Thai Airways International is pleased to bring to our online readers this weekly travel series "Thailandand Beyond." It is our endeavour to bring readers abreast of special events and happenings that are taking place in Thailand, and at the same time introduce readers to many of THAI's exciting destinations around the world. Our goal, however, is not merely to visit these places; we will take you into their world of discovery, and even adventure. Yes, discovery and adventure, including “unseen Thailand,” and from around the world, to places you never imagined, like the sewers of Paris and a walk up the steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We read about these dark depths of Paris in the pages of Victor Hugo, and we saw them on the screen of Orson Well's "The Third Man," but what about actually visiting them? And the same for shopping. Paris can offer the traveller adventure in shopping, if one knows where to look. And that's what we'll be doing for our readers. 

Our travel correspondent will literally take you over the skies of Paris during a Paris Air Show in a vintage P-41 World War II fighter, and we will tell you how you can do the same, fly in a P-41 World War II fighter, if you are so inclined. With our correspondent, we will feel what a bullfighter feels before he goes into the bullring when we meet the matadors in Madrid. We will stand on the ramparts of Mt. Saint-Michael and witness the tide that comes in with the speed of a galloping horse, and we will feel the glory of the Taj Mahal on a moonlit night. We will trek the high Himalayas and join our writer in a four-wheel drive across the Australian Outback. We will dine in Paris at Maxims upon braised leg of hare Robespierre and elk-pfeffer Prince de la Foret Noir, and in Singapore in an open-air food stall while eating fish-head curry on a banana leaf. We will see the inside of a Buddhist monastery deep in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, a view never seen by outsiders until now. 

For the adventure-minded traveller, we will explore the caves of Thailand, search for lost cities in northern Thailand and Laos, dive beneath the seas looking for pretty coral formations and forgotten wrecks, and hike the high grounds among exciting hill tribe villages. But not all will be Indiana Jones. There will be other discoveries, hidden antique shops, out-of-the-way restaurants, shops that have unbelievable buys and fun nightlife you hear so much about. We will introduce you from time to time to some interesting people, from expatriates who never went home to fishing boat captains, jungle savages, even pirate chieftains, tour guides in Rome and dancers at the Follies in Paris. 

We trust you will enjoy this series, and we invite readers to send in their comments, or to ask questions and we will attempt to answer them. Nothing you ask will be too strange or outlandish for our correspondent. You might want to know about going on an elephant ride in the jungle, or how you can organize a bamboo raft trip down a quite jungle river in Khao Lak along the southern Burma border. 

In the weeks to come we will explore this great, beautiful and fascinating world of ours, and to which Thai Airways International can take us.