Northern Thailand

1. Bangkok

It’s a city infamous for its traffic jams, but there’s another way to explore – the web of khlongs, man-made waterways, that stretch out to the capital’s furthest corners part of the city’s infrastructure – as well as a glimpse of an older Bangkok, far removed from the modern-day, 21st-century city of skycrapers, shopping malls and office blocks.

“Bangkok is a city of islands,” explains boatman Pae Visut, as he steers his long-tail into the maze of canals in Thonburi, a residential neighbourhood west of the Chao Phraya. “In the past, the khlongs were the only way to reach areas. They’re still quicker than the roads.”

He chuckles gruffly, resting the long-tail’s rudder on his knee as he sparks up the cigarette dangling from his lips, and guides his boat though a lock-gate into Khlong Bangkok Yai, the Little Bangkok Canal.

Lines of tin-roofed houses glide past, teetering on wooden stilts above the murky water. Golden- topped temples rise alongside the banks, framed by drooping willows and jacaranda trees. Tangles of electricity cables and telephone wires hang overhead, and local residents tend forests of potted plants festooning their waterfront verandas. Occasionally, a white egret swoops down to strut along the banks, dipping for fish in the shallows, or a monitor lizard hauls itself from the tea-brown water to bask in the sunshine.

“Many people in Bangkok have no idea these khlongsare even here,” Pae says, as he cuts the engine and moors up by a riverside temple, its finials flashing like beaten copper. “But I’ve been a boatman here for 35 years, so to me they’re as familiar as the streets around my own house.” He beckons to a passing boat – a floating shop stocked with food, drinks, trinkets and temple offerings. He buys a garland of marigold and jasmine flowers, and adds it to several others draped over the long-tail’s prow. “Good karma,” he explains, rolling a fresh cigarette on his knee, and saluting another long-tail as it buzzes past.

Some canals are as old as the city itself. When King Rama I moved his