Khao Yai National Park
Thailand's first national park and a UNESCO site — jungle waterfalls, wild elephants, gibbons and hornbills, under three hours from Bangkok.
Region
Isan (Northeast)
Thailand off the tourist trail — Khmer ruins, silk villages, fiery food and some of the friendliest people in the country.
Isan is a third of Thailand's land, a third of its people, and a tiny fraction of its foreign visitors. It sits on the Khorat Plateau, bounded by the Mekong and Laos to the north and east and Cambodia to the south, and it leans culturally closer to Laos than to Bangkok.
It was the northwestern frontier of the Khmer empire, which is why there are temples here contemporary with Angkor Wat — Phanom Rung above all — that you will often have entirely to yourself. It is also the source of som tam, larb and gai yang, which is to say most of the Thai food the rest of the world thinks of as Thai food.
Distances are large, English is scarce and public transport is thin. It is the region where a driver makes the biggest single difference to a trip, and the one that rewards the effort most.
Suits: Second-time visitors, food travellers, anyone tired of the tourist trail.
Places to visit in Isan (Northeast)
Phanom Rung: Thailand's Khmer Temple on a Volcano
A 1,000-year-old Khmer temple crowning an extinct volcano in Buri Ram — Isan's answer to Angkor Wat, beautifully restored, and gloriously free of crowds.
Sam Phan Bok: The Grand Canyon of Thailand
A surreal field of rock pools and stone channels carved by the Mekong in Ubon Ratchathani — exposed only in the dry season, and one of Isan's strangest sights.
Other regions of Thailand
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