Central Thailand Region Guide

Central Thailand is the country’s heartland — the flat, intensively farmed plain of the Chao Phraya where Thai power has always been based, and where most visitors arrive without realising they are in a region at all.

Bangkok dominates it: the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, the canals of Thonburi, street food that has no equal, and a restaurant and bar scene that has become genuinely world-class.

An hour north, Ayutthaya was the capital for four centuries and one of the largest cities on earth before the Burmese destroyed it in 1767. Its brick prangs and headless Buddhas are UNESCO-listed and best seen by bicycle at dawn.

West lies Kanchanaburi, the bridge on the Kwai, the war cemeteries and the Death Railway cut through the hills — sobering, and set in country that is unexpectedly beautiful.

And the plain itself: rice, canals, floating markets and temples in every village.

Bangkok

The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, then Wat Pho for the reclining Buddha and a massage in the school that codified Thai massage. Cross the river to Wat Arun at sunset. Chatuchak market at the weekend, the canal boats of Thonburi, and an evening eating your way along Yaowarat Road.

Ayutthaya

An hour by train. The UNESCO-listed ruins spread across an island between three rivers: Wat Mahathat with the Buddha head in the fig roots, Wat Chaiwatthanaram on the riverbank, and Wat Phra Si Sanphet’s three chedis. Hire a bicycle and start early.

Kanchanaburi

The bridge on the River Kwai, the Allied war cemeteries, the JEATH and Thailand-Burma Railway Centre museums, and Hellfire Pass, a cutting hacked through rock by hand. Beyond it, Erawan’s seven-tiered waterfall and the reservoirs of Sai Yok.

The plain

Lopburi, with Khmer ruins overrun by macaques; Nakhon Pathom’s vast chedi, the tallest stupa in the world; and the floating and railway markets around Samut Songkhram.

Getting out of the city

Khao Yai, the first national park, is three hours away and has gibbons, hornbills and elephants.

Central Thai culture is the one that became national: the dialect, the food and the court traditions of this plain are what the rest of the country was taught in school.

The centre of gravity

Standard Thai is the central dialect. The monarchy, the bureaucracy and the army are all based here, and the region’s share of the country’s wealth is enormously disproportionate — Bangkok alone generates a large fraction of national output, and the gap with the north-east is a permanent political fault line.

Water

The plain was a landscape of rivers and canals long before it had roads, and the old settlements all face the water. Houses on stilts, temples with landing steps, markets held from boats and the Royal Barge Procession are all expressions of a culture that moved by river first.

Court and temple

Central Thai temple architecture — steep multi-tiered roofs, gilt, coloured glass mosaic — is the style most people picture as Thai. Classical dance, the khon masked drama of the Ramakien, and the shadow puppetry of the old court all come from here.

Chinese Bangkok

A very large Thai-Chinese population, several generations settled, shapes the commerce, the temples and a good deal of the food.

Face and calm

Kreng jai — a reluctance to impose or cause discomfort — governs a great deal of interaction, and open anger is a serious loss of face.

The Death Railway sites at Kanchanaburi are war graves. Around ninety thousand Asian labourers and twelve thousand Allied prisoners died building the line. The cemeteries and Hellfire Pass are places to be quiet in, not to pose at, and the museums are worth the time they ask.

Elephant and tiger attractions cluster in this region. Avoid riding, bathing-on-demand and any venue offering photographs with sedated or chained animals. Genuine sanctuaries do not put you in contact with the animal.

Floating markets range from working canals to staged sets. Damnoen Saduak is largely the latter; Amphawa and Tha Kha are closer to the real thing and are busiest with Thai visitors at weekends.

Bangkok’s canals are polluted and the khlong communities along them are people’s homes; longtail tours should not be treated as a safari.

Air quality in Bangkok is poor for much of the dry season, and the city is sinking and flood-prone; both are worth understanding.

Eat at street stalls — they are the city’s best food and its most fragile small economy.

November to February is the cool, dry season and the only genuinely comfortable stretch: Bangkok around 32°C by day with low humidity and cool mornings. It is the peak season and prices reflect it.

March to May is brutally hot — Bangkok regularly exceeds 35°C with high humidity, and April is the worst month of the year anywhere in the region. Sightseeing is possible only early and late.

June to October is the wet season, with heavy afternoon downpours, occasional flooding in the city, and much lower prices. It rarely rains all day, and the plain is at its greenest.

Songkran, the Thai new year, falls on 13 to 15 April and shuts much of the region down for days of water-throwing.

Loi Krathong in November fills the rivers and canals with floating offerings, and the Bangkok riverside is the place to see it.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the region

Bangkok spans a wider range than almost any city on earth: a superb bowl of noodles costs under two dollars a few streets from a bar charging twenty for a cocktail.