By the time this appears in print I shall be 7,000 miles away, so it might better be called home thoughts from abroad. I’ve lived only five years of my fairly long life in Thailand: half in month long chunks on annual holidays during some 30 years and the rest travelling before settling in Chiang Mai. Now that is the place which feels like home, since home we are told is where the heart is.
It is all too easy to fall in love in Thailand, as well as with the country itself – despite the many frustrations we visitors feel with a very different way of life and with the authorities which can make us feel less than welcome on occasion. Still if those observations were not true what would the agony columns have to write about?

The Legend Hotel in Chiang Rai participated in the recent Songkran celebrations. General Manager Ken Winkler shown here with the Mayor of Chiang Rai Mr. Wanchai Chongsuttanamanee

U.S. Vice Consul John Spykerman recently spoke to participants in a Community Radio Workshop organized by the Network of the People’s Media of the North.