Trip To Thailand – The Aftermath

Every trip is making me better in some way. Every travel enrich me so much and every time I am back home I discover myself a better person in so many areas. I’ve already wrote extensively about that in Travel As A Personal Development Tool post series so today I’ll just get practical and tell you how I benefit form my trip to Thailand that you’ve read so much about in the last week.

Challenged Concepts

Exposing myself to a new culture, to a new country and to an uncontrolled flow of experiences seriously shook some of my already established concepts. In some cases those concepts enlarged, showing me that they can cover a lot more than I thought, and in other cases they become more profound revealing deep layers that I didn’t even thought possible to exist.

Size Does Matter

Bangkok is a huge city. My concept of size was seriously challenged during this trip. On the vertical dimension Bangkok is almost incontrollable. I was able to stay a week in the modern center of this city, a fast developing area with lots of skyscrappers and new buildings. Even smaller blocks – compared with the super stars – are already huge concrete compounds overwhelming your intention to understand them.

The overgrown vertical dimension is present only downtown, but on the horizontal dimension of Bangkok is even more impressive. After cruising on the Chao Phraya canals I can remember endless lines of houses, almost growing out of water, over and over again. Each house hides another house and that house makes room for another house. The huge river hosts an impressive horizontal layer of small but ceaseless buildings.

My understanding of “big” was deeply modified during this trip.

Beauty Is Everywhere

Is surprising how everything can be beautiful in such a crowded and hot city. The first impression is visual: the colors are strong, bold and contrastive. Everything, from the color of cars to the color of clothes, from the colors of sky to the colors of buildings is a continuous visual dance.

Even the concrete jungle holds gentle lines and integration with older architecture. Harmony is the second word you find after “huge” when you try to define the modern areas of Bangkok. The buddhist temples are also living proofs of an inner beauty ready to be expressed along with vibrations of respect and devotion. So far, the temples visited in Thailand are the most beautiful religious buildings I ever saw.

Of course, not only what was man made is beautiful, but also natural areas. Being so little out of the big city I can only guess, but I do know that other parts of Thailand, like Phuket island (which I intend to visit quite soon) are ready to confirm and enhance the natural beauty of this place.

Last, but not least, the beauty of women is something completely mind blowing. It’s so different than our western definition of beauty, yet so close to it. It’s a gentle mix of harmony, fragrance and shyness, a soft silhouette floating around you with a promise of something yet to be discovered. A silence created by no need of words, a sense of completeness and still the drive to find out more.

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Trip To Thailand – Day 5

Friday was supposed to be my last day in Thailand. My plane was scheduled early Saturday morning, in fact, just 25 minutes after midnight, so I had to leave the hotel around 9 PM. I had little time to do anything else than the scheduled tour to Damnoen Saeduk.

This time the pick up was scheduled even earlier than yesterday, at 6:30 AM. Exactly at 6:30 AM a young lady appeared in the hotel lobby and explained me she is my guide for today tour. “What happened to the other girl?”, I said. “Well, we’re different agencies”, the young lady answered and I suddenly had a bad feeling. It was confirmed when I got in the little van: this was not my yesterday group. They somehow managed to switch cars, guides and groups in a totally chaotic way. Well, I was starting to get used to the way things are happening in Thailand, so I get a seat near the window and prepared to sleep. The ride to Damnon Saeduk was around 1 and a half hour.

Damnon Saeduk – Thailand Floating Market

We arrived at the floating market around 9 AM. In the car I learned that this floating market – which basically consisted in a large water canal network – was built by man 100 years ago with the same purpose as the name: to serve as a market. For many years it did, and people did their shopping out of their boats but in the last 20-30 years things have dramatically changed. Modern Thailand do has super-markets and people are doing their daily shopping in modern locations. Sits like Damnon Saeduk are only used for touristic purposes.

I was soon to find out this as I saw that all the merchandise that was sold on the boats. Cheap souvenirs, plastic bags and all kind of small overrated artifacts. The whole feeling was one of sadness and boredom. Locals seemed somehow bored of this game and guides were only preoccupied to show us as many shopping places as possible. The only natural stuff that was sold was food prepared on boats.

But the place in itself was really fantastic. I decided to not tune into the overall vibration of sadness and boredom, and focused instead on people faces. In minutes I realized that this is a big opportunity to make some of the most interesting protraits I ever made. And, without further ado, here are the pictures:

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Trip To Thailand – Day 3-4

After 2 days in Thailand I started to get used to the BTS skytrain and also started to have a crush on Chao Phraya cruises. After seeing Wat Pho and Wat Arun in my first day and visiting China Town and Flowers Market in my second day, I thought it would be the time to relax a bit and take a lighter approach. So, I searched on the Chao Phraya brochure something a little more manageable, maybe a shopping location. I’ve heard a lot about Thai silk and antiques boutiques and I thought to pay a visit to the River City shopping mall. On the following day I was suppose to go  on my first organized tour (one of the tours booked by internet) and I thought to relax a bit before that.

Bangkok River City

River City is a traditional location for antiques and traditional thai artifacts situated near the Chao Phraya river. The shop was surprisingly empty and at the ground floor there was an art exhibition.

bangkok-river-city-mall

I walked a little from shop to shop only to see that some of the higher floors shops didn’t actually had anybody inside. Looked desert but nevertheless cozy. I did a little bit of shopping: small jade elephants, some silk accessories for my wife and daughter, and a Tibetan dzi bead for me. The dzi bead was by no mean an original dzi, those are well over 1000-1500 USD (the most affordable, of course, an original dzi can go up to 5000 USD), but at least it was from a stone not resin, so I thought it would make a nice memory.

Although the mall seemed mostly empty I was able to have some interesting conversations with at least two shop owners while looking at some very interesting antique pieces. But after finishing this, I realized I didn’t have too much to do there and got back to the hotel.

Bangkok Victoria Monument

In the afternoon I took the BTS and stopped to a station called Victoria Monument. Didn’t know its historical meaning (and I still don’t) but the station seemed interesting enough for a shooting session.

bangkok-victoria-monument

The area is something between Siam upscale malls, all shining and new, and lower areas like the night market in Silom near Sala Daeng skytrain station. Overcrowded and filled with shopping booths to the point that you actually had to walk on the streets:

bangkok-victoria-monument-crowded-street

Watched the traffic for a while, looking at the motorcycles and how they managed to squeeze through the bigger cars.

bangkok-traffic-motorcycles-stopped

bangkok-rtaffic-motorcyles-running

It was still hot but either I was already adapted, either it was a little bit colder than yesterday. I think I spent at least half an hour on the Victoria Monument skywalk.

My 3rd day to Thailand was a fast-forward day.

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