Thai Hill Tribes ...

As you can see, I got a bit on a roll with Thailand and started on a photo scanning rampage from my old photo albums. Pre-digital, you know!

These photos are from a trip we took in 1987 from Bangkok North to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. We visited elephant camps, went up to the Golden Triangle, took a long tail boat on the river between Thailand and Burma and visited some hill tribes. The Hill Tribes were my favorite.

Hill Tribes, Thailand 1987

It was another world, especially for a me, a Southern California girl who, before my parents moved to Thailand, had only been on a cruise ship to Baja. (However fun it was, drinking virgin frozen daiquiris and baking in the sun sans SPF wasn't exactly a deep soul expanding cultural experience.)

Being in Thailand opened me up to the world. The beauty as well as the suffering. I had wanted to travel since I was little girl drinking tea and listening to my elderly neighbor tell her stories of traveling to Europe and Asia on steamer ships between and after the world wars. I was completely fascinated. I wanted explore the world and meet different kinds of people and in Thailand the world was just as fascinating and wonderful as I had imagined. I wanted to share it with everyone I knew. I guess I still do!

Hill Tribe Child oil on canvas 2006

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights;

it is a change that goes on,

deep and permanent,

in the ideas of living."

~Miriam Beard

Sawadee!

Sawadee is the Thai version of "Aloha," or at least that is how I translate it! I really miss Thailand. The smiling people and beautiful temples, lovely silks and spices with colorful orchids everywhere ...

I lived in Bangkok for a short time with my family when I was a teenager and spent time there on and off for almost 5 years. What got me thinking about it was that I found one of my friends I met there on Facebook last week! Social networking can be a crazy time-sucker but when you are able to find an old friend (in Israel, no less!) it's pretty wonderful.

"A journey is best measured in friends,

rather than miles."

~Tim Cahill

Sepia Ink on paper

I took a photo of this man during my first extended stay in Bangkok. He was standing completely still in a huge crowd of people, eyes closed, as if he where meditating. I caught the moment in black and white with my old manual 1970s Minolta. Unfortunately the photo was a bit overexposed so I decided to do a pen and ink drawing of him. I actually love this drawing. I say "actually" because I don't often say that about my own work but I think this piece just brings up so many wonderful memories of a city and people I love.

"Once you have traveled,

the voyage never ends,

but is played out over and over again

in the quietest chambers.

The mind can never break off from the journey."

~Pat Conroy