THAILAND: THE LAST REMNANTS

The Last Kuomingtang Generals of

Northern Thailand.

Come 2009 what's left of China's revolutionary generation will be reflecting on the sixty years which have passed since they and their dead comrades vanquished Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang forces in 1949.

While most of the revolutionary generation drifted back into what passed for civilian life under Mao in the 1950s, their erstwhile foes remained under arms. Many escaped to Taiwan, others into Burma where they stood

readyand occasionally made forays into China. By the 1960s they had been forced to retreat into Thailand, where dreams of overturning communism in China swirled into fund-raising opium trading and later

combat against Thai communists.

Today the survivors of the lost army from the last commander General to a handful of colonels and captains live peaceful lives at 4,000ft in the northern Thai village of Mae Salong, a long day's march south of the Burmese frontier.

Shot for Geographical Magazine, Magazine of the Royal Geographical Society