Sukhumvit Road, Thailand

Anyone who has visited Bangkok will know Sukhumvit Road. It’s the Thai capital’s answer to Oxford Street, Orchard Road or Fifth Avenue, all rolled into one. Visitors of every stripe are drawn to this traffic-clogged, six-lane stretch of central Bangkok. But there’s far more than the shopping malls, five-star hotels and hostess bars with questionable names (Spanky’s, we’re looking at you).

In total, Sukhumvit Road rolls east for almost 500km. Highway 3, as it is also called, travels along the Gulf of Thailand through six provinces and alongside dozens of undeveloped sandy islands, right up to the Cambodian border. It’s one of Thailand’s longest and most famous roads and one of the most significant markers of the country’s rapid economic development in the late 20th century, when US military money flooded in during the Vietnam War and let Thailand leave its war-torn neighbours in the dust.

Might the future of Thailand’s all-important travel and tourism industry lie this way too? While many visitors take flights south to the busy islands or north to the nation’s hill country, there’s some space to develop in the wilder, lesser-known east. Our “Made in Thailand” stamped Mitsubishi Pajero Sport is part of the story too. The Japanese automaker produces most of these suvs from factories near Laem Chabang, Thailand’s largest port and one of the lesser-sought spots on Highway 3. Our trip doesn’t take us off-road but it does take us off the beaten track. On the way, we’ll encounter fighter jets, rare gems, French colonial leftovers and a Scandinavian enclave with a royal seal of approval. There could even be an international incident when we arrive at our tropical destination. This is Thailand without crowds, tuks-tuks, billboards or even a 7/11.

Day 1
Chon Buri

Our journey begins in downtown Bangkok, where Ploen Chit becomes Highway 3. Sukhumvit Road is the commercial and residential heart of the modern Thai capital and our first stop is the offices of Siam Seaplane near Bumrungrad Hospital (a mecca for medical tourists). The aviation start-up, which began in 2019 with the ambition to relaunch the seaplane sector in Thailand, swapped a regular office tower for a converted house on one of the many “sois” or alleys that run off Sukhumvit. “The trend of travel is going to go east in the next five years,” says Worakanya Siripidej, ceo and co-founder of Siam Seaplane, before running through a list of infrastructure developments and hotel openings in our direction of travel. Siripidej expects to launch her first seaplane flights in 2025 and her team has been busy signing deals with beachside resorts in the Gulf of Thailand. These will let customers fly straight from Bangkok aboard a fleet of Cessna Caravans fitted out like private jets. Eager to see the lay of the land, we jump back in the Pajero and dive straight into a traffic jam – quiet time. Thai’s don’t honk. At all. This remarkable display of collective enlightenment makes driving easy on the ears and more forgiving for uncertain out-of-towners. 

The elevated bts “Sukhumvit Line” runs down the middle of Sukhumvit Road, casting a shadow on the shady business that populates this end. Money changers, tailors, massage parlours and shops selling cannabis are a primer for the seedy resort town of Pattaya, a favourite weekend destination for many Bangkokians. The closest stretch of hotel-lined sand to the capital is also the furthest east that many will have travelled. The arrival of family-friendly hotels, music festival Wonderfruit and the pygmy hippo Moo Deng (of internet meme fame) are, in their own ways, helping to change Pattaya’s reputation as a red-light resort. But we avoid the downtown area’s saucy nightlife altogether and plot a course for Jomtien Beach.

Canals run alongside the road for much of the drive through two provinces, Samut Prakan and Chachoengsao. Rudimentary arched bridges cross the narrow waterways at various points. We could be on the outskirts of Amsterdam, only without any bikes. Crossing into Chon Buri, we make a brief pit stop at the ptt petrol station in Si Racha – birthplace of the famous hot sauce – to fill up the tank and get takeaway coffees from Café Amazon.

Two hours later, having driven past Thailand’s largest port, we pull into Southeast Asia’s largest marina and the stomping ground of Aussie harbour master Scott Finsten. According to the Sydneysider, who takes monocle on a golf-cart tour of his growing number of piers and superyachts, many Thais “discovered the charms of boating” during the pandemic, when money normally spent on shopping trips to Singapore and Hong Kong paid for pleasure cruisers instead. His job is to give them reasons to use their new vessels. “This used to be called the graveyard for yacht brokers but you can now jump in a taxi in Bangkok and they will know Ocean Marina,” he says, back on dry land. As the sun begins to set, we sip iced lemon tea and watch a boat being lifted out of the water. A colleague comes over for help with a visiting yacht owner who doesn’t want to check in. Finsten recently addressed an industry gathering in Kuala Lumpur and his sales pitch for the Gulf of Thailand is simple: year-round cruising, no typhoons and a boatload of uninhabited islands.

By 18.00 it’s dark and bunking options for yacht-less overland travellers in Na Jomtien are good. Boutique hotel Mason is nearby and The Standard is landing here soon. Checking into Thailand’s first Andaz hotel, which opened here in 2023 in a beautifully landscaped former family estate, deserves the hype it’s garnered. A missed lunch is made up for by an order of pork ribs on the steakhouse veranda. And, as this is Thailand, there’s mango sticky rice on the menu.

Day 2
Rayong

At sunrise the sea is calm, the sky is blue and the busy capital feels a long way away. The Gulf of Thailand is a tranquil stretch of water and the scenery on Sukhumvit Road begins to get a lot more green and tropical as it curls around Chon Buri’s southern peninsula. Sattahip is the Royal Thai Navy’s turf and home of Thailand’s largest naval base. The seafaring admirals even rule the airspace at U-Tapao International Airport in neighbouring Rayong.

The US military built the runway for bombing raids during the Vietnam war. That’s probably why civilian travellers arriving to take a flight are met at the entrance road by a “Welcome to U-Tapao” sign and a decommissioned fighter jet parked on a roundabout. At least for now. By 2055, U-Tapao will have a new runway and terminals for civilian use capable of handling 60 million passengers a year. That’s a considerable increase on the sleepy airport’s current traffic. Construction of the runway is expected to start in 2025, according to Chula Sukmanop, secretary-general of the Eastern Economic Corridor Office of Thailand, a government body put in charge of managing the airport on behalf of the navy. “[The eastern seaboard] has been the area where foreign investment has come into the country for a long time,” says Sukmanop, who usually acts as a one-stop shop for foreign investors, from Chinese electric car manufacturers to European eyewear brands. “We are the gateway to Thailand and it is our job to make that gateway bigger,” he says.

The central government is working with some of the country’s largest corporations to build a high-speed railway between U-Tapao and Bangkok, plus a new airport city made up of conference facilities, luxury condominiums and an Formula One-grade racing track. But progress is slow-going. Our tour of the site takes in the near-completed jet-fuel tanks and a well-placed solar panel farm.

Leaving the airport behind, we turn off Sukhumvit Road and head to the beach for some lunch: grilled shrimp and deep-fried sea bass at the original branch of seafood restaurant Laem Charoen, now a national chain.  For afters, something sweet and juicy from Taphong Fruit Market. Agriculture is a big part of Thailand’s economy and the east is the place for exotic fruits. The harvest in May and June hosts orchard tours and a fruit festival starring fresh durian, mangosteens, longans and lychees. When it comes to sun-worshippers though, October to April is the best season for this part of the country, when Phuket and the south of Thailand get rained on.

Rayong’s coastline has long stretches of golden sand and Mae Phim Beach is a favourite winter perch for migrating Scandinavians. Pasi Marjamaki arrived in Mae Phim at the beginning of the century to work for a Swedish-owned property developer and launched his own estate agency in 2023. “There was almost nothing here when I arrived except the odd few restaurants,” says the Finn, while taking monocle on a tour and pointing out where the Swedish king and queen sometimes stay at a friend’s house. “This place essentially started because of Scandinavians.”

Silver-haired Swedes might have bought the first generation of second homes but Marjamaki’s recent transactions have been with remote workers in their thirties and forties from both the East and the West. Seeing the area’s potential, Marjamaki will soon begin his first property development: a series of seven standalone homes called The Boulevard, set back from the beach. He estimates that the price of one rai (1,600 sq m) of beachfront land in Mae Phim has shot up from about thb3m (€83,000) to thb25m (€693,000).

French hospitality firm Accor recently opened a second wing of the Mercure site in Mae Phim, next to Marjamaki’s office. monocle checks in. A rooftop restaurant overlooking the ocean has yet to open, so we head to the sister property to eat grilled squid with a green papaya salad by the water. Come nightfall the horizon across this part of the Gulf of Thailand glows green with lights from squid-fishing boats.

Day 3
Chanthaburi

Sukhumvit Road was originally carved out of the tropical shrubbery in the 1930s and named after a former transport chief. The highway passes through a handful of unremarkable cities en route to Cambodia. As each two-storey town flashes by the passenger window, a pattern emerges: Japanese car showroom, Big C supermarket, ptt petrol station and a local building-supplies merchant. We leave Rayong and enter Chanthaburi, deciding to stop over in the province’s namesake capital, which has become a favourite with hospitality entrepreneurs seeking a slower pace of life.

Founders Chaiwat and Pinyapat Treeratsakulchai opened The Gardener café in 2016 and the adjoining bakery, L’Oeuf, in 2022. “I can’t live in Bangkok any more; it’s too busy,” says Chaiwat, who grew up in the Thai capital. The architect met his wife in Phuket while working at the same design studio and they later returned to her hometown. When Chaiwat and Pinyapat are not in the kitchen baking for financiers or working behind the counter, the 30-somethings run their own studio, Paper House.

Armed with an iced coffee and Treeratsakulchai’s signature cream-cheese banana bread, monocle sets off to explore Chanthaburi on foot. The French briefly occupied this multicultural, multifaith settlement of half a million people at the turn of the 19th century, adding a Gallic flavour to the existing blend of Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine and architecture – and presumably an appetite for dairy. The food group is big in Chanthaburi, which features everything from milk bars to milk-flavoured lollipops at Rocket Ice Cream shop. Lolly in hand, we wander the old town and spot a bare-footed monk in orange robes popping into The Reader bookshop to pick up his latest subscription.

Chanthaburi has been a trading centre for rubies and sapphires for hundreds of years. But it’s the locals returning from the nation’s capital with a design degree and work experience who are enriching the modern city more than the dwindling trade in rare stones. Easterly is another local gem. Motion-graphics designer Khanapong Pumarin opened the brunch spot and bar next to the canal-like Chanthaburi river. His elder sister’s coffee shop, cap, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a new venue on the opposite side of Sukhaphiban Road. Easterly has a few rooms upstairs for overnight stopovers but the islands are calling and the Pajero is waiting just across the river, right next to Thailand’s largest cathedral. We jump in, head back to the Sukhumvit Road and make our way to Trat, the final Thai province before Cambodia.

Day 4
Koh Chang

An hour after leaving Chanthaburi we take the turn-off for Ao Thammachat ferry pier and pass by Trat Airport. The private terminal run by Bangkok Airways operates a few flights to Bangkok most days and is in the process of being expanded. Our Pajero joins a line-up of white Toyota minivans at Ao Thammachat, queuing for the ferry for Koh Chang, Thailand’s third-largest island, after Phuket and Samui. Koh Chang – which means “Elephant Island” in English, named because of its shape – ranks much lower for tourist traffic, despite the easy access. After a breezy 20-minute transfer, we’re soon rolling onto the northside dock before embarking on leisurely reconnaissance and driving up some surprisingly steep inclines. Most development is taking place on the island’s west, where the sun sets over idyllic beaches.

Having earned a rest, the Pajero pulls into The Retreat hotel near Kai Bae Beach. We take a comfy spot at the Ocean Terrace after checking in, then order a spicy green curry. A temporary stage nearby is waiting to be dismantled after hosting a 50-piece symphony orchestra. The 38-room resort and spa, designed by Bangkok-based Spacetime Architects, was opened by Mate Teeraniti and his parents in 2023. The Teeranitis’ relationship with this part of Thailand started out fairly typically for a Bangkok family (they didn’t go) before a customer of their mechanical and electrical engineering business opted to settle an outstanding bill with a hotel on Koh Chang called The Chill. “Koh Chang is not very well known and those who do know it have a preconceived idea that it’s difficult to get to,” says Teeraniti, whose childhood holidays were spent in Khao Yai, Hua Hin or Europe. The 29-year-old now visits Koh Chang once a month for business and takes part in the annual trail run. “People come here to relax, not to party,” he says. “The nature is incredible and it’s so different from Phuket and Samui. Once people see it for themselves they are always impressed.” Most of the island is a protected national park, so there’s a ceiling on the development; it will never become another Phuket, despite the recent appearance of big chains such as ihg. Teeraniti sits on the tourism committee and talks of managing growth carefully. “The scene has been maturing for the past two years – but slowly,” he says.

To really escape the crowds, we must leave the Pajero and continue by foot. The 90-minute catamaran ride from Koh Chang’s southern pier provides an opportunity to catch up with the latest news about our final destination. The tiny island of Koh Kut hit the front pages in recent months because of an oil exploration deal signed with Cambodia in 2001 involving Thaksin Shinwatra, Thailand’s former leader and father of the current prime minister. Will we be greeted by flag-waving nationalists? The Thai navy? Far from it. When we disembark and make our way to the luxury Soneva Kiri resort, staff and guests seem to live in a different timezone, whizzing around on golf carts and following a “no shoes, no news” mantra. Any political squabble over this patch of Thailand, home to a few thousand Thai residents, says more about infighting in the capital than any genuine territorial dispute with Phnom Penh. Riding a Honda scooter under a cloudless blue sky, the scenery couldn’t be more different to Bangkok – or Phuket, Chiang Mai and Samui for that matter. There are no vans with loud hailers advertising muay thai fights. They aren’t even any beach hawkers. Shops sell fishing tackle, wine and whisky, in that order.

The island’s main hotelier has named several properties after characters from Neverland: Captain Hook, Peter Pan and Wendy. As the sun sets on the clear, calm waters of Tinkerbell Beach, a few couples bob in the sea while a pair of paddleboarders glide along the horizon. In the morning a catamaran will reconnect us with our Pajero at Laem Chabang, ready for the six-hour drive back to Bangkok. But for now, there’s a fairytale ending to enjoy. — L

Eastern Thailand address book

Chon Buri

stay
Andaz Pattaya Jomtien Beach
A tranquil residential-style retreat set out around attractive landscaped gardens.
345, Moo 3, Na Jomtien, Sattahip, Chon Buri, 20250

visit
Ocean Marina Jomtien
Charter a boat for a day of island-hopping. Koh Pai comes highly recommended.
167/5 Sukhumvit Road, Tambon Na Jomtien, Sattahip, Chon Buri, 20250

Rayong

drink
Drift Bar
A reliably fun crowd gathers for sundowners at this relaxed beach bar run by three siblings.
Ao Khai Beach, Klaeng, Rayong 21190

eat
Laem Charoen Seafood
Fresh seafood served with a sea breeze and fishing boats moored nearby.
1 Coastal Road, Rayong City, Rayong 21000

Chanthaburi

stay
Easterly
Reserve one of the two well-appointed rooms that sit above this riverside brunch spot and bar in Chanthaburi’s sleepy old town.
182 Khwang Road, Watmai, Chanthaburi City, Chanthaburi, 22000

eat
L’Oeuf
A bakery and adjoining café run by a husband-and- wife team. Tasteful branding goes with tasty puddings and cakes.
15 Maharaj Road, Wat Mai, Amphoe, Chanthaburi City, Chanthaburi, 22000

Trat

stay
The Retreat
A well-engineered two-storey hotel and spa with 38 rooms and a restaurant that extends out into the sea.
10/7 Moo 4, Kai Bae Beach, Koh Chang, Trat, 23170

eat
The View
Sushi meets cerviche at one of Thailand’s most exclusive resorts.
Soneva Kiri, Ko Kut, Trat, 23000

drink
The Deck Bar
Spend a lazy afternoon on the sun lounger and stay for early evening cocktails. There’s a pontoon to swim out to should things get a little too hot.
Koh Kood Resort, Bang Bao Bay, 45 Moo 5, Koh Kut, Trat, 23120