Chat sessions with monks provide a rare insight into their lives, says Kate Roff.

A trip to northern Thailand brings exotic experiences and confronting flavours.

Sweet, salty, sour, spicy and bitter tastes are perfectly balanced in Thai cuisine.

A Thai overstayer who has been living in New Zealand illegally for 10 years has been deported to Thailand, after a failed bid to stay with his partner and New Zealand-born daughter.

No roads, no phones, no power. But that doesn't get in the way of two Auckland ad men who are bringing schools to Southeast Asia's poorest kids - by motorbike. Kirsten Warner meets them.

The World Health Organisation is still stumped over the cause of the string of "puzzling" deaths in Chiang Mai.

Since his eldest child died while backpacking in Thailand, Richard Carter does not welcome idle time.

Kate Roff submerges off the coast of Thailand to meet a local celebrity.

NZ's Foreign Affairs Minister is expecting to receive more information today about the death in Thailand of Sarah Carter.

A young New Zealander who died in Thailand last month had a highly infectious virus which can spark the heart condition which killed her, tests show.

Japan's biggest quake since records began triggered a shocking 10m tsunami. See how the quake ranks in history.

Sometimes it's refreshing to be left to your own devices - but not necessarily when you're sitting on an elephant, writes Christine Cornege.

A fifth tourist has died in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in circumstances eerily similar to New Zealander Sarah Carter's mysterious death - which health officials initially blamed on food poisoning.

The father of New Zealand tourist Sarah Carter wants the Thai hotel she stayed in closed and a more thorough investigation carried out into her death.

Four people have died in mysterious circumstances at the Thai hotel where a New Zealand woman fell fatally ill last month.

Hundreds have gathered at a church in east Auckland today to farewell Sarah Carter, who died of food poisoning in Thailand on Waitangi Day.

The Thai hotel manager who tried to help three young NZ women with food poisoning has described how the trio were bedridden and vomiting.

The father of a woman who died of poisoning in Thailand has described his last words to her.

Friends have spoken of their grief after the death of Sarah Carter, the 23-year-old new Zealander who died from food poisoning in Thailand at the weekend, on a Facebook tribute page.

A dream OE has turned to tragedy for three young NZ women after food poisoning killed one and left the other two in hospital.