The East Coast Has a Moon Rabbit and Almost No Tourists
Past the industrial port on the way to the islands there is a riverside town with a French cathedral, a moon-shaped hill and a produce market that starts at five in the morning.
The bus put us down at a stand selling pomelo at half past four in the morning, in the dark, in a town with no name I could have told you, and by six we were drinking coffee standing up in a market with a hundred other people who had all also got up at four.
This is the east coast, and it is a completely different Thailand from the one that appears in search results.
Last verified 1 August 2026.
Why you have not heard of it
Because the good stuff is a transit town rather than a destination, and transit towns do not get marketing budgets. Chanthaburi sits on the way down to Trat, and Trat sits on the way out to islands, and the result is a region with excellent food, a real town rather than a resort strip, and almost nobody staying more than one night.
And the industrial port reshaped the coastline, which has put the beaches and seafood places further out and made the map unfamiliar to people who learned this country from the Gulf side.
The morning market
Chanthaburi's produce market starts before dawn and it is the reason to get here at five in the morning, which is an hour that no sensible person volunteers for until they have been to one.
It is a wholesale market, not a tourist market, which means it is loud, functional, and full of people who are working. Nobody is there for you. The fruit is stacked in quantities that make no sense for retail, and the seafood comes in that morning and goes to the restaurants by lunchtime.
Eat at the market, because there are stalls serving proper food at four in the morning and the whole thing is one of the most purely local meals I have had in this country.
And buy fruit, because this is a growing region and the pomelos are absurd. Get them after the middle of the year when the season is on properly.
The cathedral, which is genuinely surprising
Chanthaburi has a French-built Catholic cathedral, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, with a Gothic revival stone facade that looks entirely out of place and is one of the most striking buildings in the country outside Bangkok.
It goes back to the period when this coast had a large Vietnamese Catholic community who came to work in the tin mines and the trade, and the building is the visible evidence of a history most visitors do not know happened.
There is also a Chinese shrine on the same walking stretch, because the port has had a mixed population for a very long time, and walking between the two in about ten minutes tells you more about this town than any article will.
The moon and the mountain
Chanthaburi calls itself the city of the moon rabbit, and it has a hill shaped like a rabbit that people climb and photograph at particular times of the year.
Go at dusk rather than at noon, because the thing is a silhouette, the light is better, and the town is a nicer place to sit afterwards than it is at midday.
There are waterfalls up there too, and a viewpoint over the coast, and this is the part of the region that is genuinely worth a full day and is not really marketed to anyone.
Food, which is the actual reason
This is a seafood and fruit coast, and the food is less refined and considerably better value than the Gulf coast, because nobody is competing for tourist money.
Ask for what is in season and eat it. The seafood is good and it is not priced like a tourist meal, the fruit is extraordinary, and there is a sweet potato and coconut dish that is a speciality of the province and is on every menu.
Trat, and the islands
Trat is the port, and it is where you go to get to the islands. The boat out to Koh Kut runs from here, and it is the reason most people know the name Trat at all.
Koh Kut is worth a specific kind of trip. It is remote, there are no cars on most of it, the water is clear, and it is the kind of island that makes a short visit feel like an event. It is not a party island and it is not a diving-only island; it is simply far away, and that is the attraction.
Koh Chang, by contrast, you have already heard about, and Trat is the main way people get there. If you are coming for Koh Chang, you are passing through Trat, and you might as well stop.
And check the timings before you commit, because boat services to the smaller islands thin out badly in the monsoon and a missed last boat on a small island is a genuinely expensive mistake.
Getting there
Bus or minivan from Bangkok, five to seven hours, with the overnight services being the sensible option if you cannot take a day off.
Or train to Chachoengsao and connect, which is slower and better and the route goes through genuinely good country if you sit on the right side.
Or drive, if you have a car and are coming from the Gulf side, in which case the coast road is the entire point and you should not take the highway.
Fly into Trat itself if you can, because the airport is small, the flights are infrequent, and a taxi from the airport to the town is cheap. It is the most relaxed airport arrival in the country and almost nobody uses it.
