Originally Posted by
MikeLaw
Thank you both for the help.
dsquared, I assume you are kwaiyai on flickr. I'm very grateful to you and your wife for your help. I'm going to try to get as many of the same shots for before and after photos as I can and you have been an enormous help with that project. My mother was a teenager at the time and I had hoped she would remember more of them, but her memories are mostly focused on the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, where she apparently spent every waking hour.
That's me, kwaiyai: big buffalo.
Some photos were easy and some took a little searching in Thai. The barges are not that common of an event and wikipedia lists the May 1957 as the only ceremony during the 53-58 period. If so it was in honor of the year 2500 on the Buddhist calendar. The photo of the Kok Wua intersection I first thought was taken from the northeast corner looking to the northwest corner but realized later the Thai was written backwards so it was the south side of the street. Also there are a few photos my wife thought were Wat Arun due to the porcelain decorations but there are a few wats from the early 1800's which have this type of embellishment so it's a difficult call.
We loved your photos and the juxtaposition with what's present now was very stark in your photos of Ratchadamneon Rd. Mrs dsquared said to me, in the mix of Cambodia photos, 'That's the Raffles Hotel.' I had looked right past it not recognizing the building at all.
If you have more I'd love to see them. If we can be of furhter help in terms of identifying or photographing just let me know.
Edit: There was a photo of a hotel called the Carlton Hotel. A search indicated it might be Pattaya but we have no idea.