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	---> MORE Cover Stories: _________________________________ CHIANG MAI’S CITY PILLAR CEREMONY Hydrophile Heaven! The Songkran Festival in Chiang Mai The Poy Sang Long Festival Samoeng: ‘Three Cities’ Amongst Lofty Mountains Underwater Warriors: The Beta (Siamese) Fighting Fish CHIANG MAI’S BIG BIKERS WILDLIFE WALKABOUT: The Chiang Mai Night Safari LOOKING FOR THE SERPENT LORD Cruising the Ping River A Tripartite Trip to Paradise in southern Laos Muay Thai: The Inner Fight Farangs' Tale A Two-Wheeled Taste of Chiang Mai A New Look at Traditional Ligay For Those about to Songkran – We Salute You The Hills are Alive – especially at Doi Angkhang Lanna’s Legendary Talismans Animal Wonders in the Chiang Mai Zoo Creative Core - Nimmanahaemin Art Promenade CHIANG DAO - City of Stars Chiang Mai’s Veggie Festival A Sharing Moment on ‘Tan kuay salak’ Day Flower Power: The Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden TATTOOING IN THAILAND AT THE BUFFALO SACRIFICE Human’s Hidden Weapons: They’re all over you 'WALKING STREET'CHIANG MAI Eating up a Storm in Chiang Mai City Chinese New Year DON'T KNOCK THE CHIANG MAI WINTER FAIR Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son and (hopefully) back again Cruising the Mekong in Style LOI KRATHONG FULL MOON FESTIVAL KHUN BUPHA GETS THE TREATMENT - Western and Traditional Golf in the North of Thailand - Fore! Travels in the Golden Triangle THE REMARKABLE HISTORY OF HERMIT SUTHEP Betel mania - A harmless narcotic in decline SONGKRAN IN CHIANG MAI - A Survival Strategy Visiting a Famous Monk in Northern Thailand City of Novice Monks Skilled at Massage and Cooking? A 'HIGH' IN CHIANG MAI YOU WON'T FORGET ULRICH'S LAST OUTING THE RIVER OF LIFE AND DET Khao Phra Viharn from the Cambodian side WAT PHU - BACK TO A TIMELESS KHMER TEMPLE FOREST GIANTS: Yours to command, perhaps The Gates of Chiang Mai Escape to a Houseboat CHIANG MAI GUARDIAN SPIRITS Sawadee Pii Mai - Splash! A VISIT TO ANGKOR And more besides Thailand's Hidden Green Secrets Teak, King of Timbers: See it While it Lasts Chiang Mai Hero: Khruba Si Wichai 16th Khom Yeepeng Festival Year 2007 The Dhevo Rohana Ceremony The Elephant, Soul of the Thai Nation SWINGING FOR FREEDOM: The Akha New Year WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN LAND THE CHIANG MAI ENLIGHTENMENT TOUR CHIANG DAO NATIONAL PARK LAOS NEW YEAR IN LUANG PRABANG LIJIANG:From Chiang Mai to the Edge of Tibet and Back STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN UP PHU KRADUNG Ready for the Jungle? CELEBRATING A RECORD REIGN Royal Flora International Exhibition Fig trees in lore and life and all around you Next Stop China Shopping on the San Kampaeng Highway Footloose in Northern Thailand THE FOUNDING OF CHIANG MAI The X Centre: Get Ready to SSScreeeaaammm!! SONGKRAN IN CHIANG MAI: All Your Questions Answered OVER THE HILLS AND - DOWN TO MAE CHAEM SNAKES Alive! And all around you in Chiang Mai ALL ABOARD FOR THE CHIANG MAI WINTER FAIR Hold on tight!... It’s Whitewater Season! DON'T MISS THE LOI KRATONG FESTIVAL Phaya Nak: Serpent Lord of the Underworld The RAMAKIEN: Ubiquitous in Thai Culture THE CONSUL WHO LOVED FIGHTING BEETLES Take Flight! EXPLORING CHIANG MAI'S OLD CITY WALKING (!) UP TO THE TEMPLE ON DOI SUTHEP CHIANG MAI NEW YEAR: COMES IN WITH A SPLASH A DAY OF DANCING FOR CHIANG MAI'S SPIRITS Visiting Mountainous Doi Angkhang OFF TO SEE THE PAKERYAW AT HOME JULIE CHRISTIE CAME TO BREAKFAST LIGHTS! BALLOONS! FIREWORKS! Remembering Kavila looking at his City Luang Prabang: Journey to Happiness WALKING UP TO THE WAT PHRATHAT UP ON INTHANON EXTREME LANNA: Get footloose in Chiang Mai THE INTHAKHIN CEREMONY Songkran! Year after Year, I Still Enjoy It THE RAMAKIEN: The Epic that’s Fantastic Fun QUEEN CHAMADEVI MAKES AN APPEARANCE FLYING HIGH IN CHIANG MAI TERA JAN: THE TROUBLED MONK OF WAT UMONG LOY KRATHONG: Full Moon, River, Fireworks and Crowds CHIANGMAI’S MYSTERY METAL MONSTERS CRYSTAL LADY, APOCALYPTIC MONK IN THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS Thailand’s “Women of the Second Kind” CHIANG DAO BOUND

SPECIAL FEATURE :
AFTER THE BIG WAVE
A Volunteer's Diary

26th Dec. 2004 (Chiang Mai)

08.30 Earthquake!!! But up here in Chiang Mai, we hardly feel it.

14.30 Mom phoned. Sister called her this morning. "Big wave coming, Mom!" "Well, child, get yourself out of there as fast as you can!" But she thought my sister was kidding. When the tsunami news came through, she fainted… No further word from my sister.

27th Dec.

Finally we hear. My sister is OK…

28th Dec.

Big day running all over CM sticking up posters for Western blood donations: also getting money and supplies for the tsunami victims.

29th Dec.

Exhausted but happy. Nine - that's nine - cargo containers readied. One hundred thousand baht collected from CM donors. Now our company (SP Publishing Group) is going down to Phuket.

PHUKET

30th Dec.

13.00 From the plane it all looks beautiful: calm crystal sea…Walking out of the airport, I asked an Israeli couple what they were doing there. They burst into tears, walked away. What a dumb question!

Phang-nga

16.00 After unloading the supplies, we drive towards Khao Lak. Police turn us back, can't get through. The stink of death everywhere…even five hundred metres from the beach…everyone silent…One thought in my mind. "I am a volunteer."

31st Dec.

Big problem! Nowhere to put all the supplies we've brought. Trucks and materials everywhere. Eventually we find a village, leave some there. Wind up at the Third Naval Base. They will distribute the huge amount of stuff to all the homeless people who are staying wherever they can. First time to feel really proud to be Thai. We are helping everyone, not just Thais but everyone else… The immediate need is for just about everything - to carry corpses, identify the dead, translate for Westerners seeking facts about missing family members and friends: helpers to feed the hungry, doctor the sick and injured…also provide psychiatric treatment and comfort the distressed.

1st Jan. 2005

Left my colleagues. Went to see my sister at the her house in Phuket town. Emotional reunion. She was busy taking care of documentation, taking long-distance phone calls from victims and lost people's families…Went to the Town Hall, where a friend had registered me as a volunteer. What could I do?

14.00 Tried a thousand ways to get to Khao Lak, but wound up in Wat Yan Yao in Takuapa. Blackened, bloated corpses piled up everywhere. "No more volunteers needed," according to the Thai press. Who'll ever believe them again? Two thousand corpses here alone, more coming in every minute. Takes six strong men to carry some of the bigger Western bodies. This was the locus for American and Australian volunteer doctors, collaborating through the Narenthorn Centre. Caught a glimpse also of the famous Thai lady pathologist Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunan.

18.00 Hitch a lift in an army truck full of volunteers from all over the world, back to my sister's house in Phuket. Flake out…

2nd Jan.

Try to get out to Khao Lak, but no way. Declared a restricted area, because of the danger of contamination. Do translation instead for the Danish Embassy, taking them to Bang Muang Temple. Worse than yesterday, even. More corpses, less helpers, because TV said helpers not needed. Doctors carrying the corpses themselves…

Lot of the time I felt too sad even to cry. So many mothers searching the piled up bodies for missing kids. But how to identify them? - the bodies by this time far gone, bloated, unrecognisable… Met a woman from Jomtong, in Chiang Mai, been here in Khao Lak twenty years. She'd been looking for her son for three days…Later I found her fainted…Now she knew where her son was…for sure. So many, so many sad stories…some saying they'd rather die than live without their families.

One thing that lifted me, made me feel better was talking to the wave victims' families and the hospital patients (mostly tourists). Terrific appreciation for the immediate help of the Thai people. Many said they'd be back every Dec. 25th to see the Thai people here, remember them and those from many other countries who'd helped them find their families or saved their lives.