Rest Cure

One night, near the end of a journey in the south of Thailand, I ran into trouble.

For the previous weeks, my partner and I had been out on a remote island, where there was no tourist infrastructure – and no internet. We were disconnected from the outside world. No social media, no news.

Then at the end of a long boat trip, we found ourselves back on the mainland.

Back in ´civilisation´.

Cruising the electronic world in the privacy of my air conditioned room, I came across a report concerning three Thais political activists who been found murdered on the banks of the Mekong River in Laos. Their bodies had been hideously mutilated.

This was a political crime.

It was a hate crime.

And it wasn’t too difficult to work out who was responsible for it: the Thai military, which ruled Thailand with an iron fist – in collusion with the Thai King. A cosy arrangement which had long defined the political landscape of Thailand.

Thanks to this snippet of news, I found myself dwelling on this brutal reality.

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