Changwat Chon Buri, Thailand — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Changwat Chon Buri known for?

The resort city curves around a wide bay on the Gulf of Thailand, and its beaches, nightlife and offshore islands draw more foreign visitors than anywhere in Thailand outside Bangkok. Just up the coast, Si Racha and Laem Chabang run the container terminals and refineries that make this one of the country's industrial engines. Bang Saen pulls the weekend crowds from Bangkok.

The province pairs heavy industry with sand in a way few places manage.

Where is Changwat Chon Buri?

Chon Buri sits on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Thailand, southeast of Bangkok. The province runs for roughly 160 kilometres of coast, a mix of sandy bays, rocky headlands and shallow tidal flats. Behind the beaches the land climbs into the low Khao Khiao hills, whose forested ridge shelters a wildlife sanctuary and gives the western slope its green backdrop.

The shoreline shapes daily life. Three working centres line the coast in a row. Chon Buri town anchors the north, Si Racha and the deep-water terminals of Laem Chabang hold the middle, and Pattaya spreads across a wide bay to the south.

Sattahip closes the province at its southern tip, where the Royal Thai Navy keeps its main base. Offshore, the island of Ko Sichang lies 12 kilometres out from Si Racha, once a royal retreat and still the anchorage where big ships transfer cargo to the mainland. Bang Saen fills the gap between Chon Buri town and Si Racha with the province's best-loved municipal beach.

Much of this coast falls inside the Eastern Economic Corridor, the industrial zone that ties Chon Buri to the ports and factories of the eastern seaboard.

What is Changwat Chon Buri like?

Chon Buri keeps a farming culture the coast never quite erased. Its best-known event is the buffalo race, run in the provincial town for well over a century before the end of Buddhist Lent, when farmers once brought their animals to market and raced them home for sport. Jockeys ride bareback down a flooded paddy, and a rider who falls is out.

The festival fills the town with food stalls, contests and crowds. It is pure agrarian Thailand, held a short drive from container cranes. Food runs a close second.

Si Racha gave its name to a chilli sauce first bottled on this coast, and the town's oyster beds still supply Bangkok kitchens. At Bang Saen, families build sand pagodas on the beach at Songkran, a local twist on the Thai new year. Temples and Chinese shrines mark the older towns, while Pattaya draws a mixed, international crowd that has reshaped the southern bay into something far removed from the paddies inland.

Nearly everyone here is Buddhist. The province holds both worlds at once.

What is the history of Changwat Chon Buri?

The name means 'city of water', from the Thai chon and buri, and a town has stood on this coast since the Ayutthaya centuries. Its modern turn came from the sea. King Chulalongkorn made Ko Sichang a royal retreat and built the Phra Chuthathut Palace there in 1892.

A century later the state chose this shore for its Eastern Seaboard programme, and the fishing towns of Si Racha and Laem Chabang grew into ports and refineries. Chon Buri has traded on water in every age.

What is the climate of Changwat Chon Buri?

Chon Buri has a tropical wet-and-dry climate, hot the year round and ruled by the monsoon. The southwest monsoon brings the rains from about May to October, when warm, heavy downpours sweep in off the Gulf of Thailand. Cooler, drier air follows from November into February, the pleasant stretch when the beach towns fill and the paddies dry out.

March and April turn hot. Sea breezes take the edge off along the shore.

How do you get to Changwat Chon Buri?

Most visitors reach Chon Buri by road. The drive from Bangkok runs an hour or two down the motorway, and the province has no major airport of its own, so flights for Pattaya land at U-Tapao near the southern border. Trains from Bangkok stop at Chon Buri town, Si Racha and Pattaya.

Ferries cross from Si Racha out to Ko Sichang, while cruise ships tie up at the deep-water quays of Laem Chabang. The coast starts close to the capital.