POSTCARD N.126 - THAILAND

Postcard sent on the 28th September; received on the 6th December 2023

Postcard image: Chiang Rai Province, Thailand: Upper left: The northernmost point; Upper right: Opium field; Lower left and right: Akha Hilltribe
__________________________________________________________________________________

Another year is rapidly coming to its close and, sadly, I will not be able to finish posting my stock of 2023 postcards and covers send by friendly people all across the globe until the last page of the calendar is turned.

On the other hand I am happy that this is the case since this can also be seen as a measure of how busy my friend Mr. Postman has been dropping mail into my letterbox.

I've started this blog during the COVID pandemic, when things were much slower. Now that luckily we are back to normal, getting multiple covers and postcards on the letterbox is not that infrequent and my ability to post them all here without a rather large delay is simply non-existent. The thing got worse with my being off in the Camino de Santiago, since I could not recover the time I spent without posting during my very uplifting journey.

Anyway, today I have another great postcard to post, thanks to the courtesy and generosity of Ravindra.

Chiang Rai is Thailand’s northernmost province out of the twenty six into which the country is administratively divided with a population that includes several different ethnic groups, of which the more representative are the Akha.

Also the region is known to be traditionally linked to the production and trading of opium, although efforts have been made to replace this production with other cultures, like bananas, coffee, pineapple or coconuts.

This is what, in a nutshell, Ravindra's nice postcard clearly illustrates.

In it, clockwise from the left upper corner, we can see pictures of:

-  Amphoe Mae Sai, the northernmost point of Thailand, right on the border with Myanmar (probably with Burma, at the time the photo was taken, judging from the flag that is seen flying in the foreground).

- A field of Papaver somniferum, the opium poppy. Thanks to it millions of people have benefited from its pain killing properties through the administration of morphine extracted from its latex, while millions other have had their lives turned to absolute shit, for using the same latex in one of its natural or synthesised forms: opium, morphine or heroine.

- Members of the Akha hill tribe, in their traditional costumes, this being the most numerous of the several hill tribes that inhabit the region, also known for having none less than seven natural parks. 

Open on the four sides, but supporting an elaborate roof to provide shelter and shade to those meeting under it, the Sala, the traditional Thai Pavillion, was declared by the Thai government to be a national symbol of the country, on par with the elephant and the Golden shower flower, in 2001.

This distinctive landmark is also the main subject of a series of definitive stamps which began to circulate in 2017, with several yearly runs from then on, and of which two examples (10 and 30 baht) were used on this postcard.

Unfortunately, the celebratory postmark of the 140th anniversary of the Thai Postal Services is rather splodgy,