The childlike countdown to leaving for Thailand once again gets better each time.
Amazing that this should be so, but after more leave-takings than I can remember . . . it never gets old, it always excites. At 62 I still like being a kid, even though some time ago I ceased asking for a window seat: my pineapple-sized prostate being The Boss nowadays on 10-hr flights, demanding the aisle for a quick hong nam appointment every second beer.
Pouring over my handy little flash drive with it's quite mindboggling ability to hold a billion photos within a space half the size of my finger, I thought perhaps a post here of some of my all time favourite pictures might well oil the desires and anticipations of those here who may also be on the cusp of their latest adventure to this strange and frustrating and exceedingly delightful country. Some of these I think I've posted before, but many I think have not been seen here.
I chose this particular group because ~ as they say ~ every picture tells a story, and whether the tale is long and wordy or simply short snippets in time, each narrative is meaningful to me ... and I hope interesting to you.
The photos are in no particular order . . . as random and unordered as I like/try/attempt to make my life.
The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre sits just off to the side of the walkway between the Siam Skytrain station and National Stadium . . . right across from the MBK Mall. It's a beautiful interior (the outside being rather bland) and ~ in my opinion ~ a must-see kind of art gallery full of interesting works of contemporary Thai art, and best of all, changing all the time. We last visited in October of 2008 and looking forward to spending a few hours there this September.
And you ought to see the mother!
This eye popping surprise sleeps there on a slab of ice unexpectedly and (undoubtedly) coldly. Difficult to trip over, and mildly off-putting, the poor kid is in wonderful contrast to the slowly moving ant-sized human beings who gather tentatively, then do a few laps around it's girth.
On a more human (or ant-like, up to you) level is this guy, a seller of hand brooms of all kinds and sizes . . . from hard-edged and serious stuff for cleaning the driveway, to giant living room tile floor dusters, to long-handled spider web destroyers, to little tiny brushes for wiping the sand off my beach bed so my pad thai doesn't get grainy (20 baht). This Thai entrepreneur travels the length and breadth of Hua Hin, and comes up our soi often: I have a couple of his terrific brushes hanging from the stair banister. Soft and gentle in the breeze, the Thai short-handle sweeper is the best invention beyond the Hoover. Everybody has one.
My friend the sweeper seller has one of the great Thai smiles one reads about, and it's genuine . . . Suphot tells me so. We invite him to sit in our little garden for a beer every once in awhile . . . take a load off, sit in the shade and sell me another bloody broom.
The world is good: the Thai baht is falling like a stone against the Canadian dollar and Thai guys still laugh and wave at you from big fishing rigs. The world is good indeed.
Down the road from our place about 15 miles or so a quite large river winds out of the country side and flows into the sea. In it's last kilometer there lies a fishing village which is safe harbour to all manner of fishing boats from tiny one-man skiffs to extremely large ocean-goers.
This is surely one of he most dangerous and difficult jobs in the world ~ every year a nibbled-at cadaver (or two) drifts up onto the beach at Hua Hin, much to the angst of the farang observers. I stumbled across one myself during an early morning beach run just over a year ago. But the boys on the big ships keep on giving great smiles as we drift by in our dingy, those sexy blue shirts flapping in the breeze . . . they're either sleeping on great mounds of coiled ropes, or breaking their butts hauling around ~ and repairing ~ the massive nets which are the main accoutrement of income: men/boys who have love/hate relationships with nets.
We've taken a boat through this area many times, and each trip butts us up next to all the fishing boats as we drift past, snapping photos like tourists . . . hoping for the elusive handsome-fishing-boy-in-nothing-but-underwear. This wildlife has been observed by us many times, but never with camera in hand, or at least not in hand and close enough to recognize those more bulging parts of the anatomy which are necessary to call the hunt a success.
Be that as it may, this shot will have to suffice: friendly smiling Thai guys whom you'll just have to imagine in their underwear. They all waved at us happily, we waved back, not happy really but with a happy face ... covering an immense disappointment at not being able to observe a Great Bulge, or a Half Hard, or a Hidden Weiner on this particular voyage. We shall persevere however, and post it when we get it. Stay tuned!
One must admit though that this shot was enticingly close! The 'Scottish Question' is alive and well. Ah, the lusciously sexy Thai upper thigh. Can't live without 'em.
Deep deep in the jungle of southern Surin Province we arrived in time for Loy Kratong, upcountry style. The folks put together some quite serious kratongs and floated them off to paradise into the dark black-green damp sponginess of the surrounding foliage that this farang wasn't bent on entering in a million years. There's cobras out there against the banks and amongst the wayward kratongs ... and none of those puppies was anywhere near large enough to support a fleeing screaming farang.
So we pleasured ourselves with beer around numerous campfires and got pleasantly hammered with Suphot's brothers and sisters. A night to remember for sure ... a small concert of Isaan music and dancing, lots of BBQ'ed chicken and sticky rice and madly hot Som Tum.
This is myself surrounded by The Sisters ... one high on 'something', the other on the ubiquitous Thai whiskey. Marijuana was wafting through the air, but I did not see it. I think the cops were smoking it behind the porta-potty.
The Girls always treat me well. Not sure if I'm part of the family (probably not) really, but Suphot has made it abundantly clear to them all that "... this is it ...".
Many years ago his mother asked him whether he really wanted to " ... do this gay thing ... " (a loose translation). Once she received her reply the dynamic turned on a dime (mine? LOL :blackeye: ) and it became all about him being happy.
Good enough for me ... I don't ask much, and to be frank, neither do they. A once-a-year visit includes a nice feast for all who show up (4000 baht tops with booze ... happy to do it). A thousand baht or so slipped quietly into mama and pop's hands (see below: 'Pops'). That's it ... no sick buffalo here, and we're away the next day.
The lady without the hat is Pot's younger sister. She's the only family member to have actually trekked to Hua Hin for a visit ... with young 'Taroo' on leash. I'm a Farang Uncle now: 'Uncle Smiles'. Sounds like some awful leering pedo to me.
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THE HAT AND THE NAGA: It was a bright and hot morning at Prasat Phanom Rung and after clambering half way up the hill I stopped for a breath and a view. This 800 year old Khymer temple is in great shape and sits high up on a mountain . . . probably the only prominence one could call that in all the brown flat rice country of Buri Ram Province. Standing beside this exquisite Naga head (of which there are many strung out along the bannisters of the main staircase-to-the-stars.
Nagas are sentinels, and as such, like the handsome Thai military boys who stand up to attention around the Royal Palace in Bangkok or their red-coated English counterparts with their unsmiling photo ops at Buckingham Palace, they deserve some attention and some shade. Hell ... they deserve a life!
So this boy got one. Decked out in my Great Farmer Hat (the largest and most flamboyant one in my not small collection) I think it changed his life. As I backed off aways to shoot this photo I swear to god I saw the slightest hint of a wry smile of thanks cross his mouth ... for a fraction of a second. I looked down at my camera to switch settings for a second shot, looked up, and the grin was gone.
It was 38 degrees celsius.
When I come back to look at this photo I do believe I captured it, frozen in time.
Driving back from Patong last year we stopped at one of those large ubiquitous highway gas stations dotted all over Thailand. Suphot has his favourite brand(?) and will drive recklessly to the point of spinning wheels on gasoline fumes to get to the right one. Drives me wild ... but nothing to do. I stopped whining about the foolishness of the chance-taking some years ago.
So he's having something to eat and I have taken to walking around the grounds. Across the way were a few of those rickety stalls one finds in every nook and cranny all over the country selling, well, 'things'. So I wandered over to see what 'things'.
Not much in the front row so I went around behind where there was another row of the same. And there, in the middle of Sakhon Nowhere, in the heart of the narrowest part of the isthmus of Thailand, in a place as remote from the Isle of Man or Nurbrigring as is the moon, in a state of repair which I have seldom witnessed in the best racing shops at Silverstone, sat, all flame red and proud, the sweetest little 125cc racing Honda I've ever stumbled across.
It was immaculate ... it was race ready ... it was mostly stock.
I know about these things (much of it forgotten I hasten to add) as I used to road race 350cc Yamahas at a race track high in the hills just outside Port Moody British Columbia back in the early 70's. And I know a classic 1960's Honda racer when I see one . . . these puppies won many Grand Prix titles in the 50's and 60's.
I wanted to jump on and ride away. I wanted to WIN a race, finally, after never having done so during my short career. I could, I knew it, on this highway, in Thailand, if only this dude would just let me try!.
No cigar Smiles.
It was 39 degrees celsius.
Here is the reality of Beauty & The Beast: when all is said and done, it's what he looks like after just getting outta the sack and cooking breakfast for two.
THE BEAST ... those baggy boxer shorts, ass-less, sagging, haphazard ... the arms akimbo, apparently holding himself up ... torn shirt he wears to bed on cool nights and outside washing the car. I love this photo for obviously strictly personal reasons (OK OK I'll tell you. I like to sneak up behind him there in the kitchen and pull those abominable boxers straight down. He doesn't flinch a muscle . . . just keeps on a-cookin').
One can love such a beast as much as a beauty: it's all in the way he ignores you, all in the way he scrambles an egg, all in the way he stands when he's still tired with his boxers down there around his ankles.
Obviously, it's January.
THE BEAUTY ... easily one of my top five fave photos of the old man: poseur personified, perfectly proportioned, I-wanna-jump-dem-bones-right-fuckin'-now, that sly smile, yada yada yada yada yada.
This photo was in fact not posed at all (all the more to make me feel oldish and Yoda-like), but quite spontaneous ... thus demonstrating one more time how photogenic Thai men are in general, and how little work they have to do to prove it.
Wouldn't have it any other way.
But what the HELL was he pulling? What was on the end of that rope? For the life of me I can't remember. Perhaps I was mesmerised, entranced? I like that after nearly 10 years together.
(Beach is 'Ban Krood', about a two hour drive south of Hua Hin).
In the right mood I love Thai kitsch. And nothing says kitsch (or irony) like this triple white elephant job on one of the very busy corners of the Grand Palace (can't remember which one).
All around this statuesque oddity blasts by the modern Thailand ... a million belching blue smoker two-strokes cruising around the traffic circle ... everyone with their cellphone glued to their ears ... reading a gossip rag while riding on the back of a motorcy taxi ... etc etc etc a thousand small delicious ironies of everyday juxtaposition.
The elephants couldn't care less ... they in fact seem to be smiling at the cacophony, as well they should, knowing full well that all will revert back to the jungle in the end, or in Bangkok's case, sinking back into the river, and that the tops of their great white heads will be all that's left of a man made and imperfect blot on the landscape.
Many folks visiting the Grand Palace in Bangkok ignore The Ramakien, but in doing so they miss a great deal. Sublime, quite old, very long as it snakes itself around corners . . . The Ramakien is best viewed all at once, taking one's time, and with a single guide who knows what he's talking about.
Parts of this huge mural are constantly under various states of repair (it's outdoors, protected somewhat by a veranda roof, but outside nonetheless) but the gold and blacks and greens are striking contrasts, intricate, ornate, complicated ... everything combining to scream out "it ain't minimalism, is it Shirley?"
If you go there, take a Thai friend who speaks english and then, take your time ... forget the buildings, take a trip through The Ramakien. Dig it ... it's the myth/story of Thailand.
I chose these two next photos not so much for themselves alone, but for their architectural feel-good quality . . . i.e. the quite striking perspective of two totally different scenes disappearing angularly into the distance, Tintoretto-like, Singularity-like (with a giant Black Hole at it's finality), tracing with the eye down the road to the end of existence.
OK OK ... I like it, OK. Induldge me! :blackeye:
The top shot is from the middle of Hua Hin's main drag (Petckasem Rd ... took my life in my hands taking this one). The bottom picture is of the King's grand walkway down to his changing room on the beach at Mrigadayavan palace just outside Cha Am.
A HOLE IN THE GROUND: Deep down into the rocks and earth in a huge cave/sinkhole a half-mile walk seriously uphill over a sharp and rock-strewn narrow pathway from the beach, one enters ~ if they dare ~ into a fantasy world.
Crawling down a very dark and very slippery trail through the fearful cave one finally pops out into the light and down below the cave opens up onto a field of gold sparking on a little Buddhist temple on the top of a small hillock surrounded by a lush greenery right out of The Lost World.
Look straight up and the reason for the growth below is obvious: a gaping sink hole draws in the sun to shine straight down on the golden temple and lets the rain fall down on the vegetation below.
Without this hole in the roof this cave would be a dank and gloomy place ... beloved of spelunkers, by rather fearful for the claustrophobic. Instead, it's wonder to look down on from the dark entrance.
Deep into one corner of this vast cave the eerie sounds of a far-away chanting starts up: the cave is the sole home to a dozen or so Buddhist nuns in their stark white robes and shaved heads. This discovery was unexpected ... the nuns walked in and out of the light, ghostlike, ethereal, silent but for the gentle and trance-like chanting.
My favourite time to walk the beach is between 4 and 6pm. This marks the hours when the farangs disappear back to their big resorts and buffet dinners, and the Thai folks come out in droves to take back heir beach. Sensitive farangs could easily feel that they're intruding.
No topless Scandinavian divas here. Thai woman invariably wear full street dress codes in the water, and men often wear t-shirts to swim. The kids? No rules.
And they walk the sand slowly and in packs ... large packs. Sometimes the gaggle is obviously a family, sometimes ~ even more obviously ~ a school class group, a business conference just getting out with the social leaders taking the sand with their doyennes and trophys in arm. The guys shed their ties, but not their brogues ... the refreshing incongruities of Thailand's social outings.
The main point, well satisfied, is that the kids have a ball, in large well-cemented groupings which give the joke somewhat to the meaning of 'togetherness', western style.
This is a disturbing photograph: Suphot's father.
A farmer all his life, he now suffers greatly from a world filled with drinking Thai whiskey, gambling, non-stop smoking ... nothing really all that different from the lives many Thai farmers in their 70's have lived.
He never comes to The City.
Now he has emphysema, asthma, (possibly lung cancer as far as I'm concerned) and a host of other ailments. A year ago he could only walk with a cane. One year on he's permanetly tied to a wheelchair. He speaks no english so our conversations are short and laboured and I think I make him tired. He disappears into his bedroom often.
The saving grace is that the family (including Suphot) take turns caring for him ... and it's a reasonably large family. They don't all live in the village, but they come back regularly to do their stint with their dad.
I've thought for a long time now he looks as if he's close to paradise, but the old guy just keeps hanging on, with regular 3 or 4-day stay overs at the local hospital where he's fitted up with a breathalyzer. During Suphot's turn with watching over him he accompanies him to the hospital and stays all day and all night, sleeping on the floor, under his dad's bed.
A merit-making at the family home in the village. Pot's dad looks a bit better in this picture (I wasn't there) and the food looks good. Suphot was very pissed that most of the brothers and sisters didn't show up for this one: " ... they are losing the old farm traditions ... " he says.
The Nymph on the Water: Somehow I skipped over this photo, but now I wonder why, or how. This baby is in my Top Five now, forgotten the quizzical/peaceful/contented facial expression and the nice juxtaposition of background and colour.
No story behind this one . . . it was taken at a park on the way to Patong last year. We climbed up towards to ever-present waterfall attraction so common in the south, and it actually was pretty nice and I remember starting to enjoy the trek more than I thought I would. The tree cover, greenery, water sounds reminded me of vague mind-scenes in books about the Little People in the forest in Ireland: and hangout for Leprechauns.
Sat and dabbled our feet in the cool water while little fishes nibbled away on our skin flakes. Ate a whole pack of chocolate wafers together.
This shot was taken by our good friend 'Bob' who spent a few months in Hua Hin checking out potentialities for his eventual long term hat hanging.
Bob does it the best way ... in extravagant and ostentatious comfort, checking into a billionaire's condo which sits on a small stream which flows windingly down to the Great Pool which sits lazily right up against the beach. Bob could actually swim to the ocean just by opening his sliding doors and jumping in.
Bob lives well, but knows jack shit about the Big Bang.
Whore that we are, both myself and the beloved spent as much time in Bob's Pool as he did, if not more. Some of the security boys at the condo were very cute ... having the appearance of being offable.
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Originally Posted by Smiles
