Thailand

Thailand reaches from the forested hills of the north down a long, thin peninsula between the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Its heart is the central plain of the Chao Phraya, a level expanse of rice paddies and canals. To the north-east lies the Khorat Plateau, drier and sandier, draining to the Mekong. The climate is tropical, with monsoon rain from May to October, and limestone islands rise from the sea off Krabi and Phang Nga.

Thai kingdoms grew from the thirteenth century at Sukhothai and then at Ayutthaya, whose kings traded with China, Japan and Europe for four centuries until a Burmese army destroyed the city in 1767. King Taksin regrouped the country, and the Chakri dynasty moved the court to Bangkok in 1782. Kings Mongkut and Chulalongkorn modernised the state and played Britain and France against each other, so that Siam, as it was called until 1939, was never colonised. A revolution in 1932 ended absolute monarchy.

Theravada Buddhism shapes daily life: many young men spend a few months as monks, and monks in saffron robes collect alms at dawn. Songkran, the April new year, turns into a nationwide water fight. Muay Thai is the national sport, and tom yum and green curry have spread far abroad. Rice, rubber, cassava and sugar come from the countryside, cars and pickup trucks from the Eastern Seaboard, and tourism fills Chiang Mai, Phuket and the Gulf islands.