Other than merchants and military people, the Chiang Mai native was in fact among the few Thais to visit the area in the years after World War II.

When he came back, he wrote about the harsh living conditions of the ethnic minorities and the various insurgencies bubbling in the countryside.

His travel "romance", first serialised in 1952 in Siam Samai Weekly, has now been reprinted in book form by Matichon Publishing House.

Somboon recounts with awe and admiration witnessing the Karen and Shan - and foreign missionaries - fighting for the freedom and welfare of the common people, with and without arms.

Somboon's knowledge of and respect for the Shan language and culture make the account refreshingly genuine. There is a deep sense of sympathy, a sharing of the ethnic people's struggle for elusive ideals. Often he laments that people fought wars and died for no long-lasting benefit. Nor is there an end in sight.

In 1949, when Somboon began his journey (he doesn't tell readers that was the year the Karens officially declared their war for autonomy), just two years had passed since Burmese independence hero Aung San and eight others were gunned down, tumbling the country into political mayhem.

Rookie writer though he was, Somboon's journalistic economy of words was already developing. In less than three pages he gives a remarkably vivid picture of the artist as young adventurer, heading into Burma via the Chiang Mai-Fang road.

With a reporter's eye for detail, he describes the life, landscape and culture of the Shan, Karen, Indians, Chinese and Westerners he encounters. His journey by foot, horseback and decrepit car was incessantly interrupted by skirmishes in the ethnic insurgencies.

Rather than attempt a comprehensive reading of Burma's turmoil, Somboon concentrates on the Shan fighters - some of them half-Karen - who organised as the Young Burmese.

They were united with the central government in their fight against the Japanese, the British and purveyors of vice, but in all that time their struggle for autonomy had to wait.

"Rot Tiew Sudtai Jak Taunggyi" is in three sections, with the last contributed by another journalist, Boworn Ratanasin. Unfortunately, Boworn fails to connect with the first two in terms of literary intensity and credibility.

Somboon's journey began in Mueng Hang, a bustling, drug-trafficking border town, then moved to Taunggyi, and here he retreated when he came up against escalating ethnic violence in Mandalay. He travelled on elsewhere with Chitsu, a Shan nursing student.

Part Two is taken from the diary of a Shan native, a surrogate author in a sense, engaged in underground warfare against retreating Japanese soldiers and the Robin Hood-style robbery of goods intended for the poor but being smuggled to Thailand.

The intertwined problems of corruption among the bureaucracy, police and ethnic Indian and Chinese businessmen are mercilessly exposed.

In the end the diarist pays a high price, losing an arm and mistakenly killing a friend, who was in turn responsible for the death of an admired missionary nurse.

Despite Somboon's concise style, the reader's attention might begin to wane if not for the building of suspense over the looming Karen insurgency. Somboon also knows when to stir into the mix titbits about interesting characters.

He writes, for instance, of an encounter with Payom Chulanont, the late father of Prime Minister Surayud, who was an exile in Mueng Hang after his abortive 1948 coup. Somboon reports matter-of-factly on how poorly the once-mighty general and MP

was living, and bemoans the fate of Payom's ideals.

By international standards of reportage, perhaps, Somboon's writing is neither unique nor groundbreaking, but in Thai terms, he is quite special in a profession where few venture outside the country, whether by choice or circumstance.

Somboon's account is thus a valuable first-hand contribution to Thailand's meagre literature on modern Burma that's written for the general public.

Importantly, he doesn't fall into the trap of showing any bitterness over the long-ago Burmese destruction of Siamese cities. Instead, he explores with a strong sense of justice and humanity the conflicts and the miseries that the Shan and Karen have so long endured.

By Sukanya Hantrakul