30th Anniversary edition of the market-leading guide on Thailand! For this edition our authors have hunted down the fresh, the transformed, the hot and the happening, from new transport routes to get you to the beach faster, flights through the canopy in Ko Tao and stylish sleeps for all the hip new hotels in Bangkok.
When his girlfriend takes a job as a schoolteacher in northern Thailand, Mischa Berlinski goes along for the ride, working as little as possible for one of Thailand's English-language newspapers. One evening a fellow expatriate tips him off to a story. A charismatic American anthropologist, Martiya van der Leun, has been found dead-a suicide-in the Thai prison where she was serving a fifty-year sentence for murder.Motivated first by simple curiosity, then by deeper and more mysterious feelings, Mischa searches relentlessly to discover the details of Martiya's crime.
Tourist brochures and travel guides depict Thailand as an exotic country with a rich cultural heritage, strong religious traditions, and a popular monarchy. Historians also contribute to Thailand’s international allure with chronicles of its unique historical and cultural continuity in comparison to the other southeast Asian countries, whose histories are stained by colonialism and nationalist struggles for independence.
Thailand is the number-one tourist destination in Southeast Asia, with over 13 million visitors per year, 300,000 per month to the island of Phuket alone. This is the best and most comprehensive guide to the country. Loaded with inside information from the resident authors on everything from the secrets of buying food from street vendors to sampling the fabulous cuisine in thousands of great restaurants. Prices are astonishingly low, which adds to the attraction. Two people can dine well for less than $5, including drinks and several courses. The finest hotels, with impeccable service, cost a fraction of what you would pay in Europe or the US.
