Memories of Thailand

https://www.flickr.com/photos/yvesguillemot/albums/72157630515766184/with/7914063214/

Here’s everything I was able to scan: mostly from the far north, where my wife is from, and also from the far south. I worked as a teacher in Pattani back when there weren’t yet any serious security issues.

Hi there, Thanks so much for these beautiful photos. Even during lockdown, I’m still traveling—especially through past photos. Thanks for sharing!

That’s what you call time-traveling!

Gotta travel somewhere in the meantime...

that’s for sure, anyway a big thank you to all of you for enriching my humble post ;)

A big thank you, Yves, for your link

Totally agree, and a big thanks to all of you for enriching my humble post😉

So, here I go with 2 photos of Phuket from 1983:

Karon (recognizable by the rock on the right)

The same spot today:

Kata (that scooter is us!)

Hi Christian, I’m really glad I started this post—what a joy to see all your photos! Thanks! 🙂

Ko Phangan miscellany

If you have any photos to share, we’d love to see them... 😉😉😉

If you have any photos to share, we’d be thrilled to see them...😉😉😉

Hi, thanks for these photos!

I’ll add one from Samui and one from Phangan to join in.

Later!

Thanks so much for your contribution—your photos are really great! 🙂

I’m so happy I started this post—what a joy to see all your photos! Thanks! 🙂

And thanks to all of you for letting us share photos in your discussion!

While I dig up a couple more old, quirky photos from Thailand, here’s a link for the nostalgic or curious who’d like to see what traveling in a far-off country looked like back then: Adventures of another time: the Philippines in 1984

Travel journal in progress (sorry for the shameless plug )

me too

https://voyageforum.com/discussion/souvenir-philippines-d10140796/

Hello,

yes, it was definitely Lamai because it was the only place on the island with bungalows. I stayed in Nathorn, at the island’s only hotel, which was called ....HOTEL in white letters on a blue sign. A kind woman ran it, and her husband would come home drunk every night. She’d lay him out on a bench to sleep it off while making us all witnesses—there were about ten of us foreigners. Every day, we’d rent a songthaew (two rows) that took us around the whole island. There were other *farangs* staying with locals in the small village of Chaweng. My sons teased me mercilessly when I took them back years later and told them my "war stories": dirt roads, no electricity, the smell of coconut everywhere, and apparently a few tourist robberies (according to the hotel owner, who never missed a chance to warn us to be careful whenever we went out).

So many memories... 🙂

A few photos taken in the Golden Triangle in 1983. We’d found a guide in Chiang Mai and set off with three others for a few days in the mountains, sleeping in pretty rustic villages like this one:



The hut where we spent the night (slept?!) with the pigs and chickens—no avian flu back then!

Everything was really dirty. Our guide let the cutlery and plates soak in a pot of boiling water for a while before we ate! The kids were as filthy as everything else.

When we were washing up in the stream, about ten armed guys showed up and threatened us—what a scare! The guide stepped in and talked to them, which eased the tension. Turns out every clearing was covered in poppies (like purple poppies), and they were there to guard them. Every now and then, the army would swoop in by helicopter and raze everything 😠. Since that sometimes ended with quite a few deaths, the mountain villagers would take revenge by killing anything that passed through. That’s why there were army checkpoints on some roads and rivers. Especially near Chiang Rai, there was a checkpoint where they’d take our passports and note the time we passed—so if we disappeared, they could track down the culprits more easily!!! We went back to Chiang Rai in 2015—what a different era 😎. On the flight home, we read in the Bangkok Post that five tourists had just disappeared in that same area...

Back then, the poppies were turned into morphine in clandestine labs and sold through a whole network of middlemen. I think all that trafficking is over now.

After seeing the poppies by day, that evening the village elder let us try some in the form of opium pipes: He’d put the little opium ball at the end of the pipe and heat it up... reminded me of Tintin!! Amazing smell, but after two pipes, a guaranteed headache for 12 hours.

He’d smoke 10 to 12 every night, and there he was the next morning, fresh as a daisy.

Ten seconds after this photo, one of us almost stepped on a cobra and was sick for a day or two. I’d always doubted that fear could make you ill, but since that day, I believe it’s possible.

Like you said, "what memories..." 🙂🙂🙂

gorgeous photos from another era,

thanks so much

hi,

anyone else to share a few photos?😊

Hello,

Anyone left to share a few snapshots?

:) Here!

2-3 photos.



Isaan picnic after a pig butchering.



Newborn in Thamaï, Chantaburi.



Marcel, a Belgian with a hundred lives.



Sunday muay thai in the village.

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