Two Muban renamed

Two administrative villages were renamed yesterday by publishing the announcements in the Royal Gazette.

• Ban Thung Phatthana (บ้านทุ่งพัฒนา), Mae Yen subdistrict, Phan district, Chiang Rai, renamed to Ban Mae Yen Klang (บ้านแม่เย็นกลาง) [Gazette]
• Ban Nong Masang (บ้านหนองมะสัง), Suk Ruethai subdistrict, Huai Khot district, Uthai Thani, renamed to Ban Thung Sali (บ้านทุ่งสาลี) [Gazette]

Both name changes were approved in this years first meeting of the board to consider name changes on April 28 - sadly the agenda or transcript of this meeting isn't available online.

As the announcement were signed by the province governors, the second announcement made me notice that the governor of Uthai Thani had changed recently. On March 4, the governors of Uthai Thani and Samut Sakhon were exchanged with each other [Gazette] outside the normal annual reshuffle usually done in October. But since I didn't notice that exchange till now, my XML were still showing the old assignments.

Muban rename in Chiang Rai

Yesterday the rename of an administrative village in Chiang Rai was announced in the Royal Gazette. Mu 10 of Si Kham subdistrict, Mae Chan district changes its name from Ban Mae Kham Phatthana (บ้านแม่คำพัฒนา) to Ban Si Kham (บ้านศรีค้ำ). This change was approced by the board to consider name changes in their 3rd meeting this year on September 24, and the announcement was signed by the province governor of Chiang Rai on October 15. As it does not mention any specific date on which it became effective, I guess it became effective same day as it was signed.

As I cannot find any Gazette announcement on the creation of this Muban, it was probably created before 2002 - but after 1984 as it wasn't part of the subdistrict when that was created [Gazette]. By the name of the Muban I believe it was split off from Mu 3 (Ban Mae Kham Lak Chet), and since it is now renamed to the same name as the subdistrict I guess it is located in the most populated part of the subdistrict along Phahayothin highway.

Two Muban renamed

Last week, the rename of two administrative villages (Muban, ) in Chiang Rai province was announced in the Royal Gazette.

• Ban Ruam Chai Phatthana (บ้านร่วมใจพัฒนา), Mu 14 of Doi Ngam subdistrict, Phan district renamed to Ban Saraphi (บ้านสารภี). [Gazette] The administrative village was created in 2003.
• Ban Pa Bong (บ้านป่าบง), Mu 1 of Yang Hom subdistrict, Khun Tan district renamed to Ban Pa Bong Nam Lom (บ้านป่าบงน้ำล้อม). [Gazette]

Both announces were signed by the province governor of Chiang Rai Pongsak Wangsemo (พงษ์ศักดิ์ วังเสมอ) on May 6, and were previously approved by the board to consider name changes in their first meeting this year on March 18.

Area transfer between TAO and Thesaban Pa Ko Dam

Boundary as of 2012

Another municipal change was announced yesterday, the transfer of some area of the TAO Pa Ko Dam (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลป่าก่อดำ) to be added to the municipality Pa Ko Dam (เทศบาลตำบลป่าก่อดำ) [Gazette municipality, Gazette TAO].

When the sanitary district of Pa Ko Dam was created in 1992 [Gazette], it covered the most densely populated area around Phayon Yothin highway, not taking care of the subdistrict boundaries. Thus the sanitary district did cover parts of the subdistrict Pa Ko Dam as well as smaller parts of Chom Mok Kaeo. Later in the 1990s, decentralization became the new policy, turning the sanitary district into a subdistrict municipality in 1999, and creating the TAO Pa Ko Dam in 1996. This additional local government unit thus covered the remaining area of the subdistrict - which is cut into two halves by the municipality.

Boundary as of 1992

This bisection of the TAO has now been changed, the whole eastern part of the TAO - mostly mountainous areas east of the river Maenam Lao - has been added to the municipality, leaving the more populous western part to the TAO. According to the meeting transcript of meeting 55/2012 on August 27, this affects the administrative village (Muban) 12 and parts of Muban 7 and 8, but sadly doesn't mention the population numbers.

Contradicting district histories

When I recently added references to the Wikipedia article on Wiang Pa Pao district in Chiang Rai province, I had problems matching the history as taken from amphoe.com with the Royal Gazette announcements. amphoe.com writes

เวียงป่าเป้าเป็นชุมชนเก่าแก่เรียกตามลักษณะภูมิประเทศเดิมว่า
"เมืองป่าเป้า" ต่อมาได้ขนานนามใหม่เป็น "เวียงป่าเป้า" จัดตั้งเป็นกิ่งอำเภอ
เมื่อปี พ.ศ.2450 โดยขึ้นกับ อ.แม่พริก (ปัจจุบันคือ อ.แม่สรวย) และยกฐานะ
กิ่งอำเภอเป็น อ.เวียงป่าเป่า เมื่อปี พ.ศ.2475 จนถึงปัจจุบัน

which back in 2007 I translated as

The minor district (King Amphoe) was created in 1907 as a subordinate of Mae Prik district, the present-day district Mae Suai. It was upgraded to a full district in 1932.

However the Royal Gazette announcements dealing with Wiang Pa Pao suggest a totally different turn of events. At first, in 1905 Khwaeng Mueang Wiang Pa Pao (แขวงเมืองเวียงป่าเป้า) and Khwaeng Mueang Phong (แขวงเมืองพง) get merged to Khwaeng Mae Suai (แขวงแม่ซวย) - at that time the districts in northern Siam were called Khwaeng, the name Amphoe was introduced country-wide later. In 1907 King Khwaeng Wiang Pa Pao (กิ่งแขวงเวียงเป้า) was upgraded to a Khwaeng. Those few announcements between 1907 and 1932 never again use word "King" to designate it being a minor district.

However this all about the early history of Wiang Pa Pao I was able to find in the gazette, so I can only presume that the minor district existed already in 1905 and was another case where it had a minor district for the central part of a district. I really wonder how amphoe.com came to their version of the history, the only thing which seems to be correct is the year 1907, but not as the creation of a minor district but the creation of a full district. Also, I have no source suggesting that Mae Suai was named Mae Phrik in past, there's only a subdistrict named Mae Phrik right next to Mae Suai. The only change about the name of Mae Suai was the spelling, in the announcement on its creation it was spelled แม่ซวย, but already in 1917 the modern spelling แม่สรวย was used.

OTOP fruit wine

This time basically a photo blog kind of posting. The picture shows the label of a bottle of fruit wine, bought at a road-side shop near Mae Sai at the northernmost part of Thailand. The reason why this label fits into the blog is simple - it is one of the many thousands products produced under the OTOP (One Tambon One Product) label, in which each subdistrict creates one or several locally produced products.

The fruit wine (ไวน์ผลไม้) and herb wine (ไวน์สมุนไพร) are the OTOP product of subdistrict Wiang Phang Kham (ตำบลเวียงพางคำ), located in the northeast of the district Mae Sai. As the road to the town Mae Sai and the boundary to Myanmar (Burma) passes through Wiang Phang Kham, the producers have put their sales stands along this road. Sadly I have no photo of these road-side shops, but anyone who has ever driven into rural Thailand must have seen it already.

Province governor reshuffle - Update

After adding the newly assigned province governors into my XMLs I noticed that I wrote partial nonsense on Wednesday. I should have been more alert when noticing that the name mentioned in Bangkok Post did not correlate with the name of the governor as I knew it, because Bangkok Post in fact mixed up Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

So, to clean it up - the governor of Chiang Rai was Traisit Sinsombunthong (ไตรสิทธิ์ สินสมบูรณ์ทอง), and he was replaced by Sumet Saengnimnuan (สุเมธ แสงนิ่มนวล). So his removal was not linked with the demonstration in Chiang Mai, only to his administration style (if believing the official version) or his relation with the former PPP leadership as one can easily suspect. But also the governor of Chiang Mai has changed - Wibun Sa-nguanphong (วิบูลย์ สงวนพงศ์) replaced by Amonphan Nimanan (อมรพันธุ์ นิมานันท์), previously governor in Lampang. Here it has no word in the English press whether this change has anything to do with the January protests during Chuan Leekpai's visit.

While it is still accessible, take a look the report and presentation "Thailand and its CEO development system". It was written by Trisit when he was still vice governor of Uthai Thani, and as it is hosted at the website of Chiang Rai province it may get removed with the next website update, together with his blog.

And while working on the XMLs, I got the idea to automate the parsing of the governor list, especially to directly find those provinces where the governor has changed.

Mae Sai district office

The northernmost district office of Thailand is the one of Mae Sai district in Chiang Rai province. It is located about 1 kilometer from the boundary control point to Burma (Myanmar) on Thai highway 1. Nearly directly across the street is the municipal office, I already used the photo of that one earlier.



I noticed the office when we entered Mae Sai. My Thai family just wanted to do shopping in the markets, while I then went to see the temple Wat Phra That Doi Wao and also climbed up the staircase to the viewpoint. When leaving the town, we then stopped shortly so I could do these photos. And luckily there was more to see than just a standard district office building.



Next to the district office is a statue of a historic king or prince. Sadly I haven't written down the words on the statue foundation, so I can only guess how is honored there. One history of Mae Sai mentions a Phraya Khom Dam (พระยาขอมดำ), leader of Mueang Yom in the 11th century. As I actually cannot read that history yet, the assumption that it is him on that monument is just an "educated guess", as that name is mentioned so often and is the name with the highest title in that history. This figure is also featured in the seal of the municipality Mae Sai. If someone can translate that history for me - it'd make a great addition to the Wikipedia article on Mae Sai...



Something which caught me by surprise was the fact that there is also a City Pillar shrine (Lak Mueang) next by. Luckily they placed a small sign there which I noticed when jumping out of the car and walked to the district office. I knew before that there is at least one city pillar in a town which is not a provincial capital, Phra Pradaeng province was abolished in 1932, but of course the pillar stayed. However Mae Sai wasn't a province before, if I'm not totally wrong it wasn't even a Mueang before the province Chiang Rai was formally created in 1910. It'd be interesting to know how comes this town got a city pillar, and when.