March 2020: The streets of Thailand’s holiday resorts, from the Andaman Sea in the south to Bangkok—one of the largest metropolises in the world—and eastward to the infamous sin city of Pattaya, emptied. The last tourists fled by the end of March in a state of panic, boarding chartered "repatriation flights" home. Massage shops shut down. Bars, beaches, hotels, and street food stalls—those vibrant icons of Thailand—began fading into a dull monochrome. Each closure meant another family losing the only income they had to survive.
Tourists departed without looking back. While locked down in their hometowns, they cherished memories of the paradise they'd once visited, imagining they’d return when it was all over. But for millions of Thais, that paradise turned into a living hell. The same people who had greeted visitors with their signature Thai smiles, prepared Pad Thai on Bangkok’s bustling streets, soothed Westerners’ burnout-stiffened muscles in massage parlors, and wai’ed respectfully to every passerby—maids, waitresses, bartenders, dancers, and sex workers—suddenly became invisible.
Few of these workers were included in official statistics. Most didn’t exist on paper, and when social aid was distributed, they were excluded. Many had been supporting entire families in distant villages. They were the ones who created the paradise tourists loved. When the tourists and their money disappeared, so did the livelihood of millions.
Living in Thailand at the time, I saw the crisis unfold firsthand. Collaborating with local NGOs and listening to the stories of unemployed and abandoned workers, I witnessed the emptiness of the streets and the hopelessness creeping into people’s lives. In the first months of lockdown, I prepared a series of photographs to raise awareness among Western vacationers. The paradise they remembered was gone, and now, more than ever, simple empathy was desperately needed.