Thailand Vacation 12-22 April 2004
Between 12 April and 22 April 2004, I had the extraordinarily good fortune
to travel to Thailand
with friends. We flew into Bangkok on Monday, 12 April, then flew up to
the city of Chiang Mai for three days and two nights to celebrate
Songkran (Thai new year) with the traditional "water fight" on Tuesday.
We also watched the traditional Buddhist parade where flower-steeped water is
thrown on statutes of Buddha. Ahead of the parade, I literally bumped into
Thaksin Shinawatra, the current Prime Minister of Thailand, as he was walking
through the crowd and decided to stop at a sidewalk food vendor directly
behind me. Also while there, we visited Wat Phra That Doi Suthep (a
Budhist temple on a mountain), the Maesa Elephant Camp, and an orchid farm on
Wednesday. A friend and I shared a room at the Boonmee Guest House, which was
a pleasant, inexpensive place to stay near the center of the action in town.
On Thursday, the 15th, in the morning, we returned to Bangkok, where I got
to pick the hotel - the Emporium
Suites - which I heartily recommend if you're ever in Bangkok. We toured
the Grand Palace, with the Emerald Buddha (actually made of jade) and the
Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall, as well as shopped until we dropped.
Later, we also hit the JJ Weekend Market to pick up tchotchkes for
friends and family, ate dinner on a river cruise boat & drinks on the roof
top
Sky Bar of the
State
Tower on the 63rd floor, and ate at the famous Fish Market Restaurant
(which was near the hotel).
On Monday, instead of sitting around various Asian airports on standby, I
decided to fly down to Phuket Island with friends where we spent two
nights and several days. The first day and night were at Patong Beach,
at the small but affordable Patong Premier Resort, right next to the much
more tony Club Andaman Beach Resort
which had a great buffet and grounds. Then we moved to Karon beach and the
Karon Beach Resort for a more private beach (the
LeMeridien was booked up) where the waters were calm and warm. We watched
the sunset from Phromthep Cape and found a delicious little French
restaurant not more than a block from the hotel (and open very late). A quick
flight connecting through Bangkok found me in the Southern towns of
Hat Yai and Songklha, for a walk on Samila Beach and
mangoes & sticky rice on Wednesday the 21st.
Unfortunately, Thursday the 22nd came around too soon which meant
it was time to fly home - 26 hours, through Bangkok and Taipei.
These pictures were taken with a Kodak DCS560 digital camera and several
Canon EOS series lenses - 50mm/f1.8, 24-85mm/f3.5-4.5, and 28-105mm/f3.5-4.5.
The long exposure images suffered greatly from imager noise. Later I will
add pictures taken with a Canon EOS 630 on Kodak Gold 200, using the same
lenses, after developing and PhotoCD scan.
