There are hundreds of reasons why Thailand is the leader in repeat visitors and near the top in arrivals in Southeast Asia. First and foremost, the kingdom is a hodgepodge of influences that mix the region’s crème de la crème in a savory, palatable and often wholly original way.

      The country’s northeast blends Lao and Khmer influences while Phuket’s vintage architecture is Sino-Portuguese. The provinces and islands of the far south have a Malay vibe and linguistic flair while the Thai spirit is an Indian-influenced triumvirate of Buddhism, Brahminism and animism, fascinatingly juxtaposed against Bangkok’s CBD of sky-rises that stand tall against their rivals from Hong Kong and Singapore. As in those cities, the ruling élite of the corporate world as well as the protagonists in the theater of politics mainly have Chinese bloodlines.

      Another chapter in Thailand’s tourism success story is that anyone plotting a trip or extended sojourn can swing from a frayed shoestring on the guesthouse circuit, go stratospheric with the high rollers relishing the region’s most affordable five-star facilities or navigate a truce between those extremes.

      Bring the whole family or just your drinking buddies for a beachside bender. Go wild in the jungle or head out on a honeymoon after getting married on elephant back at a northern-style wedding. Come on business and stay for leisure. Book a healthy holiday at a detox/spa resort or let Dionysus be your tour guide on a wine-tasting trip through the new “Tuscany of Thailand”.

      Toss in ingredients like hospitable locals, solid infrastructure, safety and security, season with a benign climate that offers wildly differing environs, from limestone mountains to mangrove forests, from tropical beaches to impeccable rainforests, and Thailand is your all-in-one/whatever-you-want getaway.

      This book is a distillation of my nearly two decades of living in the kingdom and a compendium of recent travels in 2012.

      The modus operandi is concision. After all, lugging your baggage around under a mind-broiling sun can be arduous enough without adding a cinder block of a guidebook filled with all sorts of extraneous details.

      At the same time, the tiny bytes of information and fingernail-sized photographs on a smart phone cannot possibly do justice to an 11th–century Khmer ruin. The Tuttle Travel Pack Thailand occupies a Buddhist-style middle ground between these two extremes. I hope you enjoy the ride—and the yin and yang counterbalances.

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