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Straddling the River Phet about 120km south of Bangkok, the provincial capital of PHETCHABURI (aka Phetburi) flourished as a seventeenth-century trading post and retains many fine old historical wats, which make a fairly interesting day-trip from Bangkok or Damnoen Saduak. The bus station is on the southwest edge of Khao Wang, about thirty minutes' walk or a ten-minute songthaew ride from the town centre. The train station is about 1500m north of the main sight area. The best-placed hotel is the basic Chom Klao at 1-3 Thanon Phongsuriya, beside Chomrut Bridge (tel 032/425398; under $10).

The town's central sight district clusters around Chomrut Bridge ( saphaan Chomrut) and the River Phet. About 700m east of the bridge, the still-functioning seventeenth-century Wat Yai Suwannaram contains a remarkable set of murals, depicting divinities ranged in rows of ascending importance, and a well-preserved scripture library built on stilts over a pond to prevent ants destroying the precious documents. The five tumbledown Khmer-style prangs of Wat Kamphaeng Laeng , ten minutes' walk south from Wat Yai, were built to enshrine Hindu deities, but were later adapted for Buddhist use. Turning west across the river, you reach Phetchaburi's most fully restored and important temple, Wat Mahathat , which was probably founded in the fourteenth century. The five landmark prangs at its heart are adorned with stucco figures of mythical creatures, though these are nothing compared with the miniature angels and gods on the roofs of the main viharn and the bot.

Dominating the western outskirts, about thirty minutes' walk from Wat Mahathat, Rama IV's hilltop palace is a stew of mid-nineteenth-century Thai and European styles known as Khao Wang ; it's reached on foot or by cable car from the base of the hill on Highway 4 (9.30am-6.30pm; B70, includes museum ticket). The wooded hill is littered with wats, prangs, chedis, whitewashed gazebos, as well as the king's summer house and observatory, Phra Nakhon Khiri , now a museum.