What to Do in Thailand: 9 Experiences You Can't Miss

Deciding what to do in Thailand is the hardest part of planning a trip there, because the country refuses to be one thing. In two weeks you can go from a 15-million-person megacity to jungle so thick you hear gibbons before sunrise, from 700-year-old brick temples to reefs full of manta rays - and the internal flights cost about as much as a nice dinner at home. Thailand is also genuinely easy: the food is world-class and cheap, the transport works, and people are patient with confused visitors. Here are nine experiences worth building a trip around, with notes on the best time to visit each.

Bangkok: Temples, Street Food and Beautiful Chaos

Most people treat Bangkok as an airport with a city attached, which is a mistake - give it three days minimum. Start with Wat Arun across the river at golden hour, when the porcelain-studded spire turns the colour of a peach, then cross by ferry to the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha. Eat at Or Tor Kor market, get a green curry from a plastic-stool place in Banglamphu, and book one dinner at Jay Fai or Sorn if you want to see what Thai cooking does at the very top end. The best time to visit is November to February, when humidity drops to something survivable; avoid April unless you want Songkran, the nationwide water fight, which is either the highlight of your trip or a reason to stay indoors.

Chiang Mai: The Old City and the Mountains Behind It

Chiang Mai is Thailand's cultural capital and the reason half the country's visitors end up extending their stay. The moated Old City packs in more than 30 temples - Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phra Singh, Wat Chiang Man - and you can see the best of them on foot in a morning. Then get out of town: ride up to Doi Suthep for the view over the valley, hike in Doi Inthanon National Park, or take a cooking class in the Mae Rim hills where you pick herbs before you cook with them. Eat khao soi, the northern coconut curry noodle soup, at least twice - Khao Soi Khun Yai is the local benchmark.

Wat Rong Khun: Thailand's Surreal White Temple

Three hours north of Chiang Mai in Chiang Rai sits the strangest building in Thailand. Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, is the ongoing life's work of artist Chalermchai Kositpipat - all blinding white plaster and mirrored glass, approached across a bridge rising out of a sea of reaching plaster hands representing human desire. Inside, the murals are stranger still, mixing Buddhist cosmology with Neo, Freddy Krueger and spaceships. Go early (it opens at 8am) to beat the bus tours, and pair it with the nearby Blue Temple, Wat Rong Suea Ten, which does the same trick in cobalt and gold.

Ayutthaya: The Ruined Capital Upriver

For 400 years Ayutthaya was one of the largest cities on earth, a trading capital of a million people, until the Burmese army sacked it in 1767 and left it as a field of decapitated Buddhas and leaning brick prangs. It's an easy day trip from Bangkok - about 80 minutes by train for pocket change - and the site is best covered by rented bicycle, since the ruins are spread across a river island. Don't miss Wat Mahathat, where a sandstone Buddha head sits nested in the roots of a banyan tree, or Wat Chaiwatthanaram at sunset. Go on a weekday morning before the heat builds; there's almost no shade.

Railay Beach: Limestone Cliffs and World-Class Climbing

Railay is a peninsula near Krabi so hemmed in by limestone walls that there's no road to it - you arrive by longtail boat from Ao Nang, which sets the tone nicely. It's one of the great rock climbing destinations on the planet, with hundreds of bolted routes on grippy limestone, and most schools will take absolute beginners up something on their first morning. If you're not climbing, walk the rope-and-mud scramble to the Railay viewpoint and the hidden lagoon, kayak to Phra Nang Cave Beach, and stay for the sunset. The Andaman coast season runs November to April; by June the monsoon swell shuts a lot of it down.

Phang Nga Bay: Kayaking Through Sea Caves

Phang Nga Bay is the image that sold the world on Thailand - hundreds of karst towers rising vertically out of green water north of Phuket. The rewarding way to see it isn't the speedboat tour to the James Bond Island photo stop, but a kayak trip into the hongs: collapsed cave systems where you paddle through a low tunnel at the right tide and emerge in a hidden lagoon ringed by jungle cliffs. Koh Hong and Koh Panak are the classics, and a few operators run bioluminescence paddles after dark. Book a small-group trip leaving from Ao Thalane or Ao Po rather than the big Phuket piers, and aim for early morning before the day boats arrive.

Khao Sok: Sleeping on a Floating Bungalow

Khao Sok National Park protects a rainforest older than the Amazon, and at its heart is Cheow Lan Lake - an emerald reservoir studded with limestone spires that look like a lost world, because they essentially are. You sleep in a raft house floating on the water, swim off your porch, and wake at dawn for a longtail safari to spot hornbills, gibbons and, if you're absurdly lucky, wild elephants. Add the guided trek to Nam Talu cave or a night walk through the jungle, where the noise is genuinely startling. It's a must-see stop between Surat Thani and the Andaman coast, and December to April gives you the driest trails.

The Similan Islands: Thailand's Best Diving

The Similans, a national park archipelago 40 miles off Khao Lak, are where Thailand's diving stops being nice and becomes world-class. Visibility hits 30 metres over granite boulder swim-throughs and soft coral gardens, with reef sharks, turtles and schooling barracuda as standard - and if you push north to Richelieu Rock, whale sharks and manta rays are a real possibility. The park is closed to visitors from mid-May to mid-October, so the season is strictly November to April, with February to April the peak for big pelagics. Liveaboards of three or four nights get you the remote sites; day boats will do if you're short on time.

Yi Peng: Releasing a Lantern into the Night Sky

If you can time your trip for the full moon in November, do it. Loy Krathong sees Thais float candlelit banana-leaf offerings down rivers across the country, while in Chiang Mai the northern Lanna festival of Yi Peng fills the sky with thousands of paper lanterns at the same time - one of the most extraordinary things you will ever stand underneath. Book accommodation months ahead, as the city sells out completely. Skip the staged paid-entry lantern events if you'd rather see the real thing along the Ping River and around Tha Phae Gate, where the whole city turns out.

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