Why had no one told me about Chantaburi?
It's clean and it's green. Please don't miss it.
The only time I'd ever been to Chantaburi Province was over twenty years ago, when an Indian friend (a gemstone dealer by profession) took me down there to see one of the famous open-air gemstone markets. And although it was an interesting experience at the time, walking around on a muddy scrap of land, gawping at gemstone stalls, was still the only image that came to mind whenever Chantaburi was mentioned to me - until last weekend of course, when I came away with a completely different point of view.