This is a part of a two part series, the second parth will be a thread titled “A Day in Your Life (in Photos)” where I will ask everyone to participate.

This, however, is the first part—a self indulgent walk through a few experiences that are relatively mundane within my life. Essentially, I’m allowing you (my extended Internet friends) to sample some of what I come into contact with every day here in Bangkok.
Bangkok as you know is the world’s 22nd largest city, with a population of 8 million official residents (between 10 and 15 million if you count undocumented residents and commuters). It’s a city that’s steeped in so many legends and tales it’s almost hilarious being that it’s a very new Capital of Thailand, not even pre-dating the colonial US.

Anyways, here’s a brief walk through my day in pictures:


This is Ramkhanhaeng road, a VERY busy though relatively local and ‘minor’ major road. Major roads are called “Thanon” where the last syllable “non” would be stressed like the cookie monster says “om nom nom”. Minor roads use the major road name but are numbered and attached to the major roads. They’re like little tributaries that feed into the bigger road, and often do not even connect with each other—these are called ‘Sois’ (like in ‘soy’ sauce). So the 24th minor road attached to the major road, Thanon Ramkhanhaeng, would be called Ramkhanhaeng Soi 24. Many of my pictures are either on a Soi or between Sois on the main major rd. I will refer to them as Sois or Thanon from this point on.
Here I am on Soi 30 just outside of BigC (a major supermarket chain) and this picture is a picture of a street vendor actually pushing his cart down one of the lanes (suicidal but that’s how they get around).
PICTURE 1: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z01.jpg

Thais spend A LOT of time walking up and down Thanon Ramkhanhaeng. It’s actually an excellent place to buy t-shirts, clothes, shoes, knockoff cologne, music, and gifts at prices far lower than the major tourist roads (Kosahn road & Sumkimvhit road). The following picture shows you some people browsing shops on the road. Many shops open up in the early evening as people are getting off of work and stay open until close to midnight.
PICTURE 2: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z02.jpg

It is not unusual to see men in Thailand carrying ‘man purses’ and not in the metro-sexual hipster style either. It’s just something that is convienient to them since they do much of their shopping walking from place to place or hopping on public transportation (which is abundant if slow here). PICTURE 3 shows a minor sized man-purse as most gentlement like to use:
PICTURE 3:
http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z03.jpg
PICTURE 3B (a bigger man-purse)
http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z17.jpg

Some times I see men carrying much smaller ‘purses’, such as this gentlemen is carrying as he walks into one of the 3 malls on Ramkahaeng. This of course is not sufficient to carry anything significant, and I doubt that he even keeps his money in it honestly.
PICTURE 4: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z04.jpg

One of the problems that I’m faced with OFTEN when I walk around Thanon Ramkhanhaeng is people standing in doorways, entrances, and steps, blocking the already inadequate spaces for on-foot transportation. These three gentlemen were standing here when I walked into JPL (a sporting goods mall) and again as I walked out 15 minutes later.
PICTURE 5:
http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z05.jpg

I also find the shopping bags which some of the vendors hand out to be absolutely hilarious. Some are kind of cool, but for the most part you get barely comprehensible ‘Engrish’ and to an American, we just can’t help but giggle. Here’s a cool shopping bag from one of the patrons walking out of a small store just between Soi 30 and 28.
PICTURE 6: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z06.jpg

On the opposite side of Soi 28 and Soi 30, on the south side of Thanon Ramkhanhaeng is my favorite running spot. It’s a large sports complex attached to one of the Universities that has a major sized soccor field, 2 running tracks (the one below is the one I love to use), an outdoor aerobic platform, multiple basketball courts, an archery range, a gym, and a bunch of other shit too.
PICTURE 7:
http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z07.jpg

Now one doesn’t just walk gently across Thanon Ramkhanhaeng—I learned this the first day I bought my bicycle and attempted to use it. SUICIDE. So there are these convienient walkways that go over the road and connect two sides. The strange thing is often one side will feel and look like a different country from the other side. The shops, the ambience, indeed EVERYTHING is different. On the southside is the sports complex, on the north side is insane shopping places.
PICTURE 8: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z08.jpg

I’m currently on the southside in the shot below, making my way towards a small outdoor grassy park area. On weekends people like to picnic outside and gather for conversation. It’s really festive. On weekdays all you see is a fence that doesn’t keep anyone out … There are doors on either side of the fence which, from my experience are always open!
PICTURE 9: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z09.jpg

Today was a special ceremony for one of the Unis in the area, and lots of pictures were taken in front of special landmarks. This landmark is a mini-Chedi which marks both the entrance to Ramkhanhaeng University (not my Uni) and serves as an entrance to the park. It’s very popular for picture taking with the Uni students.
PICTURE 10:
http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z10.jpg


I love the picture below. It’s bubbly and warm. It conveys a festive environment. It screams rip me open and party your ass off right here. I love the energy on Thanon Ramkhanhaeng.
PICTURE 11: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z11.jpg

Now, I’m making my way away from the University grounds to one of the many, many bus stations to see if the 501 bus stops there. In Bangkok, if a bus goes by, and doesn’t officially stop at your stop, you can still flag it down and hop on it. The 501 definitely travels through Ramkhanhaeng in both indbound and outbound directions. I often take it to Sumkhumvit Rd to my favorite bookstore called ‘DASA’. As you can see from the picture below, the road is incredibly uncongested today. It was shocking.

Picture 12:
http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z12.jpg


The yellow buses, called ‘yellow dragons’, are one of the newer model of buses. They are always airconditioned, and they are clean. 3 of the seats are incredibly uncomfortable for an American because there’s absolutely no knee-room. But at a cost of 16 bhat to get into the center of the city (that’s about 5 cents folks), it’s incredibly cheap.
PICTURE 13: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z13.jpg

These folks are waiting on the 92 and 93 buses. Those buses go everywhere—the 93 will take you to Silom, where the infamous redlight district ‘Pataya’ is located. The 92 well take you damned near to Rangsit University where my aunt lives.
PICTURE 14: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z14.jpg

The bus I wanted to catch, the 501 is the least frequent bus on Ramkhanhaeng. This means I don’t see the bus go by but ever 20 to 30 minutes, whereas you will see a 92 or 93, or even 60 or 71 bus go by every 10 minutes or so. In the meantime, many of the street vendors like the one in PICTURE 13 below will make you one of my favorite dishes—Som Tum (Thai papaya Salad).
PICTURE 15: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z15.jpg

The coolest thing about Ramhhamhaeng Rd. to me is that it is crawling with security guardes, so even if you’re a woman who is obviously western, you’re still very safe here. Nobody messes with you—and nobody would even if there were no security guardes—this is a district overrun by Uni students afterall.
PICTURE 16: http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z16.jpg



Anyways, thanks for viewing my pictorial. I would love to hear some of your opinions on my photographs. I’ve been thinking about upgrading my camera so I can create a travel book of photos.




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[Edited 4/16/10 3:47am]

WTH ?





Yes, you need a new/better camera


Looking forward to the org participation thread

HAHA

Whos that in your avvie?

TotalANXiousNESS said:

It's Anxiety

Mach said:

Working on it now. Should be ready in about 20 min

TheVoid said:

TheVoid said:

I don't her.

TotalANXiousNESS said:

i like this thread

Cuddles said:

This was just amazing live and in 3D, but didn't translate well to photography.



http://img.photobucket.co...wd/z14.jpg

more jocks jumping in tiny shorts please

Cuddles said:

I'll bring my camera when I go jogging this weekend.

Today was exhausting.
They're doing pruning of trees so it's very noising around the grounds here.
As I was walking through the court all I could hear was buzz saws for
what seemed like an eternity.

The buzz saws aren't in view but they're just to the right of this snapshot:





So I got on the 501 bus and went to DASA books looking for some
'Learning Thai' books. Didn't find what I needed, so I headed back
to the bus station.

The sidewalk was oddly peaceful today. No major crowds are anything like that.
DASA books is just to the left of this image (slightly out of view).

50 cents*

not 5

are there any women in thailand????

BlackAdder7 said:

I fixed my thread.

Fauxie said:

what?

TheVoid said:

My falloff was for the thread in general.

The 50 cents refers to the bus fare.

Where is the "so much ass" part of this presentation? I see a lot of empty jeans! :box:

Fauxie said:

This thread is very informative.

Muse2NoPharaoh said:

GuRRRLL, these are Thai men. Turn them around and the jeans are exponentially more empty. You're getting the ample side of these photos!

TheVoid said:

I guess you are glad you are 1/2 Dutch then!

Muse2NoPharaoh said:

And 1/4th donkey

TheVoid said:

You do have nice teeth.

Fauxie said:

FUCK



They don't call me Sarah Jessica for nothin'

TheVoid said:

You have a big cock too?

This thread





But Dan. Where da bitches?

Dave1992 said:

http://prince.org/msg/100/332149

'Bitches' isn't a nice word, though.

TheVoid said:

oh lawd