast the ships carried from China set one by one to form flowers and stars. It's beauty born from scraps. At sunset then the stone glows pink. This spire is almost a built mountain a kind of sacred peak that rises from the waters but the very same shape elsewhere the earth has carved by itself straight up from the sea. Phang Nga Bay. A bay where the sea is green and still and out of it rise hundreds of mountains. There's sheer limestone towers up to 300 meters or about 980 feet tall and covered in jungle clinging to the bare rock. Phang Nga is a labyrinth of water and stone in the south of Thailand where the silence is broken only by the splash of the paddles. Inside these towers time has also carved out caves. You go in by canoe beneath vaults of stalactites and you surface again in secret lagoons sealed inside the islands that reveal themselves only at low tide. Among the rocks there's also a shape the whole world recognizes. It's an eyelet shaped like an upside down nail famous not for its geology but for the movies. Here back in 74 James Bond chased his enemy and a little farther south on another beach along this coast Leonardo DiCaprio searched instead for his lost paradise. Pee Bee Islands. Two sister islands suspended between vertical cliffs and water the color of glass. Pee Pee is the tropical dream made into a postcard. There are white cliffs that plunge into the turquoise, beaches of powdery sand and boats with flower deck prows. The most famous Maya Bay is a crescent of water closed off by walls hundreds of meters high. It was she the set of the film The Beached in 2000 and its very popularity in part destroyed it. It was trampled by thousands of feet a day and for this reason the bay was closed for years so that nature could heal itself. Today the corals are back and the reef sharks too but this very popularity that suffocates also finds its exact opposite in Thailand. Rayleigh. There are places that stay themselves because no road has ever reached them and Rayleigh is precisely one of these. A peninsula of Krabi cut off from the mainland reachable only by boat. The limestone cliffs plunge straight down into pale beaches and onto those walls climbers arrive from all over the world. Those who don't want to climb can walk to the princess lagoon hidden inside the mountain. Here the quiet isn't an affectation but is the consequence of the absence of roads. These waters for centuries have also been the home of a people who never left the sea. Koh Lanta. Farther south where the islands grow calmer we find Koh Lanta. It's long peaceful with wide beaches and slow sunsets. This island is the heart of the Urak Lawoy, the so-called sea people of the Andamans. They're nomads who for centuries lived on their boats to the rhythm of the monsoons. Today they still live in the old town with wooden houses on stilts that reach out over the water. Khao Sok National Park. A forest so ancient that the trees seem to remember the dinosaurs. Khao Sok is one of the oldest rainforests on earth standing for around 160 million years older than the Amazon. Here there are limestone towers that don't rise from the sea but from fresh water. Lake Shaolan is a green mirror where pinnacles as tall as skyscrapers rise straight up from the still waters. The rafflesia also grows here, the largest flower in the world that reeks of rotting flesh to attract the flies. In this park the color green is everywhere. In the forest, in the water and even in the light itself. But now it's time to make room for the blue. Similon Islands. Beneath the surface of the Andaman Sea another world is hidden. The Similons are nine granite islands uninhabited and famous not for what you see above but for what pulses below. One of the richest sea beds on the planet. Round boulders as big as houses tumble underwater into arches and tunnels and among them swim manta rays, whale sharks, turtles and endless schools of fish. The water is so clear that you can see down to 30 meters or about 100 feet deep. To protect them the islands close every year for five months. They're the holy grail of divers, the dream chased by those who seek the perfect sea. But let's leave the Andamans for now and move to the other coast in the Gulf of Thailand. Ang Thong Marine Park. 42 islands scattered across the gulf like green splinters on the water. Ang Thong also called the golden bowl is an archipelago of limestone almost uninhabited where the towers of rock cloak themselves in forest. One of them however hides a lagoon sealed within its belly that can be reached only by climbing a steep path. It's a secret lake connected to the open sea by an underground tunnel invisible to those who pass by boat. The park is toured by kayak among the rocks and you sleep on the boat cradled by the water. Here everything revolves around the water but there are also places in this country where everything revolves around the sun. Phnom Rung. On an extinct volcano on the eastern plateau a thousand-year-old temple rises. Phnom Rung is a Khmer sanctuary of pinkish sandstone raised by the very same empire as Angkor as a stairway toward the heaven of kings. Its wonder is the light. For a few mornings a year the dawn pierces in perfect alignment all 15 of its doorways with a straight ray that crosses the entire sanctuary. On those days thousands of people gather in the dark at dawn to watch it happen. Let's now visit another temple which is the newest in the country. White Temple. All white dazzling as if carved from ice. The White Temple is little more than 30 years old and is still unfinished. It was imagined by a single living artist who clad it in pure white plaster and thousands of slivers of mirrored glass so that in the sun it would sparkle like snow. But the sweetness of the color deceives. To reach it you cross a bridge stretched above a sea of hands that metaphorically reach up from hell and inside beside the Buddha paintings of spaceships and movie superheroes appear. There's the sacred and the pop in the same white and paradise and nightmare a step apart. The artist built it and financed it out of his own pocket with a single ambition to leave Thailand a masterpiece that the whole world would remember. Chiang Mai. The name itself says it all and means new city. King Mong Rai founded it in 1296 34 years after Chiang Rai walled and destined to become the true capital of Lana. Still today the old center is a perfect square ringed by walls and by a moat within which more than 30 ancient temples can be counted. Chiang Mai is the heart of the north, gentler and slower than Bangkok, scented with teak and incense. At dawn the monks come out barefoot for alms while in the evening the night markets fill up with lanterns and with steaming skewers. All around the city is embraced by the mountains and the tallest of them all bears the name of a king who wished to remain there forever. Doi Inthanon, the roof of Thailand. Doi Inthanon is the highest mountain in the country and bears the name of the last sovereign king of Chiang Mai who loved these forests so much that he had his ashes kept on the summit. Up here at 2,500 meters or about 8,200 feet something rare for this nation happens. It's cold. At dawn the frost whitens the grass and Thais climb up on purpose to feel once in a lifetime the wonder of standing above the clouds. The forest is carpeted with moss, the waterfalls roar among the trees and two twin towers mirror themselves in the flowering gardens. It's the cold spot in a country of sun but you only have to come down from these heights and the north changes its face. Among the mountains nestles a valley where everything slows down. Pai, a green hollow among the mountains where time melts away. Pai is a village that became a refuge for those who seek slowness. You get there from Chiang Mai passing along a legendary road with over 700 curves carved into the forest. Then everything settles. There are flooded rice paddies that reflect the sky, hot springs among the woods and bamboo cafes along the river. Here you don't come to see something specific but to feel free. Along the same mountain road by which you arrive here another border town awaits with its blood divided between two countries. Mae Hong Son. It's a town of fog and a frontier left at the margins of the modern world. Ringed by dense mountains it was for centuries so isolated that you could reach it only on elephant back. Here Thailand fades into Burma with temples that have domes and golden spires in the Burmese style and the houses are of dark teak wood. The people are Shan, that is Thai on paper but Burmese in blood. In the morning a small lake in the center steams with mist and two white temples mirror themselves in the still water. Here the deep north ends and much farther south near Bangkok Thailand changes its face once again and becomes jungle. Khao Yai National Park. The first national park in Thailand a few hours from Bangkok but a completely different world. Khao Yai is true jungle where the city vanishes. Here lives one of the last great herds of wild elephants sometimes crossing the roads or leaving their prints in the mud and again when they gather near the brackish pools. Whoever enters at dawn may hear their steps among the trees or cross paths with gibbons and hornbills with their enormous beaks. It's therefore a piece of wild nature that Thailand decided to save a few hours from the city. And it's the elephant itself that leads to our next place where however it's no longer the animal in flesh and blood but the sacred one of the legends. Erawan National Park. Seven steps of water the color of emerald that climb up into the forest. The Erawan waterfalls are a staircase of turquoise pools one above the other in which you immerse yourself while small fish come to graze your skin. They take their name from Erawan the divine three-headed elephant because the highest level is said to recall its shape. To get there you climb on foot through the forest and the effort is repaid at the top. There the water is clear and free to fall as it pleases. Elsewhere instead it has been tamed to the millimeter and closed into a straight canal willed by a king. Damnan Saduak floating market. This is the most famous floating market in Thailand. The postcard that the world came to photograph. It was born in a straight canal that a king had dug in 1866 to join two rivers. Then along its banks villages grew that learned to live and to trade on the water and so the market was born. Still today at dawn the elderly women with their cone-shaped straw hats paddle along selling mangoes. Steaming noodles and coconut opened on the spot. The water smells of spices and of burnt sugar. Leaving behind the inland canals the route descends to the coast of the gulf where a city of an entirely different nature rises. Pattaya a spread of neon lights that switch on when the sun goes down. Pattaya was a quiet fishing village until in the 60s the American soldiers on leave from Vietnam chose it for their amusement. From there in a few years it became a coast of signs and endless nightlife. The curved beach follows the bay the long tail boats wait for the tourists and behind the noise quiet islands remain a short distance away. It's the most brazen face of Thailand the country that sells its present. But not all the coasts of Thailand owe their fortune to tourism. The country's largest island for example grew rich much earlier and for an entirely different reason. Phuket it owes its first wealth not to tourism but to a medal. Tin. A century before the crowded beaches in fact the Chinese miners came to extract it and with them came an unexpected elegance. In the old town remain their Sino-Portuguese mansions which are rows of low houses in colors with porticos and shutters. Today its western beaches draw the whole world but in the alleys of the center people still eat as they did back then among century-old shops and Chinese temples smoky with incense. The island's name comes from the Malay bukit which means hill and just as with this island our next stop too carries its own profile written in its name. Ko Chang island it means elephant island precisely for its profile that recalls a crouching pachyderm asleep on the sea. It's the second largest island in the country yet it has remained wild covered for the most part by a rainforest that descends all the way to the shore. There are long beaches to the west fishing villages on stilts to the east and waterfalls hidden in the green. In 1941 offshore a naval battle was fought between Thailand and France and today its tranquil waters have by now erased the gunpowder. But this isn't the only island to have buried its past beneath tranquil waters. Koh Tao a speck of granite in the gulf today a paradise for divers. Koh Tao means turtle island and is one of the most beloved destinations in the world for learning to dive. There are warm transparent waters and coral reefs a step from the shore but behind the piece there's a grim history because from 1933 it was a penal colony for political prisoners. Today the same waters that were prison walls are crossed for relaxing among turtles and schools of fish. An island you couldn't get out of has today become a refuge for relaxing. On the next island instead the hard part was getting there Koh Samui. It's the island that for generations couldn't be reached. It was so remote that until a few decades ago it had neither road nor airport. You arrived only after hours of boat and the few inhabitants lived on fishing and coconuts with millions of palms that still cover the interior. Then the world discovered it and today it's one of the most beloved destinations of the gulf between golden beaches and seaside resorts. But its highest mark remains the spiritual one. On a hill sits the great golden buddha 12 meters or about 40 feet tall and gazing directly at the sea. And this seated giant has a far older and reclining relative kept in the heart of the capital. Wat Pho behind the walls of the oldest temple in Bangkok a golden giant reposes. Wat Pho guards the reclining buddha an immense statue of 46 meters or about 150 feet lying on its side to fill an entire hall. You walk along its golden body without managing to take it all in with a single glance. It represents the buddha entering nirvana. Death is a placid surrender and its face smiles serenely. The soles of its feet 5 meters or about 16 feet long are inlaid with mother of pearl with 180 sacred symbols. This place is also the cradle of Thai massage still taught here today. But the same theme which is precisely death elsewhere takes on a face quite different from peace and nirvana. Khanchanaburi a wide and calm river and over at a bridge that carries the weight of memory. This is the place of the death railway built during the second world war to connect Thailand to Burma. It was built by prisoners of war and forced laborers and tens of thousands died of hunger disease and exhaustion. Today the bridge over the river Kwai is still there crossed by the trains and along the bank the war cemeteries line up thousands of white headstones in an absolute silence. From here the ancient road to Burma also passes and it was precisely from Burma that in 1767 came the armies that raised the capital of Siam to the ground. Ayutthaya a city of ruins that floats on a river island. Ayutthaya was for four centuries the splendid capital of Siam one of the largest and richest cities in the world with gilded palaces and over a million inhabitants visited by merchants from every country. Then in 1767 the Burmese armies took it and raised it to the ground. The temples were gutted the statues decapitated and the gold was melted down and carried away. Today there remains a field of broken towers and headless buddhas. It's the image of an old capital destroyed and from here our journey climbs back to the origin of it all to the capital that came before where Thai history had its beginning Sukhothai. Here is where it all began and where everything has stayed serene. Sukhothai was the first great Thai kingdom the cradle from which the nation was born flourishing in the 1200s even before Ayutthaya. Unlike the shattered capital here the ruins lie intact and quiet in a vast park of meadows and mirrors of water where the lotuses bloom among the temples. The seated buddhas still smile among the lotus bud-shaped pagodas while the famous walking buddha seems almost to move in silence. At Sukhothai where it all began our journey ends. Beyond these quiet ruins far from here the land continues. Thailand fades into its borders and gives way to other nations. Jungles, rivers and temples carry on beyond the frontier but this is no longer part of our story. A new journey awaits us elsewhere. Thank you for watching.