Culture

The culture of Thailand incorporates a great deal of influence from India, China, Cambodia, and the rest of Southeast Asia. It is influenced primarily by Buddhism, as well as by large scale immigration from China, and to a lesser extent, from India.

Cuisine

Thai cuisine places emphasis on lightly-prepared dishes with strong aromatic components and a reputation for fearless spices. Balance, detail and variety are important to Thai cooking, aiming to balance the five fundamental tastes in every dish: hot, sour, sweet, salty and bitter.

Diving

Samui and Phi Phi Islands provide an excellent playground for new divers to discover unmatched underwater worlds, with countless other dive sites for the more experienced explorers, such as the Similan Islands near Phuket, home to some of Asia's most beautiful aquatic critters.

Climate

Thailand's climate is distinctly tropical, with high temperatures and high humidity. April & May are the hottest months of the year, and June sees the beginning of the South West Monsoon, heralding the start of the rainy season that lasts intermittently until October.