it doesn’t matter when it was, the point is that not everyone is a package tourist. Thailand is a hub, you can be in 5 other capitals in around an hour. Has the concept of travel, the concept of backpacking passed you by?
when I used to travel around Asia for 6 months I was in and out of Thailand regularly, sometimes a few days sometimes a couple of weeks. I wasn’t living here, I wasn’t a package tourist, I was a tourist.