Thailand

We landed in the morning after a night in Abu Dhabi and went straight into the heat and noise of Bangkok. The first two days were for temples: steep tiered roofs in red and gold, white walls, gilded gables glinting in the sun.

The best way to see the city turned out to be from the water. Boats on the Chao Phraya and the narrow canals behind it took us past riverside shrines, houses on stilts and, unexpectedly, a Gothic church spire, until the light went orange and then dark.

An early start to beat the heat and the crowds, two hours south-west of Bangkok. At Damnoen Saduak the market happens on the canals: women in wide straw hats paddle boats piled with fruit, noodles and souvenirs, and the trade is done from boat to boat and boat to bank.

On the way back we stopped at a temple by the road, where a Thai wat and a colourful Chinese shrine stood side by side.

Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam for four hundred years, until the Burmese army burned it in 1767. What is left are the brick ruins of its temples, scattered across an island in the river among lawns and modern streets.

We rented bicycles and rode from one ruin to the next: tall Khmer-style towers, rows of headless Buddhas and a seated Buddha wrapped in a saffron robe.

Further north lies Sukhothai, the first Thai kingdom, older still than Ayutthaya. We arrived in the evening and spent the next day in the Historical Park, a calm green landscape of ponds, lotus and old stone stupas, much quieter than anything we had seen so far.

A long day on the road ended late in the evening in Chiang Mai, the capital of the north. The air was noticeably cooler up here.

The next day we headed out of the city into the hills of the Mae Taeng valley: red dirt roads, banana plants and forested mountains on every side.

Back in Chiang Mai we had one full day to see the old town, a square of streets inside a moat and the remains of a brick city wall. Inside are more than thirty temples in the northern Lanna style: dark carved wood, layered roofs and gold everywhere.

The great ruined chedi of Wat Chedi Luang, guarded by stone nagas, was the most impressive of them. In the afternoon we climbed up to a golden chedi above the city, where people knelt and lit incense among the offerings.

A flight took us from the far north to the far south in one evening. Hat Yai was only a place to sleep before the journey to the islands.

From the coast it was a long boat ride to Ko Lipe, a small island near the Malaysian border, at the edge of the Tarutao marine park. Beach huts, clear water and rocks to climb, and every evening the longtail boats turned to silhouettes against the setting sun.

Ko Lanta was bigger and greener. We stayed by the beach, but the best day was spent inland: a meadow of sugar palms, then a walk through the jungle to a waterfall, with the trees closing over our heads.

A ferry took us from Ko Lanta past stilt villages to Krabi and the beach of Ao Nang, the base for four days, including Christmas.

This is the coast of the famous limestone karst: sheer cliffs rising out of the sea, islands with rock arches and caves you can sail through. We spent the days on boat trips between them.

One more crossing, this time to the other side of the peninsula, with our bags piled on the deck of the ferry. Ko Samui in the Gulf of Thailand was busier and more polished than the Andaman islands: a long sandy beach, food stalls full of skewers in the evening and a Christmas tree still glowing in the bar.

We finished where we started. On the last afternoon we crossed the river to Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, its tall prang covered in pieces of coloured porcelain, and in the evening we took a last walk through the neon of the backpacker streets.

Early the next morning we flew home, back to winter.