New York Times [27th November 2005]

LAST week, Nepal’s Maoist rebels and a coalition of seven opposition parties agreed on a program to try to end direct rule by King Gyanendra. The accord was the latest twist in this tiny Himalayan kingdom’s decade-long civil war, which took a bizarre turn almost five years ago: on June 1, 2001, the hard-drinking, drug-abusing crown prince, Dipendra, who had been told by his parents that he had to choose between the kingdom he expected to inherit and the woman he loved, responded by murdering nine of the royal household, including his parents, before taking his own life.
Questions and conspiracy theories abound, with a focus on the two factions that benefited from the catastrophe: the faction led by Dipendra’s uncle Gyanendra, who inherited the crown, and the one led by the Maoists.
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The Guardian [25th June 2005]

On the edge of Bangkok’s seedy Arab quarter, which squats between the stations of Nana and Ploenchit on the Skytrain, some magnificent steel and glass palaces have sprung up in recent years. Most are five star hotels, but Bumrungrad merely looks like one. With a Starbucks, an Au Bon Pain, a MacDonald’s and a food hall in the foyer, free Internet access, top quality accommodation in private rooms, this complex does not fit the stereotype of a Third World hospital; indeed, it far exceeds what most of us are used to in the First World – but then that is the idea.
The business plan is simple and brilliant: provide world class medical services to Westerners and other wealthy foreigners at a fraction of the cost they would pay in their own countries. Americans in particular are attracted by the proposal to have the heart by-pass operation or the laser eye surgery or the chemotherapy – or merely the annual executive check-up for over fifties – in an exotic Southeast Asian location with the option of convalescing on a nearby tropical beach afterwards at, roughly, twenty percent of the costs stateside (airfare included). The drugs and the medical care are of equal standard to anything in the West and the service is – well, charming and efficient as only Thais know how. Not surprising, therefore, that Bumrungrad has come to symbolise both the achievements and aspirations of latter day Bangkok.
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The Washington Post [29th May 2005]

The big break of a writer’s career comes — unexpectedly — at a wild, drunken party in a remote Thai village.

“Shun security,” I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. “Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isn’t agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.”
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New York Times [13th January 2005]

IN 22 years of using Bangkok’s airport, Don Muang, the busiest in Southeast Asia, I have never known it to be anything but crowded. On New Year’s Eve, five days after the tsunami that devastated Phuket and much of the rest of southern Thailand, it was empty.
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New York Times [13th August 2003]

These days the big money here is all on when not if — they will whack Chuwit Kamolvisit, the massage parlor tycoon. After all, this is a gambling town. Continue Reading…