Good morning Bangkok, it’s currently 5:45 am in Thailand. Good afternoon and good evening to everywhere else on earth.

First of all, I am so excited to hear about the news that one of my Bangkok photos was selected as part of the “35+ Most Beautiful Cityscape Photography From Around the World” Who would have thought that a photo taken while getting ready to visit Bali last year would be selected. Be sure to visit the link ” “35+ Most Beautiful Cityscape Photography From Around the World” because the blogger really put together a nice collection of cityscapes from around the world. So many places that I wish I’ll have a chance to visit in this lifetime. I’m sure that you  feel the same too.

This is the first time that I got a chance to post on the blog in a while. Boot camp is not over yet, as I still have a few months left. However, we are allowed to use computer and have internet access from time to time. Well, let’s talk about the boot camp at another time. Today, I am sharing one of the night views taken at Pattaya, from when I had a chance to visit a few weeks ago during our 10 days break from boot camp. It was the best 10 days off ever!

Pattaya, the famous night life city that is well-known around the world. And because of it’s fame, it is quite hard to find a calm and peaceful corner of the city. Normally I stay at the Holiday Inn Pattaya, but it was fully booked. So I gave “The Zign Hotel” a try which is just a few minutes away by car from Holiday Inn. The hotel provides an amazing views and a great swimming pool to float around under the nice blue sky.

Just relax…

The rest you’d just have to be there to know about it. Enjoy the views!

P.S. The panoramas were taken by PaHn. Such an amazing view isn’t it?

Today, we have an honored guest, Dr Pahn Pintu-On to write today’s post. Dr Pahn always goes to Ratchburi, Thailand on the weekends to meet/see patients. She has been wanting to take pictures of this river after work, but due to the nature of her work she haven’t had the time to do so. I, on the other hand, accompanied her to the clinic and had a chance to take the pictures while I was waiting for her to get off work, but I really don’t know much about the place. So Dr Pahn would be the right person for it.

*note: we can visit her photo blog at http://pintuon.multiply.com/

By: Pahn

For all of my life, I hated “waiting”.  I don’t want to wait for anyone or anything because I have too many things to handle in a day. So letting time fly without doing anything is not something for the type of the person I am. That why I always run out of patience when I cannot do anything but wait.

However, sometimes we have to wait and something is worth looking forward to.
Have you ever heard “the right time” or “the perfect moment”? I believe that everything has its own perfect moment; not sooner, not later.  You can’t rush, force or do anything else but to wait and wait with patience. Holding your breath and let it happen on its own.

Like the way Natt took these pictures; the perfect moment to see “the colored pencils” in the river is just after the sunsets. If you want to capture this moment, you have to wait for it, wait for the right time. That why I haven’t had a chance to take pictures like these. Always too early, too late or too tired.

After waiting for an entire day, Natt finally captured “the perfect moment”. Look at these pictures, do you think that it was worth waiting for?

Yes, I think they are!!

Just waiting for a boat

and waiting…
and waiting…..
and waiting……..
and waiting………..
and waiting…………..
and waiting……………..
and waiting…………………
and waiting……………………..
and waiting………………………..
and waiting……………………………

DONE waiting!!!

TAXI!

Simply just want to share a moment while we were waiting for a boat that, after 20 minutes, never show up!
We were waiting at Tha Dian port across from Wat Arun (the glowing temple in the picture) after a full day trip in Bangkok.

Exhausted!

The answer to the previous post…
…the entrance to The InterContinental Bangkok.

Welcome to the InterContinental Bangkok!
Today is a very important day, at least for me because it is the last day of my training BUT… yes there is a BUT…. but it is not the last day that I will be coming to the hotel.

As for every ending… a new journey begins.

I’ll Be BaCk! (imitating the voice of Arnold from Terminator) which reminded me of a scene in the movie. Check the youtube.

He came back alright… with a BANG! And soon, will I… perhaps not the exact same way he did

After months of walking past what I thought was just a decorative statue, I came to realize that this is no ordinary simple statue. The realization came when I noticed people paying respect by “wai” to the statue

“The wai is the Thai greeting and show of respect, indicated by pressing your palms together near your chest and bowing…

The wai is a unique, graceful action practiced throughout Thailand. It plays a very important part in showing respect and is central to Thai etiquette. For the most part Thais do not want to touch your sweaty, grubby little hands, so it’s a good idea to learn how to wai. The European kiss-on-each-cheek-greeting will certainly alarm a Thai, especially if you are a man doing this to a woman who isn’t your wife or girlfriend!”

(How to: Wai properly)

After much curiosity about this statue that everyone wai to every time they walk by, I asked around to find out that the statue is Narayana on garuda, aka Pra Narai Song Suban.

I have yet to find out about the historical significant of Pra Narai Song Suban, however, I will update with more details after a bit more research.

Guess where the Pra Narai Song Suban is located…?

Answer? Follow me on the next post ^_^

Problem: The majority of office employees rarely have the time or the capital to shop at the high-end luxury malls.
Solution: We bring the mall right down to you at very affordable price!

Many of the pavements along the street in Bangkok turn into a market from 5:00 pm to approximately 11:00 pm depending on the location and the foot traffic of each place. The market are filled with all sorts of things that you can imagine, from a pair of socks to a Rolax watch,.. no, it’s not a Rolex! It’s a Rolax! At certain point, the streets would be way too crowded for anyone to walk as everyone would be stopping at a vendor, buying their things. To some pedestrians, they see that as a problem because they can’t walk to where they want to, however to the vendor… the more the crowded, the more the foot traffic… the better because that give the vendor more chances to sell their product. How? Because heavily foot traffic – that come to a stop at some point – allow the pedestrians to notice the products more, hence a higher chance for the vendor to sell.

This picture was taken across the street from the Central World, Bangkok at 10:30 pm. You can notice the clock on the top right of the picture. Yup it’s late… but not for us, the Bangkokian.

“Bangkok, is trying to solve traffic problems by elevating all of its transportation routes above the original street.” a saying that I heard from many of my friends. The way they said it was more like sarcasm, as if it was a bad thing. In their understanding, which I also agree, that Bangkok should have solve traffic problem from the core of the problem which is… the way that people drive, the traffic lights, the law and regulation that should be enforced more strictly to keep Bangkok’s streets in order.

A taxi driver would stop their car anywhere to pick up a passenger,
a bus would stop anywhere and make a u-turn anywhere it see fits,
while a motorcycle-taxi and a tuk-tuk are trying to drive pass thru the gap between cars in traffic,
street vendor are taking up the space on the road, turning a lane into a street market.

Unbelievable ! It’s a good idea for us to solve from the core of the problem but how can we when what we perceive as a problem is the culture and the way of life on how people are living. We simply can’t tell them to re-live their life… but what we can do is, adapt to their culture… and renovate from with in.

Bangkok… city of life!

an assert from Wikipedia.

“The Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand is the supreme law of Thailand. Since the change from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional democracy in 1932,

…

1932 Constitution of Thailand

The People’s Party, facing an internal power struggle and opposition from the King, promulgated a permanent constitution in 10 December 1932 that gave the monarchy a significant increase in authority compared to the temporary charter. The day is currently celebrated as Constitution Day.

The constitution continued to state that sovereign power belonged to the people of Siam. However, unlike the temporary charter, the monarchy would now be the direct exerciser of that power, rather than the branches of government. This royal power would be exercised by and with the advise and consent of the People’s Assembly, the State Council (the cabinet), and the Courts. However, the monarchy lacked any say in the composition of any of the branches of government and the royal veto could still be overruled. The monarchy was also made “sacred and inviolable”, in contrast to the temporary charter.”

(wiki)

There are many times in life that… I just can’t seem to find words, pictures, nor paintings to describe what I want to say. Today is one of those days, a day that is best expressed by Debussy – Clair de Lune (moonlight).

A moonlight, that I’ll never forget.

This picture was taken on the pedestrian bridge between the Central World mall and the Gaysorn Plaza a few nights ago. Normally, the street would be filled with cars so badly with traffic, that in order to get from the pedestrian bridge where I took the picture to the next pedestrian bridge that is about 400 meters away could take up to 50 minutes! That was from my own personal experience on a night where my co-workers and I were trying to go out for a game of tennis. That was the only time that I would ever go out for a tennis again because we must have stuck in the car for more than an hour for what could have been a 15 minutes trip.

That was one of the many dreadful experiences I had with Bangkok’s traffic.