Letter from Thailand - January 13, 2008

I've decided, because this is a new year, every week I will write a 'letter from Thailand', giving my readers an idea of what is going on in this wonderful country. I have lived in Thailand for 4 ½ years and will probably never live anywhere else. The people, the cities and towns, the beautiful beaches, the weather, the food, the culture - everything keeps me here. But be warned, some crazy stuff happens here. So here goes letter number one.

Dear Reader,

Greetings from Thailand.

Of course, when people write about another country, for some reason, they always write about the weather. So who am I to be any different? The weather over the last week has been increasingly hot and humid. What started off as a cool new year has already descended into the usual hell that is Thailand. Yesterday was around 95 degrees with high humidity. Made it a little difficult being outside for too long.

It's been an interesting week in Thailand. The political mess continues. For those of you who are new to this, last month we had our first election since the military government held their coup. The winners were the newly-founded People Power Party (PPP), which is just a thinly veiled supporters-of-Thaksin (the ousted Prime Minister now in exile in London) party. They did not win an absolute majority so have been forced to attempt to create a coalition government with other parties.

However, the military government is now systematically going through and calling many election results 'fraudulent' if a PPP member won, so the PPP are losing elected politicians left and right. Democracy in Thailand really is a joke, and the military officials in power are nothing more than crooks.

Princess Galyani, the King's sister, died on January 2^nd so everyone in Thailand has been wearing black or white in national mourning. It's fascinating to go downtown and see whole shopping malls full of people wearing these colors. In the clothing shops, all the displays are black or white and most of what is selling is the same. The official mourning period ends next week, although government officials are expected to mourn for 100 days.