Over the weekend I had a fun chat (the sound is a bit scrappy sorry—I blame Skype) with David Luekens. David worked with us for many years at Travelfish and later, as the pandemic kicked off, started a newsletter focussed on Thailand’s many islands and beaches. He has just returned to Thailand after a longish break Stateside, and has great plans for the newsletter—including changing it into a quest of sorts.
Think island thoughts. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I recommend listening to the podcast for the full story, but is that isn’t your thing, a transcript is below. It has been edited and tidied up … a bit. I’ve also added below a bunch of links to posts by David in the past to give you a feel for his work.
Stuart
Stuart
This Monday I’ve got something a little bit different for everybody who’s managed to survive the whole rethinking travel never-ending series. Now that that’s wrapped up, I’m moving back onto something a little bit different, a little bit lighter.
If you’re somebody who’s used Travelfish in the past and you’ve found yourself on an island here or there, chances are that you were travelling off the work of David Luekins who worked with us at Travelfish for a long period, covering a vast section of the country, and later on he went on to start a newsletter the Thai Island Times. A Substack newsletter which looked at all aspects of travelling around Thailand along with a wrap on news and developments and that kind of stuff.
Earlier this year, David took a break from Thailand and headed back to his home country, the United States. But just last week, I believe, he returned to Thailand and he’s got some big changes coming along the way to Thai Island Times, and it’s great to have him here to chat a little bit about what he’s got planned.
So David, how are you?
David
Good, thank you for having me here.
Stuart
I hear that it’s your birthday, so I should really start by saying happy birthday, correct?
David
Oh, thank you.
Stuart
Or are you one of those people that puts fake birth dates into social media tools?
David
Yeah no, no. Once you’re over, well, once you’re over 40, I think it is kind of like you start to dread the birthdays rather than appreciate or enjoy them. I feel like a bit, but ... not getting any younger, you know, but... Happy to be back in Thailand to celebrate it for sure.
Stuart
So when did you get back to Thailand?
David
Last week, it’s been a little over a week now.
Stuart
And how long were you back Stateside?
David
Better part of this past year. I actually went back in January last year, so almost all 2022. It’s by far the longest that I’ve been there, been back in the US since I moved out here to Thailand in 2011. So it was, it was interesting. It was nice to kind of reconnect with the country after I’d been here for, I’d been here in Thailand for the whole, you know, pandemic the whole emergency phase of the pandemic 2020 and all of 2021 pretty much, but definitely feels good to be back in Thailand.
Stuart
That was actually my next question, what is it like being back in Thailand after almost a year away?
David
Well, it’s really nice because things have changed here. Last year, I mean, I had waited until the end of 2021, and it looked like maybe there would be a bit of a tourism high season. At least the start of a recovery and then the Omicron variant hit in December, and so pretty much it’s been I guess, now this will be, finally, it’s been about three high seasons that have been missed here basically, in 2020 that was really only the tail end of the high season that was where we encountered lockdowns and that was the beginning basically of the pandemic.
But then all of 2021, I mean the tourism, the actual arrival numbers in Thailand completely plummeted throughout 2021, and that was the worst of the pandemic here in Thailand as well. So it’s finally really feels like there’s hope and it’s starting to turn around. A lot of businesses are open, a lot, many, are still closed as well, but I remember just walking down Khao San Road, back in like the middle of 2021 and literally every single shop and business was shuttered. And now quite a few are still closed, but there’s definitely a lot of energy there now. I walked down there again the other day, and I was happy to see quite a few backpackers and just people back, people out, Thai people out. Working and traveling and having a good time and so yeah, I’m really just excited to get some sense of normalcy coming back to Thailand.
After this rough few years, I mean because during the pandemic it was really, especially here in Bangkok, it was weird to be here. I felt like kind of the soul of the city just kind of disappeared for a long time. And millions of people moved, from what I understand, millions of people moved back to their home provinces and things like that. So it’s nice, it’s really nice to come back and feel like almost like it did. It almost reminds me of some of my early trips to Thailand in a way, because there aren’t, there’s not as many tourists as there had been in like 2018-2019. But there’s definitely some energy, and things are starting to pick up again.
Stuart
Right, I mean. I’ve heard from some other friends who have travelled through there over the last few months. And they’re comparing it to, I mean, obviously the look of the city and so on has changed, but the feel they’re comparing it to the late 1990s early 2000s would, would you say that sounds on the money to you.
David
Yeah, I mean yeah, it definitely does remind me of my first trip to Thailand was in 2005, and yeah, in a way it does remind me of that a bit. It feels a bit more like that than 2019 when there were 40 million tourists. I mean, I think in 2005 there were less than 20 million tourists that came into the country that year, around those years and then by 2019 there were almost 40 million. So basically over the 10 years, like over the years when I was working for Travelfish, I really saw the impact of the increasing tourist numbers and a lot of sites like the Grand Palace and places like that and also a lot of beaches, like of course Maya Bay is well known for having been totally overrun during those years, and so it’s not like that at all anymore.
I mean Bangkok has changed a lot, in some ways for the better, I think like there’s a lot more Metro stations, it’s more accessible which is good because you don’t have to be stuffed into trains and boats quite as much as you did and I mean it has like a low key, little bit of a laid back more of a laid back kind of feel I think in the city. Which is kind of refreshing and like I said I feel like there’s a sense of hope and a sense that now it’s like finally it feels like it’s really time for an actual recovery. And to see how the future shapes out after this whole three years of a pandemic that that we’ve been through so, yeah, it’s exciting.
Stuart
I realise you’ve only been back for about a week, so I’m not sure how much you’ve been out chatting to people and what have you. But when you talk about a hope for recovery, and that kind of thing, do you think there’s a degree of apprehension? From Thai people that they would like to see, perhaps not 40 million people not bouncing back to 40 million people anytime soon. And perhaps the lower level of tourism is desirable.
David
Yeah, I mean certainly I think there’s there are people who feel that way. I haven’t talked to too many people specifically about that since I’ve been back, but I mean the thing with the pandemic, and I’ve been saying this for years now, is that the effects of it we’re very unevenly balanced in terms of financially speaking, especially in the tourism industry, and that’s still the case.
If you’re a tour operator or someone who had been focusing mainly on tourists from mainland China, then you’re probably looking for it to get back to similar numbers as 2019. That’s obviously a big group that’s still largely absent. So I mean there are a lot of businesses that have been focused on that group specifically, who are lagging behind everyone else in terms of trying to rebuild and everything, so I think it depends on who you talk to really in their own situations, but I mean for me, I personally feel like it’s not a bad thing to not have 40 million a year coming into the country.
Maybe something more like 25 million or 30 million, would be a little more manageable, but then again, like I said, talking about tourists from China and other parts of Asia, those China, India, that’s where a lot of the increase in the tourist numbers came from over the last 10 years. Like especially starting around like 2010 or so, and there was an awful lot of infrastructure that was built that was sort of geared more towards, not totally 100% towards them, a lot of large hotels kind of mid range hotels like with air-con rooms and stuff. A lot of those places are still sitting empty unfortunately so it’s like there are reminders.
You think back to the mid 2000s or something, and it’s definitely not exactly the same. There’s certainly reminders of everything that’s happened here over the last few years still, and we’ll see. I mean, that’s just really my observation from walking around Bangkok and especially around the Old Town parts. On Khao San Road itself, a lot of most of it seems, like a lot of the hotels and actually notably a lot of the really old long-standing guest houses that have been there since the 90s and early 2000s or even earlier maybe, I don’t want to say a lot, but I definitely noticed that some of those are still around and some of them have even expanded. There’s a lot of buildings for rent there, so if you wanted to, if you were a guest house owner and you had survived and you had some savings, I think it would be a good time to kind of expand your business and you’re seeing a bit of that.
Stuart
So you just mentioned you’ve done a bit of walking around the Old Town. Have you managed to get out of Bangkok yet or have you just been in the capital?
David
Yeah, we did go up to Lopburi just for a day, I don’t know, well the they have the sunflowers it’s December, it’s they got the sunflower fields at, I think it’s called Khao Lae Chin or Khao Chin Lae, can’t remember the mountain, it’s like a limestone karst mountain. I’m not sure if they still do it, but they used to do rock climbing there, that was one of the activities that was offered to backpackers coming through Lopburi town.
It’s beautiful, actually, the countryside, we actually went around Lopburi and part of Saraburi just around the countryside, you know, stopped at some farms and took some pictures. We didn’t hang around the Lopburi town much, but we did drive through and the monkeys didn’t get us—we kept our windows closed—but yeah, it was good little trip, but we’re heading out today actually later to head south and start getting back to all the islands and beaches and stuff.
Stuart
You’re leaving today so how long a trip have you got planned heading down south?
David
It would be like at a least a week, maybe? Maybe nine days max, and then we’ll be back in Bangkok and then next month, definitely be traveling again, probably down to the Andaman coast. For this trip we’re going down to Chumphon and we will get probably over to Ranong on the Andaman coast.
Stuart
Up until when you headed back to the States you were running, or writing rather, the Thai Islands Times newsletter and I’ve always been a big fan of the newsletter, but also, I believe that words matter, so the other day I received an e-mail from Thailand Island Times, which is from you really, noting that you’ve made one change.
You’ve changed one word in the title, so it’s shifted from Thai Island Times to Thai Island Quest. So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about why you’ve decided to make the change of that single word and what it’s going to mean for what the newsletter is going to become.
David
Well Thailand Island Times, when I started it, I had a lot of time. It was during the COVID lockdown here in April 2020. They weren’t even like selling alcohol in the country or anything at that time, so everyone was stuck inside, and so I wanted to, I had, different contacts, people, I know who live in all around different islands, and I just wanted to kind of share what was going in the islands.
Specifically, part of what I wanted to share was how the islands were faring and all the beach areas were faring throughout the pandemic and how that was affecting things. So a big part of the Times aspect of it, kind of represented like more of a news angle. So I did like these island wraps, which got quite long and time consuming. I did more than 50 of them, first it was weekly and then it was like biweekly and they were pretty popular and I feel like it was a good thing to spend my time doing during the pandemic. I covered a lot of how COVID was affecting the region, the coastal region, and then also just kind of Thailand more generally and I talked about, I wrote a piece about how you could help charitable efforts to help people in the tourism industry and a lot of the islands that that we’re struggling and things like that. Then I also covered in the island wraps a lot of environmental issues and basically I would just scour the news and talk to people in those places and scour social media and just like put together a whole giant summary basically of everything that was going on.
But I would also in Thailand Island Times, the other thing I would do, was like more travel more kind of what we would call like evergreen content, where I would just cover islands. Basically write these feature length articles about certain islands or beaches or mainland coastal areas and basically, just unleash everything that I know about all those places and that I’ve learned throughout the years and throughout researching and also while working for Travelfish and just basically summarising and wrapping up, and sharing photos
