CHIANG MAI AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY...

Chiang Mai, otherwise called "The Rose of the North" is a renowned and popular destination for all visitors to Thailand.

It is true that the city and its surroundings have many tourist, cultural, historical and tourist advantages.

At the beginning of the twentieth century it was not the same. Thailand was not a popular destination and few tourists ventured into these remote areas at a time when the means of communication were by far not the same as today.
The aircraft did not exist and the 10-week boat was not within the reach of all the purses.

In the neighbouring countries, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, it was the period of French Indochina.
Chiang Mai and more generally the North lived the Golden age of opium cultivation and it was still a wild country where we lived at the rhythm of the seasons.
At that time the wild elephants who lived in their natural habitat were legion and were not threatened with extinction even though the ivory trade was real and was beginning to decimate this wonderful pachyderm.
That time was not going to last and it is so much the better, both for opium and for the elephant.

Indeed the opium only enriched the dealers of the time who were the precursors of the drug that can now be found everywhere and the traffickers of ivory were little anxious to kill wonderful animals to feed a trade where Eventually they themselves had only a small part of the loot released by this Traffic.

King Rama IX put an end to this Traffic as well as to the cultivation of opium by allowing the peasants to indulge in other crops such as coffee tea or multiple fruits and vegetables by accompanying this transformation of AIDS to the conversion and access to the C Ommodités of modern life.

The photos of this time are rare, I was able to capture 6 but I do not despair of having others as I travel in the northwest of Thailand...

If you want to download these images, go to: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0jbjl37cglefwyd/AADY08zwg3w4NITkzIj6ikPea/VIEILLES%20PHOTOS%20DE%20CHIANG%20MAI?dl=0






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