The Grand Tour 04: Kodachrome Slides from Thailand and India, 1950

 

On my dad's trip westward, he flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok and then proceeded on to India.

Bangkok, Thailand

 

At the Grand Palace, Bangkok

Unfortunately, I did not see any pictures of the once-famous floating markets. In the last 50+ years, many of the canals were covered and turned into highways. 

Delhi, India

In 1950, India was also in turmoil because the chaotic and terrible 1947 partition between India and Pakistan was only three years in the past. I do not know why my dad chose to fly to Delhi on his grand tour, but he arrived there on October 6 of 1950. Many of his pictures were typical tourist snaps. I will skip the temples and monuments and show street scenes or markets. 

I love the cars in the last scene. A big Chevrolet, a Citroën Traction Avant, some little English cars, and some horses. It is hard to see on this scale, but the Chevrolet has right-hand drive. 

 

 

New Delhi 

 

 

This is the Ritz cinema, possibly near the Kashmere Gate in New Delhi. It took some searching in Google to find the location, but fortunately, people in India post thousands of photographs of everything. 

 

The Old Delhi Railway Station is only a few blocks away. I wish my dad had taken some pictures there of the architecture and of trains. 

 

 

This incredible edifice is the Laxminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple in New Delhi, India. I thought it must date to the Mohguls, but I was surprised to read that it is modern. It was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1939. 

Agra

 

Agra is a city on the Yamuna river in Uttar Pradesh. Most tourists go there to see the famous Taj Mahal, a marble mausoleum built by Shah Jahan. My dad took 10s of snapshots there, but here are some of his street scenes, instead.

 

Drum brake repair shop. Note hand-cranked blower

Procession or funeral (?)

 

This ends a short visit to north central India in 1950. In 1958, my dad returned to Delhi with my mom and me in tow, but I do not remember any details. It was another life, another era. 

 

I scanned these Kodachrome slides with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner operated by NikonScan V. 4.03, running on WIN 7. I corrected some colors with Photoshop Elements 2014.

 

 Addendum

 

 

My mom and me, somewhere near Darjeeling, north India, April 1958.

 

 

The Grand Tour 03: Kodachrome Slides from Hong Kong, 1950

Hong Kong was the first stop on my dad's ambitious Grand Tour westward en route home to Massachusetts. For a New England boy, this destination may have felt exotic, a hint of the Orient.  He arrived in Hong Kong on October 30, 1950, after a long flight via Manila. 

In 1950, Hong Kong was a crucial strategic outpost for the American and European powers. The brutal and terrible Chinese Civil War was over, and Mao Tse-tung's communist forces had defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang army in 1949. China had become a closed society. Thousands of refugees had fled to Hong Kong before Mao sealed the borders. Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony in the post-war period when the United Kingdom still maintained some of its overseas empire. 

You will see more than the normal number of photos below because they show a Hong Kong that has changed drastically, a city without skyscrapers and with rice terraces on the hillsides. It was dramatically less urbanized than it is now. Please click any picture to see more detail.  

Victoria Harbour

This is the view from Victoria Peak of Victoria Harbour, one of the world's great natural harbors. It is a spectacular view, accessible by the Peak Tramway. There are two aircraft carriers at anchor, a non-subtle hint to Mao Tse-tung to behave and not try to invade the colony.

The waterfront from Wan Chai or Kowloon was always dynamic. Thousands of refugees lived on these sampans. As of 2014, I did not see these floating communities. I love the elegant motor launch in the photo above. Behind it is one of the traditional ferries.

Kowloon

In 1950, Kowloon was a crowded area of low-rise building and slums, densely occupied by refugees. Crime was rampant.  

       

Hong Kong Island (Central and Wan Chai)

Electra House

Electra House (also called Mercury House) was Cable & Wireless Ltd.'s regional headquarters on Connaught Road Central.

Carnarvon Road

Hennessy Road, Wan Chai district

This ends our quick stopover in the Hong Kong of 1950. My dad only stayed a few days and proceeded on to Bangkok.

I posted some of his B&W photos earlier (click the link). 

He took these Kodachrome slides with a Leica IIIC camera with 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens. I think he used a GE PR-1 light meter at the time. I scanned the slides with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner running under NikonScan 4.03 software. Many of the colors were off, but I corrected most using the automatic color function in Photoshop Elements 2024 software. 

NO KINGS! Olympia, Washington, March 28, 2026 (Oly 26)

 

Washington State Capitol

On Saturday, March 28, 2026, angry Americans rallied at more that 3,300 NO KINGS protests around the USA and in many foreign countries. More and more people are disgusted by the nation's shift to kleptocracy, corruption, authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, and governmental incompetence. 

NO KINGS protesters gathered at the Washington Capitol Campus starting about 10:30. I biked to the campus and walked around. People were peaceful - no fire bombs or good stuff today. I loved the creativity of the signs. People in the following photographs gave me permission to take their pictures.  

Many (most?) of the signs were oriented to US politics, diversity, the excesses of ICE, and the rights of all humans. I saw some protests against the war in Iran. Oddly, I did not see any Ukraine or Gaza signs, but I may have missed them. Possibly most people here have moved on. 

 

Yup, same old s***. They could have added Mao Zedong's octagonal cap.

Ah, the wheel of corruption

Who is a puppet? Not me.....

Ferocious mountain dog is sick of all the doodoo, too

Time to wee - this one was seemed appropriate

More and more of these Handmaids are appearing at protests. 

 

These ladies are an allegory of a dystopian totalitarian America, where fertile women become the baby-making slaves for the leaders. The television series was based on the 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Women vote? Not in that brave new America.

I took these pictures with my Fuji X-E1 digital camera with the 18-55mm lens. I set the jpeg emulation for Astia film. The output is colorful and "sharp," but definitely looks digital. There is no character. 

This is an old camera on digital terms. I am sure it does not have enough megapixels, bokeh, or equivalence (bogus concept among D shooters), but it works well. It has been to Burma, Cuba, Hong Kong, the Colorado River, Columbia, Nepal, Greece, and more, and it keeps truckin' along.

Next week, we will continue on the 1950 Grand Tour around the world in Kodachrome slides.

The Grand Tour 02: Kodachrome Slides from the Pacific, 1947-1950

Guam

My dad worked for PIE engineering company on Guam for two assignments, 1947-1949 and 1949-1950. In mid-1949, he had returned to Massachusetts but was unable to find a suitable job there, so off he went to Guam again. There, he lived in a Quonset hut on the US Navy base in Agaña, now called Hagåtña.  

In those days, flying from Honolulu to Guam was a long trip, requiring two stops for refueling.

It is a long way to anywhere from Guam (note the New England road map)

Honolulu to Guam route

Ready to fly at NAS Hagåtña (Agana), now the A.B. Won Pat International Airport

I am not sure if my dad flew with these people of if he was just wishing them goodbye. The massive airplane in the background is a Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. It was luxurious and comfortable but suffered from two major flaws: high fuel use and propellers that tended to crack and disintegrate in flight. 

The PIE Camp was rather basic. The engineers had their own living quarters, consisting of half of a Quonset hut. They had no air conditioning, but the mess hall and cinema were cooled. When it rained, there was mud. The jeeps were mostly wrecks that broke regularly. 

 

Minor hole in the road

 

My dad told me that when he and other engineers went up-country to look at watersheds or survey, two armed soldiers accompanied them because there were still Japanese soldiers living in the forest. 

Yap Island

Yap is an island group that is part of the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific. Now it is a state within the Federated States of Micronesia. In 1948, the US held the Caroline Islands as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

My dad flew there in January 1948 on a PBY Catalina flying boat to do a quick inspection of water sources and aquifers. He saw the round stone money disks, used as a symbol of wealth by local families. From Wikipedia, "... stone money, known as Rai, or Fei: large doughnut-shaped, carved disks of (usually) calcite, up to 4 m (13 ft) in diameter (most are much smaller). The smallest can be as little as 3.5 centimetres (1.4 in) in diameter. Many of them were brought from other islands, as far as New Guinea, but most came in ancient times from Palau."

 

Oops, a bit of mud. Local gents are helping.

Stone money lining a path

Impressive stone money samples

This ends this short look at the Pacific in the 1940s. We will continue on to Hong Kong when my dad finished his one-year contract and headed west.

I think he used an American Perfex camera for these Kodachrome slides. I scanned them with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED scanner. Considering their age, the slides were in remarkable condition. He bought his Leica IIIC at the post exchange in early 1950. I do not know what happened to the Perfex.