Nightllife

It took me about 15 shots to get these two. Next time the tripod will not stay in the car...

Thailand posts returning tomorrow

Bangkok: weird, insane and lovely

Took me a long time to get this photo without cars in it, long live the Queen.

I clearly did not go to smart school...

A market can be anywhere really, just need a few inches.

I do not want this guy job.

Believe it or not it's the inside of a shopping center.

Entrance to a alley market/ collection of tiny shops in an alley.

He looks happy enough with braces, come and be happy too!

What other name would a postcard store have? in small letters it say ''love blood & love u".

Bangkok: Wat Pho PT II

Welcome to the reclining Buddha temple. Make yourself at home, I'll keep an eye on you...

These are donation/prayer pots, you get a little tin bowl filled with one satang coins ( 1 cent sort of) and drop one in each pot. Not familiar with how it works beyond that but I can share that the sound of coins being dropped in a row in an empty temple is something I shall not forget anytime soon.

I knew the statue was going to be big but I was still impressed.

The feet are decorated with mother of pearl. Remember never to point your feet at any Buddha statue or Thai person, very disrespectful.

Even His back shines, those sculptors really paid attention to detail. Don't forget to visit the statue when you go to Bangkok.

Bangkok: Wat Pho PT I

Wat Pho is located about 1km away from the Grand Palace. It's famous for its reclining Buddha. It's probably the biggest statue I ever saw. However I spent over one hour taking photos of the temples statues and... cats. Don't worry I won't show all the pictures I took, just a few. The Buddha photos will be here tomorrow if blogger stops saying 'bad request' when I try to upload them.


Wat Pho also includes a nice Thai massage school. The streets around the temple are full of oil massages and other material. It's a interesting experience for your nose.


notice the little black cat on the left corner. when I first looked at the statue it scared me, then I saw the cat and relaxed.

I want his life. Look at that peace of mind...

Bangkok: Grand Palace's statues

Entrance. A relaxed statue welcomes us.

All over the palace and temple there are statues, literally all corners and plants had one or two.

These reminded me of India a lot.

I personally prefer 'the guardians'.

Yep, those are some big statues... If you go and visit take lots of water, the place is bigger than it looks. I ended up having to get my head wet and sit in the shade every chance I got. All afternoon in there and there were two places with shade...

A two-in-one shot, two guardians together. The poor human guards cant move or talk. I asked him to blink once if I could take a photo...

Bangkok: Grand palace & Esmerald Budha temple

It's hard to miss the Palace and the temple (it's inside the Palace's grounds) but somehow it had eluded me so far.

Believe it or not I forgot to ask how long it took them to build the place.

A lot of people call it the Golden temple. I think you can easily understand that.

It's always full of tourists, for some photos I had to wait a few minutes or reshoot a few times in order not to get some blonde in it. Don't get frustrated, see it as an opportunity to really find the perfect angle. Most of all I enjoyed the statues, tomorrow's post will be dedicated to statues and other 'creatures' I met at the compound.

And the palace...

When I grow up I want an entrance just like that one.

motion stop

As you might have noticed, my life is never boring. There is always something going on.

As such it's time to announce that another adventure has popped up and that the Thailand one will be done for the time being. I do hope to return soon.

I shall miss most of all the kids, the food, the weather and the calm. My favorite: rice soup with vegetables, Oishi green tea with honey and lemon (and banana pancakes, though not in the picture).

No, I did NOT teach them how to do that...

Here we have typical boys growing up in Thailand as normally as they can.

And yes, they are hitting themselves with inflatable thingies indeed.

What Jesse is telling them in Thai is that she could hear them all the way in the bathroom and that she thought they were playing 'Muay Thai' (Thai boxing) not that.

Thai and Burmese portraits pt III : smiles and laughter

Since my black & whites are so popular, I'll add a few more before posting some videos. Today's theme is laughter and smiles. Most photos were a result of some giggle fit or game, the rest were taken while they were with their friends.

One of my personal favorites. All his friends were jumping around and in front of the camera, there was too much jumping around for me to even be able to focus the zoom, then cuteness here looked me in the eyes and nodded. I got the camera up and he got this cool pose. 0.2 seconds later the crowd knocked him to the floor. There was a 2 minute break to laugh.

Finally got Lek to smile on camera, not a big open smile but still...

Get your weapons...

Another poor victim of the water balloon fight, actually with this class it escalated from water balloon to buckets of water being thrown... inside the classroom.

Her friend kept making her laugh and look away, it actually worked better on film than she thought.

He had just won a yo-yo and some candy. Life was too good.

See-saw is so much fun. I tried to get on it but the girls said 'no'. I was too big they said. Humpf.

How come one friend was soaking wet and the other was dry? Well, before I could ask someone got a bucket of water and justice was served.

The official translator. Look at him: cute and smart, already speaks 3 languages...

the last 3 photos are just perfect smiles, aren't they? Really, some kids are too damn cute.

Number one.

they love each other now but two minutes later they were fighting over a yo-yo. No photos of that as I was in the middle trying to sort out who started it (I still dunno...).

Fan the teacher. They thought it was hilarious but I was really out of breath. Do not attempt to chase kids in tropical weather, people, it's quite a kick to the lungs.