A case of disaster envy?
Now, everyone who knows me will tell you that Chiang Rai has been good for me these past few years, I arrived an emaciated travelling, pseudo-conservationist with a bit of ele experience and now I'm a bit fatter and have a bit more ele experience.
Sleepy as it is, I love this part of the world but it does seem to suffer from one small problem - which makes it ideal for me - nothing extraordinary ever seems to happen here; I guess in the opium days it saw enough excitement and is just a little tired now and wants to get on with life.
A propensity to be calm, welcoming and well loved does not help get us onto the front page of newspapers and I have noticed, in my few years, we have a sort of 'disaster envy' - at least if you read the National papers - if Phayao province has a truly nasty flood, the next day we've got to report one; if Nan gets a drought, well, we have to have one too.
We once had an earthquake of our very own, felt, it seems only in the offices of the local council and the journalists (even I got on the phone to Aoy's parents who live a couple of Km's from the epicentre to make sure they were alright on that one - never felt a thing).
All of this provides a little mild amusement and never seems to do any harm and the story never really gets further than the pages of the local papers.
However, with this Northern Haze story I begin to take offence at having Chiang Rai declared a disaster zone - we do have a smoke haze caused mainly by forest fires and rubbish (fallen leaves etc.) burning (as much on the Thai side as the Burmese and Laos side of the border), from day to day it has been pretty thick, but to describe us as a disaster zone? This seems unnessecary, unless your definition of disaster is different from mine - certainly, observationally speaking, it hasn't been any worse this year than two and three years ago, last year we had small storms throughout the year and so there was no problem at all.
I wouldn't recommend you come for the views but otherwise life is unaffected.
So what's changed? Well, the number of cars in Chiang Mai (and I understand it was really bad down there for a few days) and, to a lesser extent in Chiang Rai.
It is great that it has been noticed and that the problem is being addressed; there really is no need - especially on this side where slash-and-burn is no longer the only option for people - for every inch of forest floor to be burned, paddy can be ploughed back in, but most importantly a week or two into the story a couple of pieces are coming out with what seems to be common sense saying, stop blaming the poor farmers for everything, urban drivers please look at yourselves before you cast the first stone - do we need this many cars?
...and please don't declare yourselves a disaster zone just because a neighbouring province has.
PS. A photo taken by Mr Kindler of The Event Company, on our smokiest day so far (about a week ago).
PPS. Please note that I also own and drive a large diesel engined monster, so please do not consider this the first stone - though I do walk when possible and ride Aoy's little motorbike on those rare occasions that I won't fall off - just a rant from a boy whose eles find themselves twiddling their trunks more than originally planned.
PPPS. They forecast a storm or two for the next few days so let's hope that, with the clearing of the air, the sudden impetus to curb unnessecary burning and unnessecary driving isn't forgotten.
Sleepy as it is, I love this part of the world but it does seem to suffer from one small problem - which makes it ideal for me - nothing extraordinary ever seems to happen here; I guess in the opium days it saw enough excitement and is just a little tired now and wants to get on with life.
A propensity to be calm, welcoming and well loved does not help get us onto the front page of newspapers and I have noticed, in my few years, we have a sort of 'disaster envy' - at least if you read the National papers - if Phayao province has a truly nasty flood, the next day we've got to report one; if Nan gets a drought, well, we have to have one too.
We once had an earthquake of our very own, felt, it seems only in the offices of the local council and the journalists (even I got on the phone to Aoy's parents who live a couple of Km's from the epicentre to make sure they were alright on that one - never felt a thing).
All of this provides a little mild amusement and never seems to do any harm and the story never really gets further than the pages of the local papers.
However, with this Northern Haze story I begin to take offence at having Chiang Rai declared a disaster zone - we do have a smoke haze caused mainly by forest fires and rubbish (fallen leaves etc.) burning (as much on the Thai side as the Burmese and Laos side of the border), from day to day it has been pretty thick, but to describe us as a disaster zone? This seems unnessecary, unless your definition of disaster is different from mine - certainly, observationally speaking, it hasn't been any worse this year than two and three years ago, last year we had small storms throughout the year and so there was no problem at all.
I wouldn't recommend you come for the views but otherwise life is unaffected.
So what's changed? Well, the number of cars in Chiang Mai (and I understand it was really bad down there for a few days) and, to a lesser extent in Chiang Rai.
It is great that it has been noticed and that the problem is being addressed; there really is no need - especially on this side where slash-and-burn is no longer the only option for people - for every inch of forest floor to be burned, paddy can be ploughed back in, but most importantly a week or two into the story a couple of pieces are coming out with what seems to be common sense saying, stop blaming the poor farmers for everything, urban drivers please look at yourselves before you cast the first stone - do we need this many cars?
...and please don't declare yourselves a disaster zone just because a neighbouring province has.
PS. A photo taken by Mr Kindler of The Event Company, on our smokiest day so far (about a week ago).
PPS. Please note that I also own and drive a large diesel engined monster, so please do not consider this the first stone - though I do walk when possible and ride Aoy's little motorbike on those rare occasions that I won't fall off - just a rant from a boy whose eles find themselves twiddling their trunks more than originally planned.
PPPS. They forecast a storm or two for the next few days so let's hope that, with the clearing of the air, the sudden impetus to curb unnessecary burning and unnessecary driving isn't forgotten.
I don't think there's much new about this, and in view of the space to vehicle ratio in the Golden Triangle, I don't think your diesel engined monster will have much local effect, apart from from providing ammunition for some fashionable sniping.
We've encountered the problem at about this time in previous years, when it was blamed on slash and burn from Indonesia to Burma.
It certainly happened in 1995 when Rocco Forte came to visit and the situation was saved by some rain the previous day which cleared the air and enabled the ash to be swept up and skimmed off the swimming pool!
Phil & Jayne 2-T
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You see, that's my point, we are nowhere near that stage this year up here in the Golden Triangle but we are declared a disaster zone.
Great that attention is being paid but that one phrase, disaster zone, means many people are understandably worried about coming/staying here - I'm out here typing in the bar, by myself in a wonderful twilight - surely there's a more accurate phrase that could be used.
Small worry zone? This may be many things but it is not, up here, a disaster!
Cheers
John
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John,
I'm sure it's small consolation to you that one or two of our meteoroligical experts are warning against the "Hollywoodisation" (Don't start me off on abuse of the English Langage) of Global Warming.
Politicians and the meeja all need something to rant about and the bigger the bandwagon, the better.
We've got the budget on Wednesday, so we can look forward to some more "green taxes" to swell the government's non-green coffers.
I'm a bit worried about you being all alone in the bar. If this happens again, buy the boys a girls (and yourself) a drink, put it on my next account and console yourself with the thought that it's about to snow here, so instead of muck in the air we shall have muck under foot and Nanny meeja warning us not to venture out because nobody ever taught them to drive in marginally adverse weather conditions.Hope the air clears soon.
Phil & Jayne 2-T.
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Hi Phil & Jayne
It does seem that way, I've nothing against green taxes if the coffers are green, which is your point I guess.
I wasn't alone, I had my computer and a beer with me and so was working and (thanks to the miracle of modern technology) 'chatting' around the world - I was later joined by Joy and John Cox of UK Bronze, sculptors of the 'Tawan' statue at the entrance of Anantara.
They're here to get some footage for the new look www.helpingelephants.org they are having built for me (should be live after a month or two) and to discuss how to channel the donations that come from the sale of their elephant bronzes across to help Tawan and the others.
It just would have been nice to see the boys and girls earning a bit of Service Charge for themselves by serving real guests.
Snow? March? - I suppose it is not unheard of - drive carefully! When we get snow in March here then I might let them declare a disaster.
Thanks
John
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