Surat Thani, Thailand

Surat Thani sits on the Tapi River about 650 kilometers south of Bangkok, with roughly 130,000 residents, and serves as the gateway to the Gulf of Thailand islands of Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, and Koh Tao. King Vajiravudh, Rama VI, named the city the "City of Good People" in 1915. As Thailand's rambutan production centre, it has hosted the September Rambutan Fair every year since 1979. The 1973 Phra Borommathat Chaiya stupa preserves a 1,200-year-old Srivijaya structure, and Khao Sok National Park, created in 1980 a hundred kilometers west, contains one of the world's oldest rainforests at 160 million years.