Over 110,000 people affected.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – 16 August 2005 – Torrential rains lashed the mountainous centre of South East Asia on Saturday and led to flash floods in Northern Thailand’s popular tourist destinations.

Casualty estimates vary between 5 and 13 dead, with 11 to 20 reported missing, and around forty injured including two foreign visitors.

Eighteen roads, 44 bridges and around 6,500 hectares of agricultural crops have been severely affected in rural areas.

Current estimates are that floods have directly affected almost 111,000 people over an area the size of Wales, according to officials.

Silver Licenses awarded in North for First Time

Chiang Mai, Thailand, 24 May 2004 – Over 80 tourist guides from all corners of Thailand spent two month’s in study at Naresuan University’s Phayao Campus this summer, before graduating to gain their Silver Guide Licenses.

Studying an intensive program for international tourism including airline passenger service, Thai culture, eco-tourism & the environment, ethics & etiquette, geography, history, immigration law, Thai music & instruments, and other subjects, the course candidates sat exams every week, with eight hours of classroom time seven days each week.

Abridged & Published in Chiang Mai CityLife Magazine – June 2004

CHIANGMAI, Thailand – 14 May 2004

Photographs in travel guides led me to Chiangmai expecting a city filled with monuments to its 700-year history and vistas of uniquely Asian architecture. The reality was somewhat different, and when the initial long-distance travel euphoria wore off, acute disappointment set in for the first two years of my tenure in Thailand’s northern capital city.

It’s the nature of travel industry information that only the good and the beautiful of destinations are portrayed. Tight holiday schedules need filled with pleasure and excitement, while writers and editors often overlook the needs of longer stay visitors.

The Thai government has in the last few years begun initiatives to capture long stay tourists and retiree expatriates, recognising them as significant contributors to foreign currency earnings, but what is on offer to entice them into remaining?

Published in Chiang Mai CityLife Magazine – December 2003

CHIANGMAI, Thailand – 14 October 2003

Inexpensive Progress became one of Sir John Betjeman’s most famous statements in support of his passions. Written in the 1960s, during Britain’s post-war reconstruction, after years of rationing and austerity, the poem became a required text for high school “graduation” in the Cambridge series of GCE exams during the mid-1970s. In a BBC documentary commemorating his life, it was stated that from that study requirement the environmentalist and conservationist movements of the 1980s and 90s evolved. The activists, thirty-somethings educated in the 1970s, remembered with fondness Sir John’s words, and many (like myself) claim this poem is the only one they can still recite from their school days…

Political Manipulation of Medieval History?

WIENG KUM KAM, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 1 Jun 2003 – Today (20th August 2003) I unintentionally revisited Wieng Kum Kam, specifically that part now named as Wat Phan Lao, and hypothesized as being the AD 1286 palace of King Mengrai.

What I witnessed there has left me extremely disappointed and completely disillusioned regarding current local and national plans to develop the ancient city into anything approaching Sukhothai or Ayutthaya.

What’s Going Wrong at Wieng Kum Kam?
by David Hardcastle & Garry Harbottle-Johnson

WIENG KUM KAM, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 1 Jun 2003 – The Ministry of Culture has announced a budget of 40m baht for the “preservation and improvement” of Wieng Kum Kam, the city founded by King Mengrai (prior to Chiang Mai), the ruins of which lay hidden for years just off the Old Lamphun Road.

Since it was officially “found” in 1984 – and began to attract archaeological and visitor interest – it has also become a cause for concern. Unauthorised buildings have encroached on the site, vendors have commercialised many parts of it, and there are concerns that some valuable artefacts have been removed.

Lan Na in the Shadow of the Mongols
Satellite Towns – an old system revived

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – 11 Mar 2003 - People say that history is how we learn the future. Examining the past is how we see what to do next, claim others. Cynics state that history teaches only that humans never learn. Perhaps a little of each is true for all of us, and everyone has the opportunity to learn from everyone else, at personal, regional, and national levels. How many of us do?

On 23rd April AD 1281, marching triumphantly into Hariphunchai (Lamphun), King Mengrai entered a city-state far different from those of Chiang Rai and the Mae Kok basin. Hariphunchai was a model administration for his growing kingdom, one that he would adapt, and use. Hariphunchai was small; one central city and several satellite towns – within half a day’s march of each other, plus dozens of smaller villages. Only the latter were unfortified. The basic military advantage, of scattered strong points dependent upon and defendant of each other, is a style still used today. Yet, their placement was not only military.

COMMENTARY – Shot in the Foot

Xenophobia & Nationalism Retard Tourism Growth in Northern Thailand

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – 28 January 2003 - Recent national and regional press coverage has printed conflicting reports concerning the tourist arrivals dilemma in Northern Thailand. The Aviation Department has released detailed statistics showing exponential growth in the number of airlines and flights bringing people into the kingdom, but admits that Chiangmai is having difficulties increasing its passenger load due to slow growth of inbound flights.

In this respect, the Prime Minister’s aim to promote his home city as a regional hub may be more suitable than the inaccurate mass interpretation that it is to become a global hub. Private tourism industry leaders have complained that returnees are dropping, as they don’t want to see the same, degraded, sights each trip.