Danny Boyle's The Beach (2000) follows a young backpacker from Bangkok's Khao San Road to a secret island beach, shot at Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Le, from Alex Garland's 1996 novel.
The route runs from Khao San Road through Ko Samui, a Khao Yai waterfall and Maya Bay to Ko Pha Ngan. Several stops are stand-ins: hotel interiors were shot in Phuket, the waterfall jump in Khao Yai, and the island itself is invented.
Alexander the Great's route runs from Troy and the Granicus in Turkey to Tyre, Alexandria and Persepolis, and on to the Jhelum in the Punjab. He crossed into Asia at 22, and eleven years later died in Babylon at 32, his empire stretching from Greece to India.
The route follows the campaign through its turning points, with Arrian's Anabasis, written four centuries later from earlier accounts, as the main guide. Several battlefields can only be placed approximately; their pins are marked as such.
