Thailand

To figure out what's going on with Thailand's economy these days, merely look at Siam Cement Co. Officials of the company, Thailand's largest construction outfit, thought they'd struck gold in 1988 when sales rose 25 percent and profits swelled by 75 percent. But they hit platinum this year, with sales and profits expected to rise 40 percent to 60 percent further. "If purchasing power increases, it goes for building new homes and businesses," said Thirasakdi Nathikanchanalab, finance manager of Siam Cement.

AYUTTHAYA, Thailand - The lucky ones traverse this flood-submerged Thai city in navy boats and motorized canoes. The rest float on whatever they can find - inner tubes, swan-shaped pedal boats, huge chunks of muddied white plastic foam. With large sections of Ayutthaya buried under a sea of one-story high water, rescue workers and volunteers are still crisscrossing town to pluck stranded residents from the ruins. Others are staying to protect what's left. One boy donned a snorkeling mask to inspect his house, its corrugated roof faintly visible below the murky brown waves.

Dolly Newport, the director of the Coatesville Library, puts her hands in her pockets and looks around the room. There is so much to do - cleaning up after last week's break-in attempt, planning for children's book week - and so little time to get it done. In about two weeks, she will be halfway around the world. On Nov. 13, Newport will travel to Payap University in northern Thailand, where for two months she will help index the 150-year-old archives of the Church of Christ.

Tiger Woods began his trip to Thailand with a bout of heat exhaustion and food poisoning. By the end, things were working out quite nicely. There was a royal decoration and a blowout victory yesterday in the Asia Honda Classic in Bangna. Woods won the tournament by 10 strokes, and received an embrace from his Thai-born mother on the 18th green while a crowd of 3,000 chanted his name. Woods closed with a 4-under-par 68 for a total of 20-under 268. He earned $48,000 for the victory plus a $480,000 appearance fee. Woods was presented with the royal decoration - for helping promote Thailand's image - by Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh at a reception last night.

I would like to take a trip to Thailand and Burma in October, but have been unable to find a travel agent who can plan an itinerary for me. I particularly want to include Chiang Mai, which I understand is very special. Can you lead me to some informed sources? Information is available from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, 5 World Trade Center, Suite 2449, New York, N.Y. 10048; 212-432-0433. Burma has no tourism office in the United States, but you can get a few brochures and some basic information from the Consulate General of Burma, 10 E. 77th St., New York, N.Y. 10021; 212-535-1310.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Thailand banned logging from forests in 1989, a blessing and curse for its working elephants (and for their masters, known as mahouts). They were sold for logging in neighboring Myanmar or ended up in circuses, sideshows, zoos and camps giving rides to tourists. Many were abandoned, and some starved to death. For years, Sangduen Chailert, known as Lek, had felt in her heart that she had to save the Asian elephants of her childhood in northern Thailand.

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.

Chemical maker FMC Corp., of Philadelphia, said it broke ground on a $100-million manufacturing facility in Rayong, Thailand. The facility will produce microcrystalline cellulose (MCC), a food and pharmaceutical additive, for the growing Asian market, FMC said. The company has existing MCC facilities in Newark, Del., and Cork, Ireland. FMC had 2012 sales of about $3.7 billion.

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?

BANGKOK - Buddhist monks led prayers as tens of thousands gathered Saturday in Bangkok to mark the second anniversary of deadly clashes between soldiers and "Red Shirt" protesters. The scene Saturday was a sharp contrast with two years earlier, when Thailand was at war with itself and troops moved in to crush a nine-week antigovernment protest that left more than 90 people dead and 2,000 injured. It was the country's worst political violence in decades. Many speakers addressed the crowd Saturday to demand justice.

Chemical maker FMC Corp., of Philadelphia, said it broke ground on a $100-million manufacturing facility in Rayong, Thailand. The facility will produce microcrystalline cellulose (MCC), a food and pharmaceutical additive, for the growing Asian market, FMC said. The company has existing MCC facilities in Newark, Del., and Cork, Ireland. FMC had 2012 sales of about $3.7 billion.

LONDON - A British couple's round-the-world cycling odyssey ended in tragedy when both of them were killed in a road accident in Thailand. Peter Root and Mary Thompson, who had been chronicling their journey in a blog, died Wednesday when they were hit by a pickup truck in a province east of Bangkok, Thai police said Monday. The couple, both 34 and from Guernsey in the Channel Islands, left Britain in July 2011 and had cycled through Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and China.

When most people crave a good walk, they amble around the block or saunter through a park - maybe even hike a mountain. Not Lower Merion Township native Ali Weiner, a 23-year-old with an ambition that's anything but pedestrian. She and a friend are planning a 180-mile walk in Thailand - from Bangkok to the Myanmar border - for themselves and 20 others to raise awareness of human trafficking and at least $100,000 for anti-trafficking groups. The trek is scheduled for November, when the rainy season is over and temperatures are more moderate.

MAHACHAI, Thailand - Long a fighter against oppression inside Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has used her first foreign trip in 24 years to fight for her countrymen suffering abroad - millions of economic migrants unable to work at home but vulnerable to exploitation elsewhere. On Thursday, she pressed her concerns about the millions of Myanmar migrants living in Thailand in a meeting with the country's deputy prime minister. And for a second straight day, she addressed throngs of migrants in Mahachai, a town southwest of Bangkok that hosts more migrants from Myanmar than any other place in Thailand.

BANGKOK - Buddhist monks led prayers as tens of thousands gathered Saturday in Bangkok to mark the second anniversary of deadly clashes between soldiers and "Red Shirt" protesters. The scene Saturday was a sharp contrast with two years earlier, when Thailand was at war with itself and troops moved in to crush a nine-week antigovernment protest that left more than 90 people dead and 2,000 injured. It was the country's worst political violence in decades. Many speakers addressed the crowd Saturday to demand justice.

HAT YAI, Thailand - Suspected Muslim insurgents staged the most deadly coordinated attacks in years in Thailand's restive south, killing 14 people and wounding 340 with car bombs that targeted Saturday shoppers and a high-rise hotel frequented by foreign tourists. A first batch of explosives planted inside a parked pickup truck ripped through an area of restaurants and shops in a busy area of Yala city, a commercial hub of Thailand's southern provinces, said the district police chief, Col. Kritsada Kaewchandee.

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.

CHIANG RAI, Thailand - No one asked the elephants, or their mahouts. In 1989, to halt the rape of its thick forests, Thailand banned the centuries-old industry of logging. The result: Logging was stopped (legal logging, anyway) - and thousands of elephants suddenly found themselves jobless. This was less of a problem for the elephants than for their gobsmacked mahouts (owners), who faced the challenge of providing their elephants with about 500 pounds of food a day with no source of income.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Police were questioning a Lebanese man with alleged links to Hezbollah militants as the U.S. Embassy and Israel warned Friday of a "real and credible" terrorist threat against Americans and Israelis in Bangkok. Police said a bombing had been planned and another suspect was at large. The warning comes during heightened tension over U.S. and Israeli responses to the prospect that Iran is going forward with developing nuclear weapons. Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which has been accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in the Middle East since the 1980s, is avowedly anti-Israel and widely considered to act as a proxy for Iran.

WHEN I was a schoolteacher in Olney, a fellow teacher used to regale the staff every September with stories about his travels to Mexico and South and Central America. Relaxing! A journey he'd never forget, he'd crow a little too loudly in staff meetings as he passed around pictures. I still remember the nausea I felt when I opened a national news magazine a few years later to see his face on a story about international child predators. He was serving 10 years in a Mexican prison for soliciting sex from children the same age that he taught at our school.