Photos of Thailand, post 1 of 6
According to my Camera Count, I took precisely 1261 pictures in the week I was in Thailand.
I am an obsessive photographer. My visual memory isn't very tenacious, and I compensate for it by becoming a mad shutterbug in a place I am unlikely to see again soon.
I don't think even the most hard-core photograph fan would want to see 1261 photos, so here is a significantly reduced and picked-over sample. This is the first Thailand photo post in a series of 6.
(Row of Bangkok tuk-tuks before they are taken out for business, March 2008)
Home away from home. The lobby of Millenium Hilton, which I almost referred to as Millenium Falcon when telling the taxi driver where to take us:
I fell in love with the Chaopraya River, which we saw from our window, and which we travelled on every day, and which is the busiest river I've ever seen:
And it was all even more beautiful at night:
It's the little things that remind you that you are 'Elsewhere' before even the big things do. We passed this tree every morning to get to the dock, a little bit of different plant life and different faith, a mundane reminder of the exotic:
I told you I fell in love with the river:
There are shrines everywhere in the city:
Bangkok traffic, an extreme sport. Made more so by the motorcycle taxis, which you see (gentlemen with the orange vests):
Houses by a canal:
A tangle of wires. It really makes me think of the city itself: hopelessly complex and tangled, and shouldn't function but somehow functions incredibly well:
Another hidden canal:
Streetscapes on an early Monday morning:
I am always fascinated by the posters and ads when I travel. Are they like the ones back home? Are they not?
Motorcycles everywhere. I've seen more motorcycles our first morning in Bangkok than I have the rest of my life:
Tuk-tuks, ready for their daily travels. But not yet...
More streetscapes:
In Chinatown:
A stand with scarves at the Chinatown market:
Food vendors, preparing for business. They were on every corner, and sometimes every place in-between:
(Devotional Bells at Wat Phra Doi Suthep, March 2008)
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep was one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. On a mountain outside Chiang Mai, this is the holiest site in the area, containing a relic of the Buddha. It is also incredibly gorgeous: all golds and blues and reds. After a while, your eyes stop comprehending the meaning of color.
Prayer, whether by circumnavigating the place where the relic is held, or by kneeling with the lotuses or both:
The Buddhas, two of hundreds:
Bells donated by believers:
Am I the only one who finds expression of religious devotion, even if the faith is not one's own, incredibly moving?
Gold, gold everywhere:
The King's Sister passed away in January and her portraits, covered in black and white crape are everywhere. Here is no exception:
This Wat continues Thailand's love affair with elephants:
A monk, with devotional string for believers, his orange blending into orange of the wall paintings:
Buddhas with a monkey and an elephant:
Different angle, to show the golds and yellows and reds and blues:
Close-up cropped detail of that incredible blue:
More Buddhas:
Do you see how the eye almost begins to lose a sense of color? Mr. Mousie told me to close my eyes for a minute and then open them again, and the color hits you like a blow, all over again.
I do not know what these are, but I loved them, as they stand near the exit.
All the shoes, near one of the entrances. The sign of left-behind shoes became one of the most familiar sights of Thailand, to me:
Yet more colors:
Devotional bells. You ring them as a religious rite:
One of my favorite photos of the trip:
The Royal Family is everywhere:
Net time you get mad at your mother, at least be grateful she doesn't look like that :)
Yet more Wat shots:
The stairs to the Wat, with some children, dressed in outfits I couldn't place, on the bottom:
Close-up crop of the children. I am not sure who they were :)
(Monks' robes drying at Wat U Mong at the otskirts of Chiang Mai, March 2008)
Most of my Chiang Mai pictures are in a different batch, but I thought this photo really encapsulated my experience of Chiang Mai: the mundane, even dingy every day, and the colorful and exotic, side by side.
Wat U Mong was outside the city, miles out in the woods, but it felt even further away.
We wandered around unnoticed in the sun, while the monks went about their daily business, and the place seemed utterly asleep in the heat.
The monks' robes, drying in the sun:
The scariest Buddha I have ever seen:
Less scary :)
Buddhas in the cave:
And in conclusion, here is my little travel charm. I bought it out of a vending machine on top of the mountain with sulphur-springs in Hakone and have sort of stuck it to my travel purse and she's been some pretty random places since. I have no idea which anime character she is supposed to be, so I nicknamed her 'Hakone Girl.'
I am an obsessive photographer. My visual memory isn't very tenacious, and I compensate for it by becoming a mad shutterbug in a place I am unlikely to see again soon.
I don't think even the most hard-core photograph fan would want to see 1261 photos, so here is a significantly reduced and picked-over sample. This is the first Thailand photo post in a series of 6.
(Row of Bangkok tuk-tuks before they are taken out for business, March 2008)
Home away from home. The lobby of Millenium Hilton, which I almost referred to as Millenium Falcon when telling the taxi driver where to take us:
I fell in love with the Chaopraya River, which we saw from our window, and which we travelled on every day, and which is the busiest river I've ever seen:
And it was all even more beautiful at night:
It's the little things that remind you that you are 'Elsewhere' before even the big things do. We passed this tree every morning to get to the dock, a little bit of different plant life and different faith, a mundane reminder of the exotic:
I told you I fell in love with the river:
There are shrines everywhere in the city:
Bangkok traffic, an extreme sport. Made more so by the motorcycle taxis, which you see (gentlemen with the orange vests):
Houses by a canal:
A tangle of wires. It really makes me think of the city itself: hopelessly complex and tangled, and shouldn't function but somehow functions incredibly well:
Another hidden canal:
Streetscapes on an early Monday morning:
I am always fascinated by the posters and ads when I travel. Are they like the ones back home? Are they not?
Motorcycles everywhere. I've seen more motorcycles our first morning in Bangkok than I have the rest of my life:
Tuk-tuks, ready for their daily travels. But not yet...
More streetscapes:
In Chinatown:
A stand with scarves at the Chinatown market:
Food vendors, preparing for business. They were on every corner, and sometimes every place in-between:
(Devotional Bells at Wat Phra Doi Suthep, March 2008)
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep was one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. On a mountain outside Chiang Mai, this is the holiest site in the area, containing a relic of the Buddha. It is also incredibly gorgeous: all golds and blues and reds. After a while, your eyes stop comprehending the meaning of color.
Prayer, whether by circumnavigating the place where the relic is held, or by kneeling with the lotuses or both:
The Buddhas, two of hundreds:
Bells donated by believers:
Am I the only one who finds expression of religious devotion, even if the faith is not one's own, incredibly moving?
Gold, gold everywhere:
The King's Sister passed away in January and her portraits, covered in black and white crape are everywhere. Here is no exception:
This Wat continues Thailand's love affair with elephants:
A monk, with devotional string for believers, his orange blending into orange of the wall paintings:
Buddhas with a monkey and an elephant:
Different angle, to show the golds and yellows and reds and blues:
Close-up cropped detail of that incredible blue:
More Buddhas:
Do you see how the eye almost begins to lose a sense of color? Mr. Mousie told me to close my eyes for a minute and then open them again, and the color hits you like a blow, all over again.
I do not know what these are, but I loved them, as they stand near the exit.
All the shoes, near one of the entrances. The sign of left-behind shoes became one of the most familiar sights of Thailand, to me:
Yet more colors:
Devotional bells. You ring them as a religious rite:
One of my favorite photos of the trip:
The Royal Family is everywhere:
Net time you get mad at your mother, at least be grateful she doesn't look like that :)
Yet more Wat shots:
The stairs to the Wat, with some children, dressed in outfits I couldn't place, on the bottom:
Close-up crop of the children. I am not sure who they were :)
(Monks' robes drying at Wat U Mong at the otskirts of Chiang Mai, March 2008)
Most of my Chiang Mai pictures are in a different batch, but I thought this photo really encapsulated my experience of Chiang Mai: the mundane, even dingy every day, and the colorful and exotic, side by side.
Wat U Mong was outside the city, miles out in the woods, but it felt even further away.
We wandered around unnoticed in the sun, while the monks went about their daily business, and the place seemed utterly asleep in the heat.
The monks' robes, drying in the sun:
The scariest Buddha I have ever seen:
Less scary :)
Buddhas in the cave:
And in conclusion, here is my little travel charm. I bought it out of a vending machine on top of the mountain with sulphur-springs in Hakone and have sort of stuck it to my travel purse and she's been some pretty random places since. I have no idea which anime character she is supposed to be, so I nicknamed her 'Hakone Girl.'