"Kai Kunmin" Army Barracks

[JAG]

My stepson has just completed his first month of his military service. Next Sunday (29th) family are allowed to visit. He is training at a camp/ barracks called "Kai Kunmin" near Chiang Mai, (my approximation of the Thai pronunciation).

Best beloved is keen to visit him. I'm happy to drive her there from Chiang Rai. She reckons that we can ask when we get to Chiang Mai, but I would rather have some idea of where I am heading (You think too much...)!

Does any kind soul in the great metropolis know where this camp is, and if so could you let me know. Directions or a GPS position would be great, but I would settle for the nearest village!

Thank you very much.

[WaiLai]

Your stepson would certainly know or be able to find out where he is located!

Do they keep him incommunicado?

I will try to suss this out tomorrow with my Thai friends.

[JAG]

Your stepson would certainly know or be able to find out where he is located!

Do they keep him incommunicado?

I will try to suss this out tomorrow with my Thai friends.

Thank you. He is pretty much incommunicado. They are not allowed mobile phones, and are allowed one call on a payphone, which in his case was at 10.30 last Thursday night! It would seem that for the first month of basic training they are allowed no contact with the outside world.

Frankly I doubt that he ( or the rest of his draft from Amphur Wiang Chiang Rung) knows where he is other than " near Chiang Mai".

Again, thank you.

[grin]

We just attended my stepson's first month training "family day" in Pai. We found out from a letter he sent us. The recruits have no access to phones, etc.

The activities were scheduled from 9 AM to 3 PM and of course we had to arrive early. About a hundred families showed up with boatloads of food. We sat through several speeches by army officers and then saw some pictures and videos of the recruits in training. After that the recruits performed a bunch of drills for us outdoors.

A wooded area next to a training course was set aside for all the families to sit around on their bamboo mats and feed their sons. During the whole time the recruits were called off for drills about once per hour. Then they would return to the picnic area to resume their meetings with their families. On some of these returns a number of the recruits were noticeably limping.

An interesting thing happened at noon. The recruits were called off to eat at their mess hall about a kilometer away. They are not allowed to leave any food uneaten. It was noted by us and several families around us that bringing all of the food was a mistake. Our son said that it was hard to keep all of the food down when they had to do some particular exercises. Amazingly he barely touched any food except for some potato chips and Coke.

My wife had also brought a care package of food and toiletry items. He is only allowed toiletry items bought from the army canteen so those came back with us. My wife was allowed to buy stuff for him from the canteen. He was allowed to keep a few packages of snacks after my wife gave his commanding officer a large package of 3 in 1 coffee packets which was originally intended for our son.

We, the families, were allowed to roam around quite a bit. However, the recruits were restricted to the picnic area. They were not even allowed to go into the parking lot. The recruits were allowed to call people on their family's cell phones. We noticed that doing this was quite popular. We brought our son's girlfriend with us and this also seemed to be the case for a lot of other families.

I strolled around the whole base at noon, saw mostly barracks and the mess hall where our son was eating. Lots of old outdated stuff sitting around.

Would be interesting to know what the festivities are like in Chiang Mai.

Grin

[naboo]

The closest sounding to "Kai Kunmin" that I can find is ค่ายขุนเณร - pronounced "Kai Kun-nain"

North of Chiang Mai in the Mae Sa district. GPS coordinates - 18.908544, 98.933849

[JAG]

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