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| Aonang Beach |
First there was nothing.... Krabi was just another sleepy hollow in the malaise evoking town in the Kra Isthmus. The Hollywood doyens looking upon an exotic location to shoot their next money spinning movie remembered such a place on their tour of duty to Vietnam. Their mission (The movie: The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974) was a great success. Suddenly everybody wanted to be James Bond and would not sleep until they had seen the exotic location where the baddie operated!
Everybody knows Bangkok (with its golden temples, bars, the massage parlours...), Chiengmai, Hatyai, Phuket but Krabi...
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Leo does not necessarily refer
to lion lineage. Here it is a
short form for Leopold!
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The businessmen got excited. Boom came the highways and the travel tour agents. Since everybody could fly, swoosh came an international airport plying routes to include lands whose occupants could pronounce 'Kr' as easily as kroner and to those where the alphabet 'r' is deemed unpronounceable! Wham, came the pebbled washed walkways and palm tree lined streets in pseudo 90210 posh fashion and designer labelled lifestyle shops...
The landscape of the sleepy hollow is anything but sleepy these days. Dancing to the tunes of the foreigners who revel late into the night in the name of unwinding, celebration and what not, the locals join in the fracas. Hey, everybody loves a good time and what's more? You are making money out of it. Even, their conservative brothers do not raise their eyebrows at the visitors' unholy behaviours. I guess the sight of money lubricates all relationships.
The capitalistic landowners and businessmen are laughing all the way with the killing over their mammoth profits with their deals. The little men at Krabi, albeit gaining marginally from the invasion of foreigners to their backyard, had little change in their lifestyles. They earned more but living became more expensive!
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| James Bond Island |
It is ironic that a strip of lonely islands which just stood pretty exposed to the forces of nature now stands as national heritage park! All because of a movie... The power of the silver screen! Before James Bond it was nothing... Maybe not even a name!
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| A scene from the said franchise |
The landscape of the sleepy hollow is anything but sleepy these days. Dancing to the tunes of the foreigners who revel late into the night in the name of unwinding, celebration and what not, the locals join in the fracas. Hey, everybody loves a good time and what's more? You are making money out of it. Even, their conservative brothers do not raise their eyebrows at the visitors' unholy behaviours. I guess the sight of money lubricates all relationships.
