Bangkok

BANGKOK, Thailand - Barriers protecting Bangkok from Thailand's worst floods in half a century held firm Sunday as the government said some water drenching provinces just north of the capital had begun to recede. That fueled hopes that Bangkok, a city of nine million, could escape unharmed. But outside the capital, thousands of people remain displaced and hungry residents struggle to survive in half-submerged towns. On Sunday, the military rescued terrified civilians from the rooftops of flooded buildings in the city of Ayutthaya, one of the country's hardest-hit.

Bangkok is inspired confusion, a city that combines back-country Asia with the most modern conveniences (and inconveniences) of New York or Rome. It's "the Venice of the East," the capital of Southeast Asia (as well as of Thailand), choked and adorned with life. It's not surprising that beautiful prostitutes and Buddhist monks are two of its most characteristic classes or that the city's name really isn't Bangkok. In their ceremonial fashion, the Thais have accorded what seems like an endless string of titles to their social, political and economic capital, giving it the longest official place name in the world.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Floodwaters that have devastated Thailand's industry and agriculture seeped into outer Bangkok on Friday as the crowded capital's residents braced for the impact, uncertain if they will soon be hopping over puddles or fording waist-high streams just outside their windows. Thailand's prime minister urged residents of the city of nine million people to get ready to move their belongings to higher ground. Key gates on flood-control canals in the capital have been opened in a risky move to drain the high waters into the sea, but it's not known how much will overflow onto streets.

We will be visiting Bangkok soon and would like to go to Vietnam for a few days. What will it take for us to do that? J.D., Wyncote It is possible for Americans to visit Vietnam, but arrangements usually must be made outside the United States, as the U.S. government forbids American travel companies from doing business with Vietnam. Being in Bangkok, however, puts you in a good position to sign up with one of several tour companies there that offer such trips. Orbitours, an Australian company, offers trips to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia that originate in Bangkok.

Asian and European properties dominate the latest listings of the world's top 12 hotels, with one exception from the United States, New York's Carlyle, which was rated the best hotel in the America's and 12th best in the world. The rankings result from a survey by Institutional Investor, a monthly magazine for bankers and the global investment community. It has ranked the world's 50 best hotels since 1977 by surveying senior bankers from around the world. Rated the world's best - for the eighth consecutive year - was the Oriental in Bangkok.

Is it Thailand or Siam? It's Thailand, of course. Has been for almost a half-century. All the maps and atlases call this country Thailand now. But does Siam still exist here, if only intangibly? Do the old ways linger, living with the new, tradition with trend, or has Siam vanished - gobbled up by progress and westernization? And what are the differences, anyway? Thailand is a fact; Siam is a mood. Thailand is a geopolitical certainty; Siam is an image in the traveler's mind, perhaps evoking scenes from The King and I. Thailand is an agrarian nation of 198,000 square miles and about 50 million people, between Laos and Burma; Siam is . . . well, you may not know exactly what Siam is, but you'll know it when you see it. Here in Thailand, can you still go in search of Siam?

Along the dark and crowded alleys of Chinatown's Thieves Market and the cool, carpeted corridors of this hard-sell city's finest art dealerships, the stakes of trading in ancient treasure have always been high. Rare finds and blind luck have more than once transformed a humble, bent- backed junk-seller into a gold-draped millionaire. But bad luck and bad judgment have been at least as common. Fortunes have been made and lost, and so, sometimes, have lives. Bangkok has for years been the center of a multimillion-dollar trade in ancient artwork, not all of which comes from Thailand.

You can have some bad luck and end up vacationing next to an erupting volcano, traveling through a capital city during a coup d'etat, or trying to find a hotel room during a surprisingly popular convention of mothball collectors. Or, as is often the case with me, you can just create your own misfortune. The upside is, I now know better. The downside is, it took many years on the road to figure some of this out. Travel Mistake No. 1: Wandering around Europe for three months with a backpack the weight and girth of an automated teller machine.

Somerset Maugham slept here. Noel Coward slept here. Graham Greene slept here. James A. Michener slept here. Joseph Conrad probably slept here. Now I've slept here. Here is the legendary Oriental Hotel, considered by many the world's best hotel, with a history that goes back at least 120 years. Institutional Investor magazine gave it the No. 1 rating for 10 years running. The publication this year dropped it down a couple of notches, after the Peninsula in Hong Kong, the Bel-Air in Los Angeles, and the Regent in Hong Kong.

The hibiscus blooms into trumpets of floral beauty. "But it's also stubborn as hell," says Nongyao "Moon" Krapugthong. "Just like me. " "The flower is so delicate it won't live if you cut it," the Bangkok-born chef says. "But the plant itself is a survivor. Take just one stick and put it in the ground, and it will grow in the sand or mud. " After two surgeries for breast cancer in 2001 and 2002, Krapugthong knows a few things about surviving a cruel cut. So it's little wonder the Bangkok-born chef gave her Manayunk restaurant the Thai name for hibiscus: Chabaa.

BANGKOK - Thailand's police chief said the Iranians who were arrested after accidentally setting off explosives at their rented home in Bangkok were plotting to attack Israeli diplomats, bolstering claims by Israel that the group was part of an Iranian-backed network of terror. "I can tell you that the target was specific and aimed at Israeli diplomatic staff," police chief Gen. Prewpan Dhamapong told a Thai television station late Wednesday. He also confirmed that the type of explosive - a homemade "sticky" bomb - found at the blast site Tuesday matched the devices planted on Israeli diplomatic cars in India and Georgia a day earlier.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Israel accused Iran of waging a covert campaign of state terror that stretched this week from the Middle East to the heart of Asia after a bungled series of explosions led to the capture of two Iranians in Bangkok. Authorities in Israel ratcheted up security at home and abroad after Tuesday's explosions in the Thai capital, escalating a confrontation over Iran's suspect nuclear program and raising fears of war. On Monday, an Israeli diplomat's wife and driver were wounded in New Delhi when a bomb stuck to their minivan exploded, and another device was defused on an Israeli Embassy car in Tbilisi, Georgia.

U.S. and Israel delay war games JERUSALEM - The Israeli and U.S. militaries have postponed large-scale war games, in part to avoid aggravating mounting tensions between the international community and Iran over its disputed nuclear program, Israeli defense officials said Monday. The missile-defense exercise, dubbed "Austere Challenge 12," was scheduled for April to improve defense systems and cooperation between U.S. and Israeli forces. The Israeli military confirmed that the drill would be rescheduled for the second half of 2012, but did not disclose reasons for the postponement or any other details.

PATTAYA, THAILAND - If you are going to run from your troubles, run far. In the wake of a personal hurricane that tore apart my life, I ran all the way to Thailand. Every journey is both external - where you went - and internal - how you felt. I am feeling good - and bad. My journey reconnected me with my college friend Paul DeCeglie, who ran here to something, not from something. It's now his permanent home. He ran to weather he liked, a lower cost of living, a laid-back Thai lifestyle and low-cost, no-guilt sex. It was my first time in Asia, exotic and different - the language, the architecture, the sounds, the smells, the customs.

BANGKOK, Thailand - The death toll from Thailand's worst floods in half a century climbed past 500 Sunday, as advancing pools of polluted water threatened Bangkok's subway system and new evacuations were ordered in the capital. The latest district added to the government's evacuation list was Chatuchak, home to a major public park and an outdoor shopping zone that is a major tourist attraction. The Chatuchak Weekend Market was open but missing many vendors and customers Sunday as floodwaters poured past the market's eastern edge for a second day. So far, Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra has ordered evacuations in 11 of Bangkok's 50 districts, and partial evacuations in seven more.

BANGKOK - The complex network of flood defenses erected to shield Thailand's capital from the country's worst floods in nearly 60 years was put to the test Saturday as coastal high tides hit their peak. No major breaches were immediately reported. Fear gripped Bangkok early in the day as tides along the Gulf of Thailand crested at about 9 a.m. and pushed the city's main waterway, the Chao Phraya river, to its brink. Overflows so far have lightly inundated riverside streets from Chinatown to the famed Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Floodwaters that have devastated Thailand's industry and agriculture seeped into outer Bangkok on Friday as the crowded capital's residents braced for the impact, uncertain if they will soon be hopping over puddles or fording waist-high streams just outside their windows. Thailand's prime minister urged residents of the city of nine million people to get ready to move their belongings to higher ground. Key gates on flood-control canals in the capital have been opened in a risky move to drain the high waters into the sea, but it's not known how much will overflow onto streets.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Barriers protecting Bangkok from Thailand's worst floods in half a century held firm Sunday as the government said some water drenching provinces just north of the capital had begun to recede. That fueled hopes that Bangkok, a city of nine million, could escape unharmed. But outside the capital, thousands of people remain displaced and hungry residents struggle to survive in half-submerged towns. On Sunday, the military rescued terrified civilians from the rooftops of flooded buildings in the city of Ayutthaya, one of the country's hardest-hit.

BANGKOK - Residents of Bangkok braced for possible weekend flooding as the runoff from high water that devastated parts of central Thailand flowed toward the low-lying metropolis on Friday, where many downtown buildings were fortified with walls of sandbags. While the government sought to reassure Bangkok's nine million people that the capital would be spared, it also sent sometimes confusing messages that raised anxieties and sent residents on shopping sprees to stockpile food, medicine and other essentials.