The Journey(s) of Ian

The Kingdom of Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, with a free and democratic government—that is what the constitution says. The Head of State is the King of Thailand, King Rama IX, as he is usually referred to in the west. Under him there is an executive consisting of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, an elected parliament, and an independent judiciary. In accordance with the Thai constitution, which requires an election every four years, an election is currently underway in Thailand. On Sunday, the 3rd of July, the people of Thailand will elect a new government.  The modern Thai government structure dates back to 1932 when an unlikely combination of traditional aristocrats and a westernised upper middle-class Bangkok group compelled the Thai King to agree to a written, democratic constitution, which moved Thailand (Siam, as it was then known) from an autocracy to a democracy. All well and good, however, peace and domestic tranquility was not to ensure. Since that date there have...

Having been told by everyone in Pattani that Nara was the really dangerous province of the ‘deep south’ it was with some trepidation that I bordered the bus for the 90km journey from Pattani to Nara. While on the bus I will confess that my imagination went into overdrive on a few occasions. I saw myself dragged from the rickety "local" bus and incarcerated as a hostage, suffering all privations of the same—while of course writing an account of my adventure, in movie script format. The fate of Julius Caesar in such a situation flashed through my mind, though I would never consider myself to be so persuasive. However none of that occurred. I bordered my bus @ 08.00 in central Pattani city for the two or so hour trip to Muaeng Narathiwat, and the entire trip was uneventful.  a journey. election time. your first stop, province bus station. The bus, the usual: old, slow, noisy, but entirely serviceable. The country side green and lush, with lots of small towns and ...

For my own edification, to aid me in my reading and understanding of this great work, I have created a summary of each Book of the poem as I have read them. I present these here for any who are interested. A work in progress: Synopsis of the 24 Books of the IIliad by Homer. Book 1 Apollo punishes the Greeks with disease, as Agamemnon offended him over the ransom of the slave girl Chryseis. Agamemnon and Achilles argue over the return of the girl. Achilles withdraws from the battle. Zeus considers punishing the Greeks. Zeus – king of the gods. Hera – wife and sister of Zeus.  Thetis – mother of Achilles. Agamemnon – King of the Greeks Achilles –  Chryses—T priest, father of Ch Nestor – Chryseis — captive woman The poem begins with the priest of Apollo, Chryses entreating Agamemnon to ransom his daughter Chryseis, but Agamemnon refuses. Chryses then calls upon Apollo to punish the Greeks for their blasphemy, which Apollo does by sending disease to ravage the Greeks. Achill...

The province of Yala is one more of the three ‘deep’ south provinces of Thailand, also suffering from terrorism as is Pattani. I decided to visit the capital city of this province, also named Yala (every Thai province shares its name with its capital city—it is one of the few exceptions to the rule that every rule of Thai administration has an exception), to see what I could see.  On the buses. A mix of culture ? Heading to the city. One of many checkpoints. These are difficult to photograph from the bus. A poor area, many folk live in simple wooden shacks. Rather than move myself and my gear to the landlocked Yala province, I decided to keep my base in Pattani, at the comfortable CS Pattani Hotel, and take a local bus to Yala city for the day. This consumes an hour plus in time, 25 baht in coin, and 40kms of space travelled southwards from Pattani town.  Always soldiers. In my previous blog post about Pattani I made the point that there was little...