Fire at Tha Ton
Tha Ton, northern Thailand. 7 March 1986
Took a songthaew to Tha Ton, 24kms north of Fang.
Had a coffee & piece of banana cake in a bungalow that I shared with Evi. I turned the light switch on and there was an explosion. I thought “Oh no, what have I done!” But it turned out it was unrelated, a guy nearby had been ‘playing with gunpowder’ & he was pretty badly cut up. It started a fire in the thatched roof and within seconds villagers were pouring out of their homes & running to the river with their plastic buckets. I joined the bucket brigade, passing one full bucket up & sending one empty bucket down to be filled. Some young guys clambered up the steep pitch of the roof & threw the water on extinguishing the blaze fairly quickly. But you could see how dire the situation was. All the homes had thatched roofs & were close to each other, unchecked the whole town could be razed.
We then went for a walk following the river, through a quaint village & up a steep hill. Very smoky, a lot of burning off. We looked at a detailed map later on & realised we were probably in Burma. The old guy who was waving us back probably knew we shouldn’t have been there. Came back after a fruitless bush-bashing search for a way down to the river.
The photo is probably taken coming back from the walk. You can just see the big white buddha at Wat Tha Ton on the lower ridge line above the Kok River.
