I decided several months ago that I would return home at Christmas. As much as I love Chiang Mai, I was quite happy with this decision, and I felt I left myself plenty of time to plan my strategy for leaving. Because it does take a strategy, as much as I'm sure that for all appearances I seem to be operating according to no plan at all. But leaving, and saying goodbye to people and places is a complicated process, the only advantage of which is that it is a fairly predictable process. There's a certian range of emotions one has to go through, from being excited about going, and seeing new things, (or old friends), to falling in love all over again with the place and the people you're leaving behind. In between of course, are all the feelings of sadness and guilt at having to say goodbye to people you care about. But, I find that if you plan in advance and give yourself enough time to manage all the emotions of leaving, makes it easier to say goodbye without any regrets. Having time makes it easier to deal with the emotions one at a time.   more »

It seems Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Co., are single-handedly making Thailand as sue-happy as America. He currently has multiple (civil and criminal) lawsuits pending against various media figures.

The first lawsuit, filed last year, was lodged by Thaksin's own Shin Corp. against media reform activist Supinya Klangnarong. Shin Corp. is demanding 400 million baht in the civil case, alleging that Ms. Supinya had defamed the corporation by publishing comments that the companies profits had soared since Thaksin had taken office, and that certain government policies represented a conflict of interest, as they had directly benefited the PM's private businesses.   more »

The news from Burma's been pretty busy lately, but some of us have been to busy cleaning up to blog. You can get your news updates here.

Chiang Mai was inundated with floods, again, last week. The first flood hit early in August, and was reportedly the worst in 40 years, with the Ping river reaching about 4.75 meters. About three weeks ago we had another, smaller, flood. Then this past week there was another one, even worse, with the river hitting 5 meters. Luckily, sort of, we had more warning and did not actually lose anything. Except the nice new paint job we did after the first flood. The government even gave us a goody bag of supplies, with some prawn mama noodles, toilet paper, sardines, and soy milk. Mmm..thanks Mr. Thaksin, but can I just have the 100 baht in cash next time?   more »