Back from the Trek

Hi Everyone,
Just got back from the 3-day, 2-night jungle trek somewhere about an hour from Chiang Mai. I won't write much now but there should be something decent from me tomorrow while I hang out while the photos are backing up. I told my mom she should begin to worry if she hasn't heard from me in 8 days, but it's been 3 or 4 so I wanted to check in a little bit.

Much more tomorrow, but the trek was an absolute blast. There were about 14 of us with 2 of the coolest guides around. Among the group were representatives from the Czech Republc, Ireland, Wales, England, Italy. I was the only American.

Thanks for the notes. Some of you are having trouble signing in or commenting and I'm not sure how to help. Maybe keep trying.

"See you when you see me" -Mr. Tarzan

It's very hot here. I guess there are 3 seasons: hot, very hot and rainy. I dunno where we are right now, but it will get hotter every day until it becomes rainy. I meant for today to be a rest day but I found myself out walking like crazy again in the hot sun.

Hey Perati,
I went to the Grand Palace today and I'm glad I did. It was spectacular. I'm too fried by the sun at this point to conjure the appropriate vocabulary, but I'll just say that leaving Bangkok without going would've been a giant mistake. Is there anything else like it in Asia? I'm guessing there is, and I'd like to go there, too. Then I walked from there to the river taxi(which I love) and I had the palace I had just seen on my right and another palace on my left. What is that palace? Is that the Grand Palace or more of the Grand Palace or something else? Anyway, thanks for the nudge and for the other suggestions. I'm gonna check them out when I get back to Bangkok.

Update: I will be flying over to India in the middle of April. I have had the priveledge of being invited to a wedding which will include 3 days of events and ceremonies. I'll be there about 8 days. I do plan to change the subtitle of the blog, but not right now. It will probably end up saying Laos as well.

I'm getting ready for a night-train ride up to Chiang Mai for 5 days. The middle three days will be a jungle trek with 8 of us and 2 guides. It should be somewhat of a reprieve from the heat.

Tons of blogworthy things happen and when I sit at the screen I forget them all. Note to self: make more notes to self.

No pic today even though I probably got a couple good ones. Write me some notes, let me know what's going at home with yourselves or with the news.

Just Set it to Perfect

Bangkok is hot. If you walk around all day, as I do, you're sweaty the whole time. Sometimes the heat balloon is pierced by the strong 'air-con' needle of 7-Eleven, known here only as 'Seven', where the bottled water is cheapest. The feeling is bittersweet, of course, because in seconds you're back in the heat. It's not unbearable, just hot.

I told you that so I could tell you this: the shower at the end of the night is absolutely euphoric. The shower comes on in one temperature: perfect. It is that temperature in the swimming pool that is a touch chilly on a very hot day but you're used to it after 15 seconds and then it works to cool your body over the next half hour, which is roughly how long I stayed in last night. (I have no cell phone or watch)(I had to do a bit of laundry in there)

Yesterday was cool. The Weekend Market which I think I mentioned yesterday was terrific. We only scratched the cellophane over the surface of what was there. You could simply walk every aisle without stopping from 8am to 6pm and you still wouldn't wakl past everything. I got in some nice photography at the market. The young lady in this photo is a lot happier than she lets on, and after she couldn't thank me enough for photographing her. I think the shirt has something to do with a popular rock band from the USA; read carefully, maybe she got the singular version misprint only available in Thailand. This country is so sweet. Smiling is the source. Every smile is returned.

After the market we strolled over to very serene park where I encountered this scene. None of these photos are getting any of the touchups I like to sometimes provide. The lesson here is to shoot in the golden hour before sunset. I think you can click the images for a bigger version, not sure. Soon after this we stopped for a snack from a cart. I had 4 chicken wings. Dan had the same plus some undrinkable mystery juice. There are a very reasonable number of stray dogs here and they're all very calm, some appear braindead. As we finished up, one sidled up but kept good distance. Dan tossed it a chicken wing bone which it proceeded to chew(barely) and swallow in about 12 seconds. Is this a normal dog thing to do? I felt bad but Dan gave 2 dogs 3 bones each and there was nothing left over on the ground. It hurt to watch.

I dragged Dan's hungover ass out to the market, to which we arrived by the excellent Skytrain. Here he is with our new blind buddy, Doc. Definetely enlarge this one.

I'm saving the best pictures for when I come back, sorry. It doesn't feel right to put them up here.

Hey Schaler, how come you don't have this lens yet?

Today I took the water taxi down to somewhere and walked around. I found a dingy indoor market and made friends with a family who was cutting up ginger. I tried some ginger which was handed to me then gave the kids a couple of the pictures I had made of myself. This worked better than I had hoped. The mom took one of the pics and tucked it away into her wallet. I took a bunch of pictures, they said some stuff I didn't understand, I said some stuff they didn't understand, and I was off.

Alright, I could sit here in the air-con for a while, but that would be dumb. I'm jonesin' for some curry and some street meat and I won't have to go very far for it. I would've made this post about 30 minutes ago, but I got on a ferry instead of the actual water taxi and I had to wait a while. No big deal, I've wasted 20 minutes in plenty of worse places.

Mom: I'll look for some shoes for you in a couple months.

If you've been on the fence about coming to Thailand, do it.

Sweat & Buddhas

Hi everybody. I'm here at the My House Guesthouse in the Khao San neighborhood in Bangkok. My room was 160 Baht, which is just under 5 USD. The fan works. The bed had a fitted sheet and a pillow but nothing else but it's quite warm here and you don't need a blanket. The fan worked as well as soon someone told me you had to slide the keychain thing in the slot to get everything going. The fan levels were 0,1,2,3 and 4. 0 was off so I figured 1 was the lowest but 1 was like a gale force wind. I didn't think to try the 'higher' levels so I slept that way. I think I went to bed around nine and I was wide awake this morning at 4 and out on the street around 4:30. There was a lot of action, plenty of folks still drinking Singh. I shot some pool with a prostitute for a while then went back and took a nap in an attempt to weather the jet lag.

Bangkok is nice. They people are all very sweet, even when trying to encourage you to get in a cab or tuk tuk or buy something you don't want or need. The traffic is a phenenmonal nigthmare. Some of the lights are literally 5 minutes long. There's an abundance of motorcycles all over the place. The opposite side of the street thing doesn't take much getting used to. One tuk tuk driver made some daring moves yesterday. There doesn't seem to be much rage or impatience in the pandemonium. I saw a bunch of beautiful temples and some large Buddhas. The food is great. I met up with Dan Vetere and we checked this ultra new shopping mall which was quite a spectacle. The food court alone seemed about as big as Shea Stadium.

I've refrained from taking street photos so far. I just haven't felt like it. The one picture I really wish I had gotten was a family on a motorcycle in the following arrangement. (This is a small bike, motorbike really.) From front to back, little boy about 5, dad driving, little girl about 3, mom in back. Mom and Dad with helmets, kids without. Totally normal, weaving through traffic.

Time to call Dan and head toward the weekend market, an affair about 'the size of central park', with 15,000 vendors with all kinds of goods.

Pictures next time or whenever some good ones come along. Later folks, back into the heat.

One More Flight

Greetings all, from the airport in Qatar. Pronounciation seems to be like 'cotter' instead of 'cutter' or 'kuh-tar'.

It was a pleasant 11-hour flight from JFK to Qatar. It was a light crowd on the behemouth that is a 777 but unfortunately I was not one of the roughly 1 in 3 people who had a row to themself. They served dinner even though the flight departed at 10:30pm. I had lamb ragout with potatoes, peas and carrots. Delicious. Near the end of Slumdog Millionaire, which I viewed for the second time on Demand on the plane's fantastic entertainment system, I swallowed two Tylenol PM with the last sip of my second mini bottle of Chilean wine. This cocktail knocked me out for a while. I was amidst a vivid dream about being back in prep school when I rousted by the food cart. They were handing out water and small raquetball sized cartons of Ben + Jerry's chocolate fudge ice cream. It hit the spot for my more than dry mouth.

Most of my air travel has been on something smaller than a 777 and I found the turbulence to be different. It was more like being shaken around by a large gorilla than the driving over a washboard feeling of turbulence in a smaller plane.

Thanks to Samsung for the free internet station here.

No picture from me today. Check out Taghi Naderzad, NYC/Int'l commercial photographer. I had the priveledge of sitting down for a cup of coffee/tea with this awesome guy yesterday and it was a nice time.

I'll be hanging out with Dan Vetere around Bangkok all weekend. Cheers.

Itinerary

Hello All. Final packing as we speak.

March 3: Car ride to New Haven, CT
MertroNorth Rail to NYC

March 4: Epic Subway ride to JFK
10:35pm flight to Doha, Qatar

March 6: Arrive Bangkok, Thailand 7:30am
I'm not sure what happened to March 5th, I would say it has to do with the theory of relativity.

The bags are way too heavy. Ideally, there will be 3 small carry-ons and if not I'll have to check the lighting bag full of expensive stuff. I feel better now that all the camera stuff is insured. Sometime along the way, I'll post a picture (by request) of what all my stuff looks like.

Today's first picture is some passport pictures I made. You need a couple when crossing the border into Cambodia, I believe. Shoot thru umbrella camera left, window light from camera right. ISO 1600; f/6.3; 1/50s. My mother, who is a bit nervous about this whole thing, said that I look 'like a terrorist'. I think she meant in the nicest way possible.
This picture is a compilation of self-portraits I made using a gelled strobe shooting through different glass items to light the background wall. I had ma cut these up so I could give them to little kids so they'll like me and let me photograph them. Stay tuned to see if it works. Don't worry, I don't plan to post any more self-portraits. It should get better.
This fascinating collectors item was printed in a limited edition of 54. Time to buzz my head and put my stuff in a bag. Happy trails.

The Photography Packing List

Camera
-Canon Digital Rebel XTi
Lenses
-Canon 28-135 IS 3.5-5.6
-Canon 75-300 Kit Zoom
-Canon 18-55 Kit Zoom
-Canon 50mm 1.8 Prime

-Giottos Tripod, light travel model
-Giottos Ballhead
-Hoya Polarizer
-Tiffen Graduated Neutral Density Filter
-Tamrac 7X Camera Bag
-EZ Wider Rolling Papers (for lens cleaning)
-Camera Battery x2
-Battery Charger
-Blowbrush cleaner
-Wireless IR remote release
-Cable Release
-CF Cards (7x 4GB)
-WD My Passport 500 GB external hard drive, extremely small and light
-Card Reader
-AA Batteries

Lighting
-Lumopro light stand w/ unbrella swivel
-Canon 430 EX II Speedlight
-Pocket Wizard x2
-Umbrellas (1 reflect, 1 shoot-thru, tentative)
-JC Clamp
-Colored Gels
-Homemade snoot/curtains/flags
-Reflecting poster board
-Gary Fong Lightsphere(tentative)
-Vivitar 285(tentative, unlikely)
-3rd Pocket Wizard(tentative, unlikely)
-Giottos Long Case
-Bongo Ties

Camera bag also contains small LED light, Burt's Bees Chapstick, pad, pen, and a small pocket knife I will have to remember to put in the checked bag before security check.

I know there's about 1000 things I should have or would like to have for the trip, but I can't do much about it. Feel free to chime in anyway with your thoughts or suggestions. I do have a detailed plan for some redundancy in file backup.

Here's a shot from yesterday. This is Julie, a young doctor from New York City who flew into Wmass for the shoot. ISO200; f/11; 1/160s. Shoot-thru umbrella camera right, up a bit. Snooted and gelled flash gently lighting the background.