South from BKK
Heading out of Bangkok on the ‘Magic Routes’ bus I settle in for my sojourn to the island of Koh Phangan and reach for my copy of the Bangkok Post I had bought for the journey. Flicking through I read an article on floods in Bangkok the night before. I was there and I knew it poured down, read on. Oh, tucked away in a paragraph at the end of the story,
‘The country is bracing for torrential rains early next week as Typhoon Xangsane is expected to hit Vietnam on Sunday before passing through Thailand. The typhoon is currently swirling near the Philippines.
Really! And here I am heading to an island in the Gulf of Thailand and kinda committed sitting on a bus heading south out of town. Typhoons, coupe d’etat, tuk tuk drivers are all just part of the spice of Thailand I decide and sit back to accept my fate. I stare out the window and watch the sweaty chaos of Bangkok fly by from my magic routes capsule with a social documentary of the poor and insignificant playing through the glass. Soon, almost like a commercial break, the blur of faces gives way to kilometres of car sales yards. Yep, I’ve reached the magic mile. Well, I don’t know what other people call these places but I’ve always called a strip of car yards ‘the magic mile’ after a 70’s car add in Brisbane for ‘Moorooka, magic mile of motors’ played ad nauseam, permanently and irreversibly made the magic mile connection for me.
Maybe trying to mask thoughts of an impending typhoon or perhaps being in a foreign country heading into the unknown and cut adrift from the normal time place and context of the everyday world my thoughts drifted to another classic car add of that time, John Zupps. It is probably a testament to the fact that I should have been spending more time doing my homework but this piece of absolute trivia is still stuck somewhere in dark depths of the brain and goes,
Any old iron, any old iron, any any any old iron. Trade it in, nickel or tin, you get more cash when you cash it all in. Bumper bars, any old cars, doesn’t matter what’s up. You can trade anything and get cash back at John Zupps at John Zupps. Trade your banana! Trade up from eighty eight cents a day with John Zupps with John Zupps.
I soon left thoughts of 70’s television adds behind and was relieved to see coconut trees a couple of hours south. If you go to a tropical country you have to see coconut trees, right? Bangkok Post reports, ‘Schools torched in TRT stronghold’. Apparently Kamphaeng Phet is a political stronghold of the Thai Rak Thai part, TRT, which held all five seats in this northern province. This is the political power base of the ousted leader Taksin Shinawatra and it seems tensions are running high in this area. A number of former MP’s have not reported themselves to the Third Army as instructed by the coup leaders who form the new ruling body called the Council for Democratic Reform.
I spoke to a Thai guy I meet in Bangkok and asked him what his feeling were about the coup. He said that basically the former leader had lost the support of most Thais and that, in the south at least, everyone was happy that he had been removed. He said that the former ousted Prime Minister had created tensions between the north and south which he hadn’t witnessed before. He was happy the former Prime Minister had gone but…(trying to indicate something with his hand…a writing gesture) not by army by…looking for the word again [vote, I prompt him] yes, happy he has gone but should be done by vote, paper. Not so good if army do this. I then ask what the king thinks about this. A immediate reaction comes across his face and you can tell that nothing about the king is said without deep consideration. The Thais worship and respect the king like no other I’ve seen. This extends from the destitute to the army generals. I recall a previous coup in Thailand over ten years ago where things could have become fairly ugly as it wasn’t a particularly popular coup like this one and it was finally defused by the king instructing the generals to go back to the barracks, which they did such is the reverence held for the king. From what I have observed he seems to be a fairly modest self effacing type of monarch. There are posters and billboards of him everywhere and he is always portrayed as a king with the common touch standing with school children, families and so forth. There is however deep concern about the next in line to the throne as the prince apparently is a bit of a dark horse and is known as a gambling womaniser with some shaky business dealings..
I turn to the letters page,
Democracy, US style.
So the US imposes sanctions on Thailand in response to the coup. Very moral indeed. The problem is that I don’t remember any sanctions against Thailand when Thaksin’s government organised the war on drugs during which more than 2,000 extra-judicial killings occurred. And I don’t remember any sanctions against Thailand when the Thaksin regime ordered the Tuk Bai massacre. And what about the Krue Se massacre? And the disappearance of human rights lawyer Somchai? The list goes on.
So we now know that a bloodless coup is totally intolerable and has to be condemned in the harshest way, but repeated and massive state killings are perfectly acceptable to the Western World as long as it is an elected government which carries them out. Democracy at its best.
I’ll attempt to give my summation of the coup yet having been in Thailand a little over a week it is difficult to come up to speed on the coup here so any synopsis of the situation is going to be very crude. From what I can tell Thaksin was elected fairly in a free and open election and enjoyed a healthy majority and popular support. He was a charismatic Prime Minister with big ideas and huge personal wealth. Reportedly the 28th richest man in the world. However his leadership style, which tended to be more like a CEO than a head of state began the tide of dissatisfaction against him. His government had a pour record of dealing with dissent which ended in bloody conflicts such as the crisis in southern Thailand with Muslim separatists. There is also the massacres mentioned above which I know nothing about but it seems he may have had a less than gentle way of dealing with dissent. The other major problem revolves around corruption issues. Surprise, surprise. The National Counter Corruption commission is currently investigating corruption cases around a wastewater treatment plant, a rice mortgage project, an expressway compensation scheme and longan price stabilisation scheme plus a range of corrupt deals related to construction of Thailand’s massive new international airport (reportedly now the largest single terminal airport in the world) opened a few days ago to name a few. It seems the military believe the TRT party had subverted the electoral process, not sure exactly how other than money, power and influence, and ousted the government and have replaced it with the Council for Democratic Reform, CDR. The military claim they have no desire to govern and have indicated they want a full and open election in twelve months. The Bangkok Post has a number of photos of student protests against the military with soldiers standing calmly by and it appears they are trying to set themselves apart from the previous government in that they are able to tolerate dissent and that there ambitions are only for a more open and democratic Thailand. I’ll have to check back on that one.
Readers of this blog would know that this trip is a bit of retracting of my past experience here in Thailand. The last time I travelled through the Thai Peninsular I was heading north bound with Amanda on a train from Kota Baru, a border town on the north east of Malaysia, to Bangkok. We came well prepared with a couple of bottles of Mekong Whiskey which is a fairly crude local drop. But when you are backpacking and in your twenties it is part of the experience at around $1 bottle back then. It was probably one of the more ‘interesting’ train rides I’ve been on. I’d never before been on a train where soldiers patrolled the carriages armed with M16 rifles. “True mate, I did buy a ticket!”. These soldier where apparently there to guard against a small band of communists still holding faithful in the hills is southern Thailand since the second world war. I need to check my history but they are part of the remnants of the ‘Malaysian emergency’ or Malaysian occupation’. One of the two I believe. Anyway, apparently they had found ambushing trains and taking off with passengers valuables a lucrative sideline. I thought that stuff only happened in B grade American movies! There’s nothing like seeing someone stroll past with a military assault rifle to know you are no longer in safety and security of Australia but in someone else’s ‘real world’. Anyway the only thing I could think to rise above the military hardware, threats of ambush and general tension was to open the Mekong whiskey and celebrate. Amanda and I were having such a great time we got invited down to the guards wagon where we partied on most of the night with the train crew and various soldiers who came and went joining in with our sign alongs. We taught them a few aussie songs and they taught us a few Thai songs and in the end we staggered back to our seats just before dawn.
Now, being certifiably middle aged you look back at those misspent days of youth and wonder where all that energy comes from. Hell, I very rarely make it past midnight let alone see the sun come up these days! So, heading south on an overnight bus in the opposite direction I wasn’t expecting anything to equal my last trip north. I wasn’t disappointed. I did have a bottle of Mekong with me but without singing soldiers doing movements with their rifles and the prospect of being ambushed by communists it wasn’t quiet the same. I did however make it to Sarit Thani this time and being delivered in a mangrove swamp at 5.30 am on the edge of an estuary I waited for the boat to Koh Phangan at 8.00am.
‘The country is bracing for torrential rains early next week as Typhoon Xangsane is expected to hit Vietnam on Sunday before passing through Thailand. The typhoon is currently swirling near the Philippines.
Really! And here I am heading to an island in the Gulf of Thailand and kinda committed sitting on a bus heading south out of town. Typhoons, coupe d’etat, tuk tuk drivers are all just part of the spice of Thailand I decide and sit back to accept my fate. I stare out the window and watch the sweaty chaos of Bangkok fly by from my magic routes capsule with a social documentary of the poor and insignificant playing through the glass. Soon, almost like a commercial break, the blur of faces gives way to kilometres of car sales yards. Yep, I’ve reached the magic mile. Well, I don’t know what other people call these places but I’ve always called a strip of car yards ‘the magic mile’ after a 70’s car add in Brisbane for ‘Moorooka, magic mile of motors’ played ad nauseam, permanently and irreversibly made the magic mile connection for me.
Maybe trying to mask thoughts of an impending typhoon or perhaps being in a foreign country heading into the unknown and cut adrift from the normal time place and context of the everyday world my thoughts drifted to another classic car add of that time, John Zupps. It is probably a testament to the fact that I should have been spending more time doing my homework but this piece of absolute trivia is still stuck somewhere in dark depths of the brain and goes,
Any old iron, any old iron, any any any old iron. Trade it in, nickel or tin, you get more cash when you cash it all in. Bumper bars, any old cars, doesn’t matter what’s up. You can trade anything and get cash back at John Zupps at John Zupps. Trade your banana! Trade up from eighty eight cents a day with John Zupps with John Zupps.
I soon left thoughts of 70’s television adds behind and was relieved to see coconut trees a couple of hours south. If you go to a tropical country you have to see coconut trees, right? Bangkok Post reports, ‘Schools torched in TRT stronghold’. Apparently Kamphaeng Phet is a political stronghold of the Thai Rak Thai part, TRT, which held all five seats in this northern province. This is the political power base of the ousted leader Taksin Shinawatra and it seems tensions are running high in this area. A number of former MP’s have not reported themselves to the Third Army as instructed by the coup leaders who form the new ruling body called the Council for Democratic Reform.
I spoke to a Thai guy I meet in Bangkok and asked him what his feeling were about the coup. He said that basically the former leader had lost the support of most Thais and that, in the south at least, everyone was happy that he had been removed. He said that the former ousted Prime Minister had created tensions between the north and south which he hadn’t witnessed before. He was happy the former Prime Minister had gone but…(trying to indicate something with his hand…a writing gesture) not by army by…looking for the word again [vote, I prompt him] yes, happy he has gone but should be done by vote, paper. Not so good if army do this. I then ask what the king thinks about this. A immediate reaction comes across his face and you can tell that nothing about the king is said without deep consideration. The Thais worship and respect the king like no other I’ve seen. This extends from the destitute to the army generals. I recall a previous coup in Thailand over ten years ago where things could have become fairly ugly as it wasn’t a particularly popular coup like this one and it was finally defused by the king instructing the generals to go back to the barracks, which they did such is the reverence held for the king. From what I have observed he seems to be a fairly modest self effacing type of monarch. There are posters and billboards of him everywhere and he is always portrayed as a king with the common touch standing with school children, families and so forth. There is however deep concern about the next in line to the throne as the prince apparently is a bit of a dark horse and is known as a gambling womaniser with some shaky business dealings..
I turn to the letters page,
Democracy, US style.
So the US imposes sanctions on Thailand in response to the coup. Very moral indeed. The problem is that I don’t remember any sanctions against Thailand when Thaksin’s government organised the war on drugs during which more than 2,000 extra-judicial killings occurred. And I don’t remember any sanctions against Thailand when the Thaksin regime ordered the Tuk Bai massacre. And what about the Krue Se massacre? And the disappearance of human rights lawyer Somchai? The list goes on.
So we now know that a bloodless coup is totally intolerable and has to be condemned in the harshest way, but repeated and massive state killings are perfectly acceptable to the Western World as long as it is an elected government which carries them out. Democracy at its best.
I’ll attempt to give my summation of the coup yet having been in Thailand a little over a week it is difficult to come up to speed on the coup here so any synopsis of the situation is going to be very crude. From what I can tell Thaksin was elected fairly in a free and open election and enjoyed a healthy majority and popular support. He was a charismatic Prime Minister with big ideas and huge personal wealth. Reportedly the 28th richest man in the world. However his leadership style, which tended to be more like a CEO than a head of state began the tide of dissatisfaction against him. His government had a pour record of dealing with dissent which ended in bloody conflicts such as the crisis in southern Thailand with Muslim separatists. There is also the massacres mentioned above which I know nothing about but it seems he may have had a less than gentle way of dealing with dissent. The other major problem revolves around corruption issues. Surprise, surprise. The National Counter Corruption commission is currently investigating corruption cases around a wastewater treatment plant, a rice mortgage project, an expressway compensation scheme and longan price stabilisation scheme plus a range of corrupt deals related to construction of Thailand’s massive new international airport (reportedly now the largest single terminal airport in the world) opened a few days ago to name a few. It seems the military believe the TRT party had subverted the electoral process, not sure exactly how other than money, power and influence, and ousted the government and have replaced it with the Council for Democratic Reform, CDR. The military claim they have no desire to govern and have indicated they want a full and open election in twelve months. The Bangkok Post has a number of photos of student protests against the military with soldiers standing calmly by and it appears they are trying to set themselves apart from the previous government in that they are able to tolerate dissent and that there ambitions are only for a more open and democratic Thailand. I’ll have to check back on that one.
Readers of this blog would know that this trip is a bit of retracting of my past experience here in Thailand. The last time I travelled through the Thai Peninsular I was heading north bound with Amanda on a train from Kota Baru, a border town on the north east of Malaysia, to Bangkok. We came well prepared with a couple of bottles of Mekong Whiskey which is a fairly crude local drop. But when you are backpacking and in your twenties it is part of the experience at around $1 bottle back then. It was probably one of the more ‘interesting’ train rides I’ve been on. I’d never before been on a train where soldiers patrolled the carriages armed with M16 rifles. “True mate, I did buy a ticket!”. These soldier where apparently there to guard against a small band of communists still holding faithful in the hills is southern Thailand since the second world war. I need to check my history but they are part of the remnants of the ‘Malaysian emergency’ or Malaysian occupation’. One of the two I believe. Anyway, apparently they had found ambushing trains and taking off with passengers valuables a lucrative sideline. I thought that stuff only happened in B grade American movies! There’s nothing like seeing someone stroll past with a military assault rifle to know you are no longer in safety and security of Australia but in someone else’s ‘real world’. Anyway the only thing I could think to rise above the military hardware, threats of ambush and general tension was to open the Mekong whiskey and celebrate. Amanda and I were having such a great time we got invited down to the guards wagon where we partied on most of the night with the train crew and various soldiers who came and went joining in with our sign alongs. We taught them a few aussie songs and they taught us a few Thai songs and in the end we staggered back to our seats just before dawn.
Now, being certifiably middle aged you look back at those misspent days of youth and wonder where all that energy comes from. Hell, I very rarely make it past midnight let alone see the sun come up these days! So, heading south on an overnight bus in the opposite direction I wasn’t expecting anything to equal my last trip north. I wasn’t disappointed. I did have a bottle of Mekong with me but without singing soldiers doing movements with their rifles and the prospect of being ambushed by communists it wasn’t quiet the same. I did however make it to Sarit Thani this time and being delivered in a mangrove swamp at 5.30 am on the edge of an estuary I waited for the boat to Koh Phangan at 8.00am.
posted by transavante | 4:18 p.m.
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