Getting to remote areas in summer, and particularly in April, which is the hottest month of the year, entails car and truck journeys over dusty potholed roads and tracks scoured out of the bush by timber jinkers and heavy trucks – sometimes even buffalo carts. Thailand has four geographical areas — the hills in the northern corner close to Burma, the northeast plateau along the Mekong Paver, the great central plain which is one of Asia’s biggest rice bowls, and the jungled southern peninsula.
The team concentrated on three personalities; Air Chief Marshal Dawee Chullasapya, one of the leaders of the predominantly military government which rules Thailand; Khun Bu, headman of a village complex in the northeast, where Communist insurgency is strongest; and Latchee, 49-year-old chieftain of an Akha tribe in the hills of the north. The cameras followed Marshal Dawee for days. He was filmed in his office, at the Defence Ministry, at the Thai Open Golf Championship, at a youth rally and at several official gatherings.