Ancient City

The Ancient City, or Muang Boran, is one of the world’s largest outdoor museums. It features a 200-acre city with 109 scaled down copies of Thailand’s most famous monuments and architectural attractions all in one place. Located in Samut Prakan Province near Bangkok, the site is huge and sprawling but you can rent a golf cart to drive around the property at your leisure. The floating market in the picture is a lot cleaner and less chaotic than the one it’s modeled on in Bangkok!

The Ancient City is a vast expanse of landscape — trees, hills, streams, lakes — dotted with reproductions of Thailand’s palace halls, temples, stupas, stone sanctuaries, and traditional houses, connected by a maze of bike trails. The concept sounds really touristy and tacky — I’m sure hardcore architecture and history buffs would be appalled by the idea — but the park is actually pretty tasteful. Coasting shakily from pseudo-landmark to pseudo-landmark, steering with one hand and hiking down my skirt with the other, I realize that I’m grinning like an idiot. This is so fun! Luang Prabang & Bangkok trip report: http://bit.ly/17Q0Cup