“That evening, the sky was screaming—orange, roiling, unnatural clouds. It was a reflection of the fire of the tropics, a furnace of rising afternoon heat, reaching its peak and thrusting upward, giving the clouds too much nervous detail. In another mood, he might glance at the spectacle and say it was beautiful, something linked to the interminable mysteries of the place, but he was keenly aware now. Even the airs and atmospheres must be warning him, reminding him of the unsettled nature of the world...”

There Are Still Unknown Places is the story of life in the most modern of exotic cities—Bangkok. It exposes the inner hearts of those who seek the isolation of far places. It is a microcosm of its time as well a tale of human yearning for all time.

Young men and women living in a foreign land, drifting, on a mission, growing up, trying to make something of themselves...
Thais seeing their land and the coming changes that threaten to erase it...
All realizing the hopes of a future finally unbounded by history...

The characters of There Are Still Unknown Places
* The ambitious and determined young American
* The Thai girl who watches the world and finds it might be better to be alone
* The failed priest who sins and repents and then sins again
* The Thai man left behind in an age of prosperity
* The expat old hand—always moving on
* The young man trying to find his father who had abandoned his family long ago
* And the Big Man—the final force of the Thai world. He was there long ago and will still be there when everyone else is long gone.

“...At this time of night though, there were just a handful on the bus. Not-too-pretty girls in their bank uniforms coming home after working late putting figures into columns, and young men, likewise dressed in the uniform of some office, thin and pale, almost feminine looking in their humble and weary demeanor, going home to their rooms alone to wash their work clothes, collars growing frayed by the day and then falling sleep, holding the long, thin bolster pillows that those who lived alone cling to...”

From Amazon: Hiding from the Khmer Rouge, fired on during Thailand’s Black May, snakebit in the jungle, beset by ghosts in the city, entombed with a legendary sword in Burma, living under Siamese skies… These are one young man’s unexpected true adventures from the latter years of the twentieth century in the Asian Tiger era.

In Last Century, Ron Morris recounts his extraordinary experiences in a region still shaking off the legacies of the Cold War and emerging from isolation. It was a frenetic world undergoing an economic boom, but also an isolated outpost for lost souls. There, anything was possible–fortunes, dreams and visions, and the challenge of becoming a man in the ancient and modern landscapes of a new world.

“Every one of us was a bystander, passively hearing of the dangerous exploits, the alcoholism, and the panicked actions of others. To be involved risked getting swept into another’s vortex of insanity. If there was one thing the expat wanted was to go down under his own distinct weight— weight accrued and borne privately. Sympathizing with another risked too much introspection about one’s own march towards oblivion.”

Combining the mundane, the supernatural, the accidental and the dangerous, Last Century is an unforgettable series of tales of coming of age in the days of the Asian Tigers.

“Mr. Morris takes the reader on a journey through Asia’s back alleys and little-known places, giving an added dimension to a familiar region. I, for one, learned much about lands I thought I already knew well. Well worth it.” (Steve Van Beek, author of “Bangkok Then and Now”)

“Many darker sides of Thailand uncovered which help getting a better understanding of the country.” (Daniel Desjardins, Guides de voyage Ulysse)


For those who have had problems with shipping into Thailand, I have a very limited number of hardback copies of my memoir Last Century available for sale for 878 baht and free shipping to your Thai address. Contact 2bangkok@gmail.com (I also have a few copies of The Thai Book, A Field Guide to Thai Political Motivations available for the same price. Both books are also available on Kindle.)