Following is just some personal rambling about visiting Ban Sapan yesterday. Sorry no photos due to the dark sky and rain coming in. But photo above is from January 2020.
Once upon a time (about 10 years ago) Ban Sapan was a small village in a valley along the Wa River in de mountains of Doi Phu Kha. Local farmers, mostly hill-tribe people, would be farming the rice fields in the valley and in the mountains. Life was peaceful and the environment clean and beautiful. About 7 years ago I was there for the first time and a few outsiders had already found their way to Ban Sapan and there were a few very basic homestay’s along the Wa River. But the signs were on the wall (or actually on the stunning view) that this was just the beginning. Yesterday I was again in Ban Sapan and my thoughts were “Holy f*&% what happend here”. Well the answer is of course “Greed and no environmental planning”. Following Thai tradition everybody jumped on the wagon of tourism and started to build more and more and more homestay’s, boutique hotels, restaurants and of course coffee shops. New roads leading to cleared mountain slopes are made to build more boutique hotels with even better view. Hotels are build bigger (2 floors), pink steel roof are dotted in the green rice fields and parking space is build for all the tourists arriving in their SUV. Another Pai in the make, with the difference that instead of taking 20 years to do it, here at Ban Sapan they are on their way to do it in 6 years. So the last frontier is moved to other small villages more north. Bye bye Ban Wen. And the locals? Well some might make money from it by selling their land, working in the hotels or having a small restaurant. But most will keep on farming, because rice never goes out of fashion.
In de first year of Corona tourism was booming in Nan province and also in Ban Sapan. So in Thai tradition everybody did build more and more expensive boutique hotels and the second year of Corona was big business in Nan province. The rich Thai people could not go to Korea, Japan or Europe so they went to Nan province among other places in Thailand. Now on the other hand they can go to Korea, Japan or Europe so less potential well paying guests for Nan province and much more new hotels in Nan province. The writings were on the wall .....
Of course the same is happening elsewhere in Thailand and probably worldwide. Also in my beloved Pua, where the number of accommodation and coffee shops has skyrocket since the first year of Corona (2020).
Disclaimer : All information is created in good faith and is an expression of fair comment
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