Construction of the ring road around Koh Samui 1969-1970

Getting around Koh Samui in the 'early days' was an adventure. Listening to stories of my wife, who is born and raised on Samui, 

Manual labor on the ring road

Visiting other parts of the island involved walking for most of the day and staying overnight with relatives and walking back the next day. 

More manual labor

From the Choengmon area, there was bus/song thaew per day to Nathon, which back in those days and still is the main place for any official and government related business.

This all changed in 1967, Khun Dilok Suthiklom, the 'mayor' of Samui back in those days or 'Phuyai baan of Samui' and he asked for funding to governmental organisation to build of what we nowadays know as the ring road.

Old picture of the ring road

This construction started and in 1969 and 1970 was in full swing, as the black and white pictures show.

The start of building the ring road was manual labor, as can be seen in the pictures above but one of the problems for building the ring road was the hill between Bang Po and Nathon and the rocky sides of the road around Lamai. Heavy construction machinery was needed.

Ring road construction Bang Po in 1982

As could be expected, delays were encountered, due to monsoon and rain, just like construction around the island nowadays. Some things just never change!

In 1973 the ring road was completed by putting the concrete plates in place and just recently, tar was added on top of the concrete plates at most of the ring road.

In the beginning the road was no wider than 2 meters, which has been changed a few years back, when the ring rod was widened. Most of the time only to create parking space for bikes and cars it seems.

Hope you enjoyed this, the old Samui pictures. Most of the pictures and some of the informatiom was found at this link.

Don't forget to use my Camille's Samui hotel recommendation blog and my Camille's Thailand hotel recommendation blog for all your hotel bookings on Koh Samui and around Thailand. By doing so, you will support my blog. Thanks folks! 

Camille