Reisverslag Thailand

We are back. It was a long day. In the morning wake up early for a last visit tot the Fish harbor. At night 2.30 we leave from Bangkok for a flight of 12 hours. At 21.30 Dutch time we were on Airport Amsterdam. Early to bed for some of the last days work on the head office of the social security. While Wim used his new video I shoot more the 22 films in the normal photo camera. Thailand was one of the last projects with the old fashioned analogical camera and the start of the digital time. The results of the normal photo's on the screen are disappointing. Problems with high contrasts and bad processing of the films. Everything is visible on the screen. Every scratch and blemish has to be removed one by one.

Now we are in 2005, three years later on. I bought some extra space on the internet, I reprocessed the pictures and add some new tools to my sites (photo albums). Ton Frijters and his wife went to Thailand with two brand new digital cameras. The result 1400 pictures becomes available for my site. During our own trip there were two sisters using a digital camera. It makes a big difference who is taking the pictures. Subjects and results are quiet different. Often it looks like if the photographs participate in a total different travel. Self I almost never take pictures from locals. Ton does half building half peoples. The ladies took hundreds of pictures just from the men on the street. I show some, but the emphasis stays on pictures of the beautiful palaces and marvelous temples we met...

The holiday was unforgettable. The country and the cities are al least quiet disorganized. Bangkok is in fact a chaos of slums alternated by some very expensive apartments and villas. A toll road passed the city on a high of twenty meters. That happens rather literal. Some apartments are standing just a meter from the road. Very suitable for a sleeping room. Nevertheless Bangkok was nice and vivid. We made boot trips, biked, visited the royal palace, etc. Biking along the canals isn't without any danger. Once a tourist ends in the water together with his camera. The dishes in the city themselves are most of the time unbelievable dirty. During the famous Sankron festival some cities raise the level of the water to thin the concentration of poisons and pathogenic organism and prevent a disaster for the public health. It isn't advisable to participate to enthusiastic...

The country has a moving history. Before Bangkok become capital there were several others. Now a days almost deserted on the flow together of two rivers there are some remainders of a temple complex. In the 18e century the English and the French battled for the favor of the king. Enormous caravans with gifts approaching this capital. Being diplomat was a precarious living in that time. You was for month busy literal buying a road to the king. Once the French envoy was rather successful and become extremely influential. But after the decease of the king his successor immediately let behead him...

Thailand is the country of picturesque temples, elephants, gardens, floating markets, canals, giraffe women, palaces and the Mekong river. Several excursions were made with James Bond Boats. Everybody is calling them so, while they of course already exist long before the shooting of the famous film. These boats can sail with a tremendous speed. But they are top-heavy and capsize easily when taking a turn to fast. With tourist they are carefully. But when they are sailing themselves then accidents happen. These are terrible noisy. On the video the crackle of the engines and the gigantic speed passing the wooden houseboats along the canal gives a rather strange effect. Nice for the inhabitants of the houses...

The travel agency in this kind of journeys is very important. On such destinations the quality of the guides is often extraordinary. When a guide only do the things of the book, then it will become quiet boring soon. The local Dutch guide who demonstrate above the tap of rubber, lives permanently in Thailand and created together with some other locals a complete travel agency specialized in adventurous trips through Thailand. Outside the program he organized extras like performances, dinners, biking, boot trips, etc. Some of the participants become somewhat tired to the end of his enthusiasm. Specially the numerous boot trips were toppers. Above some local boys fishing in the river during the raft. In contrast to the stupid tourists nobody enters the water in swimming gear. In this delightful climate clothes are dry within half an hour, while the burning of the sun is more troublesome...