Traveling Through Thailand

My trip to Thailand took me to various parts of the country, from the madness of Bangkok to the calm of the North and the overwhelming beauty of the South. The landscape is diverse, the people are so kind and of course the food is worth the trip alone. I shot these first two pictures on the Railay Peninsula in Thailand's Southern Krabi province. The area is surrounded by high, sharp cliffs. Some of that same rock formed the outcropping I shot in these picture at sundown.


Click on this next image to enlarge it so you can really see the detail. There are actually two mischievous macaques not just the one in the foreground. They were running all up and down the same beach where I took the previous photo, snatching food from wherever they could get it. It was a strange experience at first because living in the United States, you're not really used to seeing macaques or any primate for that matter running free on the beach or anywhere else.

Thailand's temples and ruins are plentiful, beautiful and more importantly, amazingly intricate. This one is made completely of small, pastel colored tiles some of which are used to make flowers while others appear to form jaws or teeth. Clicking on the photo will reveal more details.



I was on the River Kwai Bridge in the Kanchanaburi province when a group of Thai schoolchildren on a field trip walked by with their teacher. The area is perhaps best known internationally as being part of the Japanese government's so-called "Death Railway" during World War Two. POWs were used to construct the bridge which resulted in the deaths of some 16,000 Allied POWs and 90,000 Asian laborers.


For another image from Thailand's Kanchanaburi province, go to my previous post. If you're interested in the history of the bridge, you can find some archive photos by clicking here.

Thai Tranquility

I shot these photos as I zig-zagged across Thailand. The first picture is of Buddha's hand at a ruin in Sukhothai, one of the former Thai capitals.



This second photo I took at a cemetery for American servicemembers in the province of Kanchanaburi which is about 150 miles outside of the modern capital, Bangkok. That's where the River Kwai is and the cemetery holds the remains of Americans who died during World War Two. If you look closely, you can see two Thai women taking care of the grass and weeds around the headstones. There is also a small wheelbarrow on the right-hand side of the frame. The ruins were so ancient and the cemetery was so grounding. Both images struck me as so serene and calm and I wanted to capture the feeling while I was in the moment. You can click on both images to make them larger.