Bangkok Connection
I finally make it to Thailand after six years of moving to Sydney. It is a bit of culture shock for me. The new international airport, Suvarnabhumi, is so huge that it takes 40 minutes to walk to the immigration. The duplicated paintings of famous Thai artists’ artworks are enjoyable. Anyway, the selection is quite narrow, just representing the beauty of old Thai lifestyles and values and losing the touch of modern Thai culture. But you cannot win a tourist propaganda, no doubt. They will see the chaos and fall in love with it when they pass these posters anyway.
I stay at my brother’s house which is not far where I grew up. The morning sunlight beam from the back into the house intrigues me. It is an empty marshland behind the wall in the back. There are still places like this in the working class suburb even though the area is more occupied by people. I actually hear birds that I did not notice before making photographs in Sydney. Photography does not just teach us to see but also to listen as well.
When the evening falls, old friend of mine gather at the place for a few drink but we decide to move on because another party is singing Thai karaoke country-pop songs and sharing it to the entire neibourhood. No one seems to mind except us.
At a beer garden, I have to try this new invention. It is a 3-litre Singha decanter, keeping the beer cool with an ice tube in the centre of the cylinder. We do not have to put ice in the beer anymore. Have I mentioned we put ice in the beer? 7 hours drinking is the way to go on the first night in Bangkok.
[...] On Friday, ’Pong sat in that aircraft. It took off, climbed through that layer of brown shit on the horizon, and flew to Bangkok. It’s his first visit to his hometown in six years. That renewed perspective has already revealed previously-unnoticed bird sounds and a 3-litre iced beer dispenser. [...]
[...] far he’s only posted images of his arrival in Bangkok (including that aforementioned 3-litre chilled beer dispenser) and now these of a bus journey gone [...]
[...] morning light in Thailand trip revealed an empty marshland in the back of my brother’s house where I stayed for a few weeks. This property was left unoccupied quite sometime ago. I was really [...]