Unspoilt southern Thailand by train

Not far from the country’s tourist-packed resorts, daily trains from Bangkok glide serenely past ancient royal retreats, Buddhist cities, tropical forests and deserted seashores.

In a rainforest wilderness in southern Thailand, Bau
and Boi were being attacked by predators. Dozens of them. As soon as the pair
stopped on the rainforest trail another would go after their blood. As one sunk
its teeth into Bau’s thigh, their guide swiftly dabbed it with mashed-up
cigarette. It released its grip, withered and fell to the ground.

“Leeches hate tobacco,” Boi said, grimacing and
wiping away the blood. “But I love leeches — they’re a sign that the forest is
healthy. There are so many here because Khao Luang is still full of [animals, like] sambar deer,
tapir, binturong and tiger.”

Thankfully there are leeches only in the wetter
months. But gibbons whistle and whoop in the trees all year round; forest
elephants leave deep round footprints on the jungle paths; clouded leopards
stalk the trails at night; and on the high slopes, where hornbills nest and
bear cats loll in the trees, there are dozens of endemic orchids. According to local
wildlife guide Jens Kühne of Mahachai
Tours, Khao
Luang National Park is “one of the natural treasure troves of South East
Asia”. Yet despite being a short journey from tourist-packed Ko Samui and
Phuket, Khao Luang receives almost no visitors. As jets and backpacker-packed
buses head for southern Thailand’s busy
resorts, daily trains glide serenely out of Bangkok on the Southern Line, passing
through a string of ancient royal retreats, Buddhist cities, deserted seashores
and tropical forests, including Khao
Luang. None of them are well-known, and tourists are considered a curiosity.

“This is
the Thailand the royal family has been enjoying for centuries — a land of
glorious temples and palaces, fabulous festivals and forests, and empty beaches
and islands,” said Thai tour operator Dee Edwards of Tell Tale Travel.

After the
pilgrim town of Nakhon Pathom (which has the largest Buddhist shrine in
Thailand), the first major stop on the Southern Line is 78 miles south of Bangkok,
Phetchaburi has been a royal retreat since the country was ruled by Rama IV (a
history portrayed in the film The King and I). The airy Phra
Nakhon Khiri summer palace, where Anna and King Rama often debated, sits high
on a rainforest-shrouded hill, overlooking Phetchaburi’s towering chedis (Thai-style Buddhist stupas). The
palace is preserved almost as the king left it – complete with 19th-century
furniture and fittings, including a huge, glass-domed observatory. The hills rippling
through Phetchaburi’s environs are pocked with ancient Buddha caves, and the
long white beaches of Hua Hin, an upmarket
spa resort town, are only a few miles away by train. The current king Bhumibol Adulyadej
built his own summer retreat in Hua Hin, which is also a good jumping off point
for a string of unspoilt tiny coral islands, like Koh Talu.

A few
hours further down the line (some 370 miles from Bangkok) is Nakhon Si
Thammarat — a magnificent traditional Buddhist city that lies at the feet of Khao
Luang’s rainforest-covered mountains. Nakhon is the Chiang Mai of southern
Thailand,– rich with history and culture and packed with temples, including Wat
Phra Mahathat Woramahawihaan (or Wat
Mahathat, as the locals say), the oldest and most important religious
building in southern Thailand, with a towering chedi that is said to contain
one of Buddha’s teeth. Nakhon is the best place in Southeast Asia to see shadow-puppet
theatre and religious dance, is celebrated throughout Thailand for its unique
nielloware-crafted silver and lacquer work, and has been a Buddhist centre
since the 2nd Century.

In
September, Nakhon hosts one of Thailand’s most vibrant and colourful festivals
— Sat Duan Sip, the festival of the tenth lunar month. Though Buddhist and not
Catholic, it is similar to Mexico’s Day of the Dead, when the dividing line
between the spirit world and our own is said to be wafer thin, and the karma of
deceased loved ones can be altered by performing acts of special merit. Thousands
of Thais offer marigolds to the galleries of sitting Buddhas and garland the
250ft-high chedi at Wat Mahathat. Ghostly figures, satin-clad dancers and
doll-like beauty queens process through the city’s streets to the pounding of ritual
drums. Pageants and shadow-puppet plays are staged under the crumbling old city
walls, and parties extend long into the night.

Trang
city lies at the end of the Southern Line (432 miles from Bangkok). It is the
gateway to a beautiful coast lined with thick tropical forest, rubber tree plantations
and little fishing villages, and it is fringed for its entire length with deserted
beaches. Waves break against towering domes, and pinnacles of limestone stretch
into the turquoise ocean forming archipelagos of jewel-like islands. Ko Muk is
a crown of limestone that encircles a sheltered beach accessible only through a
sea cave. Ko Kradan is a tiny island washed by gentle coral-filled sea where
there is little to do but laze in a hammock, eat sumptuous Thai food and
snorkel over the offshore reef. And there are only ever a handful of visiting
tourists.