Essential Thailand: Bangkok & Ayutthaya

Bangkok is the frenetic, captivating heartbeat of Thailand, a metropolis where glass towers mirror in the canals and the gold of temples gleams beside the night markets. Its historic core is Rattanakosin, the island wrapped in a bend of the Chao Phraya River: here stands the Grand Palace, a dazzling royal complex that houses Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the country’s most revered image. A few steps away, Wat Pho shelters the colossal Reclining Buddha, forty-six metres long and sheathed in gold leaf, along with the city’s oldest school of traditional massage. On the far bank rises Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, its slender prang clad in porcelain that catches the sunset light. Travelling up the Chao Phraya by boat, you cross an amphibious city studded with jetties, floating markets and districts such as Thonburi, where the canals tell the story of old Bangkok. To the north, Dusit preserves royal palaces and broad avenues, while Chinatown, along Yaowarat Road, is a maze of gold shops, herbalists and street-food stalls that by night become a teeming stage of aromas. The capital’s modern face pulses instead at Siam and Sukhumvit, among futuristic malls, rooftop bars suspended in the sky and the buzz of Chatuchak market, where thousands of stalls sell everything imaginable. The food is one of the great reasons to come: pad thai, tom yum, fragrant curries and coconut sweets enjoyed at street tables or in refined restaurants. Bangkok is not so much visited as ridden like a wave: chaotic, generous, unforgettable.

Ayutthaya was for four centuries the splendid capital of the kingdom of Siam, today a historical park inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On the river island enclosed by waterways, the ruins of temples and palaces tell of a city once among the richest and most populous in Asia. Wat Mahathat guards the famous Buddha head cradled in tree roots, while Wat Phra Si Sanphet lines up three elegant stupas that dominate the old royal citadel. Cycling or sailing along the canals, you discover a landscape of red-brick prangs and headless Buddhas, witnesses to the fall of 1767. A little over an hour from Bangkok, Ayutthaya is a journey into the glorious memory of Siam.