Hi everyone, posting this entry in a sleek matte black Malaysian internet bar. As I sat down, the man next to me was surveying the results of a google search on the word "playboy". I sighed mentally at spending an hour next to a man downloading porn - but then he tried a new search, "picture of dead people".

It is among these inauspicious surroundings that I would like to welcome you to visit my new TV channel. My digital camera has a "movie" function, so I have been recording some short (very short) films... Have a look at

http://www.trekshare.com/members/daniel_wal/index.cfm

So far I have posted one from the Roti Mataba restaurant, and one from my Muay Thai class (filming some of the better students training).

Please leave some comments, say how long it takes to view the files, whether you like them, any suggestions for subject matter and so on... I will work out better ways to combine the two sites once I've got over the wonder of actually getting this to work!

Written 8 June 2004, Kuala Lumpur

In the presence of the king

[Written 3 June 04] Well, this is my last night in Thailand, waiting for the sleeper train in Surratani's dreary station. I've had a really great time here. Thailand has a special quality that somehow sucks up all the nine million tourists a year and leaves you feeling like the first person to discover the country. All I'd say, beyond the stuff I've already conveyed in past entries, is that if you have a holiday coming up, I can only recommend coming here. Whatever you want to find, you can find it - maybe with the exception of skiing.

My only words of warning would be - bring some insect repellent (just to minimize some itching), be very careful if you hire a motorbike on Kho Pha Ngan, if you don't want to leave the island with a nice scar on your leg (I lost track of how many people had suffered an accident), and be very, very careful with your credit cards. My mum got a call from American Express this morning, I called their number to discover someone in Thailand made several purchases with my card on June 1st. AMEX cancelled the card and I'm not liable, very fortunately. The interesting thing: I never use that card, I keep it in a sponge bag inside my rucksack as an emergency back up. So, what I think this means is that in one of my guesthouses, someone went into my room, found my rucksack unlocked and went through all the contents until they found the credit card. Somewhat worrying.

Anyway, you need to be careful, especially in more popular areas in the south, I think. But aside from this parting gift, I've had no problems here, and am looking forward to returning. The rest of this piece is some observations about Thailand, observations that I'm sure don't do more than scratch the surface. Perhaps were I a better writer, I would weave these anecodotes and theories into the stories seeminglessly, but equally, with some things it's maybe better to build up a view of a country and present theories later.

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Everywhere I've been in Thailand, I've seen the King. This country is after all, "The Monarchy of Thailand", and the people take their kings very seriously. There is one king from a few centuries ago so revered many people today make prayers to his statues and wear his image around their neck. Pictures of the current king are everywhere in Thailand. In each house and hotel there seems to be a large photograph of him, most houses have either (or both) current photos of him and the queen, or sepia images of older royalty. In every Thai cinema, before the film begins, there is a request to pay respect to the king - everyone rises and a short film about the king and his life plays. I've been to three cinemas in Thailand, and these films range from grainy still shots of him surveying bits of Thailand (as though part of his job is to physically check the country is still existing) to really snazzy 3-D morphing pieces. The first time I went to the cinema, it was only me in the auditorium. I had heard what was expected, and debated whether, if the film began with only me in the cinema, should I stand for the king, or would that look silly? I decided I would stand - if that's what the Thais wanted, I could do my bit to uphold tradition. In the end, about five people joined me in the seats, and strangely, no one stood up on that occasion, which was a disappointment.

If Thai readers will forgive the horrendous impertinence, from the films and photos, I get the impression the King is a good person, someone rather earnest and concerned to do the right thing. Probably not the best fellow to lead an elephant cavalry charge against the Burmese, but that's not necessarily a flaw, is it?
Something unusal about him is that he's very frequently pictured holding a camera, he likes Canon particularly I think. My favourite and most ambiguous photo of him is one where he is in full royal dress, seated on a throne, clearly this is some official occasion - yet in his hands on his lap one can just see a small chrome camera. I let myself imagine that every time someone in their full regalia came up to bow to him, he snapped off a photo of them, as if he's still in awe of all this pomp and ceremony. I imagined him in bed with the queen, showing her his developed pictures from the day, "And here's the Chamberlain of the Keys, now he's bowing..."
And the king sometimes jumps out and surprises me when I least expect him. Walking the pleasant lanes of Lampang, I came across an old woman admist a wooden frame shack, set up in front of a house. The frame was bedecked with large photos, I recognised some of them were of the queen, and assumed the photos of a younger women were her Majesty at an earlier age. But no, these photos were of the old woman who was standing in front of me. Without being able to share a word between us, she gave me the guided tour: her meeting the queen, her meeting the queen again, a reception with the king that she had attended, some rather fetching photos of her as a young woman in a one piece bikini. What the story was, however, I had no hope of finding out, so I tried to indicate that the photos of her as a teenager were hot stuff, and walked on puzzled.

I have something of a theory about Thailand, mainly developed from reading Thailand's English language newspapers, the Nation and Bangkok Post. There does seem to be this sense of "properness" in Thailand, this starting point assumption that people in power are (or should be) good, honest men. It's not, I think, that the Thais are naiive, people are aware that people in power deviate from how things should be - and their current prime minister is, from what I can tell, as dodgy as the Pope is Catholic. But Thais seem to base their expectations in terms of personal decency rather adherence to some set of rules or procedures. The prime minister refuses to answer the opposition's questions then slanders them in a radio interview - what does the opposition leader say? "These are not the actions of a gentleman". A reader's letter on the recent university places scandal is entitled, "Even rich people can break the law"; and I remember the case a couple years ago of a British man imprisoned for drug trafficking. There were several irregularities in his arrest - eg the pages of that day's police log were mysteriously torn out - but the judge dismissed the concerns by saying, "I believe these officiers are honest men".

There's also an interesting tendency towards powerful figures introducing themselves into really unusual parts of Thai life - a bit like the Victorian aristocrat amateurs who tried out a bit of everything. By the enormous Hyatt hotel, there is a shrine in active use - the shrine was built (in the 1950s) because a rear admiral, a self proclaimed expert on astrology, told the hotel that their day of opening was inauspicious and they should build a shrine to repair the damage.
Some of the big shifts in Thai art, such as the early twentieth century return to traditional Thai styles, were personally led by painter kings. The current king has a few pieces in the National Gallery - the staff wouldn't tell me how much they would be worth.

Politics in Thailand are, I feel, a bit dubious, perhaps illustrated by the current plan to buy part of Liverpool FC, for reasons and benefits quite, quite obscure. Originally, the rather rich (even Berlusconi-esque) Prime Minister, Thaksin, was going to buy the share in the club for himself, then decided Thailand should get involved. The government plans to fund part of the purchase with a nationwide lottery, even though it had pledged to remove gambling from rural areas...
Thaksin and his ministers have just survived a vote of no confidence, based on an array of allegations of corruption. Even the generally non-committal Bangkok Post editorial mused, "...some of the ministers were less than convincing in their protestations of innocence".
It would be also very interesting to find out how important the army is to Thai politics. Almost every day I've read a paper, there is a thick column on a particular General's views and stance on the crisis in the south - far, far more coverage than any views of academics or spiritual figures.

A consistent theme in the English language newspapers is that power is too centralised. Groups and regions apparently have rights and independencies under the constitution that the central government barely respects. And so there are lots of indications that life here isn't perhaps as easy if one is a non Buddhist and/or non ethnic Thai. The Muslims in the south feel, it seems, ridden over harshly by the central government, partly leading to the current violent crisis in the Malaysia border area. In Chiang Mai, flyers posted on lamp posts argued travellers should come to a northern town to stage a protest at the plight of the Ahka hill tribe people, forced off their land and into the city where they fall into crime and prostitution. "Don't go on hill treks!", these messages proclaimed. Amnesty International is protesting Thailand's deportation of around 400 Burmese refugees every month - and I've just read in today's Bangkok Post about the Karen hilltribe people's mistreatment by the government, who blame the Karen for destroying Thailand's forests, even as the government allows large scale mining to go ahead in their land. The Karen risk being deported as Burmese, even though they are the indigenous people on their land.

I hope to find out more intruiging things about Thailand on my second visit to the country. Why do urban Thai people love shopping so much? Why are there so many cake shops? Why do Thai people seem to enjoy soft-pop, even lounge music, so much? The song that seemed to sum this up was a street band suavely performing, "I love you just the way you are". And I would like to see more of rural and small town life.

I do feel a bit of a bond to the country, even only after one month - it was with quite a start that I read that a building in Banglampoo which I walked past everyday has just collapsed. The building looked a real dump, so I'm not at all surprised - and the authorities have been trying to get the building (or at least the illegally built top seven floors) demolished for almost twenty years (!). No one was killed, though several of the stall owners who are perpetually selling jeans and clothes in that street's pavement market were injured. A sad, dubious story - and only one floor of the building collapsed, more of it may come down any day now. Reading the story made me realise how accustomed I'd come to my little Bangkok neighbourhood.

Farewell Thailand, see you again soon, but now, on towards Pennisular Malaysia and Borneo.

Daniel, 3 June 2004, Surratani