A flamboyant fugitive monk accused of raping a 14-year-old girl has been extradited back to Thailand after fleeing to the US. Photographs show Wirapol Sukphol, 37, smiling widely clad in orange robes as he is escorted under police guard in Bangkok. Wirapol was catapulted to infamy after footage of him aboard a private jet flaunting … Read more
A ‘godfather’ of Thai politics is using cash and contacts to transform his once poor, forgotten rice-farming fiefdom into an unlikely sporting Camelot, complete with a football stadium and racetrack set to host the MotoGP. Newin Chidchob, a 58-year-old native son of Buriram in Thailand’s agrarian northeast, has enticed super-rich investors into his vision of … Read more
Three years after their latest coup, Thailand’s arch-royalist military is firmly dug-in. Dissent is banned, a junta-appointed legislature makes the law — and awards the army an ever-burgeoning budget — while a new constitution gifts the military power to write the script for Thailand’s next 20 years. But discontent lingers and is at its sharpest … Read more
Hipsters in flowing skirts and crop tops sway to the Thai band’s hypnotic groove at an exclusive music festival in Thailand, while a clutch of cleaning staff quietly look on from the fringes. “I had no idea foreigners like molam,” says 55-year-old Saengyan Promduang, referring to the folk tunes unique to her rural home region … Read more