Thailand 2001 2008 Galleries

Bangkok 2008 : To get to Bhutan we first flew from Seattle to Bangkok (via Tokyo Narita). We had arranged to arrive in Bangkok a couple of days early. I have been to Bangkok before but Nancy had not. So this gave us a short time to explore the city together. And it gave our luggage a couple of days to catch up with us in case it went astray in United's tender care. This multi-time-zone safety stop turned out to be unnecessary as far as our luggage was concerned but it gave our souls, slowed by the long flight, a chance to begin to catch up to us. Our program for the first day here was to explore Bangkok. We saw the Grand Palace, the palace of the Reclining Buddha, and a local market. And our program for day 2 was to explore Ayuthaya, the ruined former capital of Thailand. See the Ayuthaya gallery for those pictures. These photos were taken inOctober 2008 mostly with a Nikon D3.

Bangkok 2008

To get to Bhutan we first flew from Seattle to Bangkok (via Tokyo Narita). We had arranged to arrive in Bangkok a couple of days early. I have been to Bangkok before but Nancy had not. So this gave us a short time to explore the city together. And it gave our luggage a couple of days to catch up with us in case it went astray in United's ...

Updated: Nov 07, 2008 7:56am PST

Ayuthaya 2008 : On our second full day in Thailand, we drove a bit more than an hour to visit the ancient capital of then Siam, Ayuthaya. 33 Siamese kings from 4 dynasties ruled from here. Thailand has had four capitals, I think, and this was the capitol from 1350 to 1767 when the capital moved to Bangkok. At its peak in 1700, Ayuthaya boasted more 1,000,000 inhabitants. In 1765, Burma invaded Thailand and destroyed Ayuthaya ... and everything here including temples, manuscripts, religious sculpture. Most of the gold statues and domes were melted down for their gold. Burma held the capital for only two years at which time it was recaptured by the Siamese. It is mostly in ruins now, but some parts have been repaired/restored. The day we were here, it was really hot ... possibly in the 90's F and the humidity was really high ... possibly 90% - 100%. As a result we were uncomfortably hot. After standing and walking leisurely around the grounds, we were literally drenched in sweat. And this is the dry season! These photos were taken inOctober 2008 mostly with a Nikon D3.

Ayuthaya 2008

On our second full day in Thailand, we drove a bit more than an hour to visit the ancient capital of then Siam, Ayuthaya. 33 Siamese kings from 4 dynasties ruled from here. Thailand has had four capitals, I think, and this was the capitol from 1350 to 1767 when the capital moved to Bangkok. At its peak in 1700, Ayuthaya boasted more 1,00 ...

Updated: Nov 07, 2008 2:26pm PST

Bangkok 2001 : In March 2001 I was in Bangkok on business for a couple of days. I had an afternoon free so for the princely sum of about $35, I hired a car and driver and zipped among the landmarks of Bangkok. It was fun. It was exotic. It was efficient. I saw a lot, but didn't learn much. Some years hence I would travel to Bangkok again, see many of the same sites, but with greater perspective. This group of photos is interesting in another, historical respect. I began taking digital pictures in 1999 ... just 2 years before these were taken. For these I was using an Olympus point-and-shoot camera, the pro-am DSLR hadn't reached market yet. The resolution of these photos was 1600 x 1200, great in its day, but very small by 2008 standards. Photoshop was in release 3, I recall. The originals weren't very good because I had yet to learn much of what I know about being a photographer then. I have "remastered" these photos ... which is to say I went back to the originals and reedited them with Photoshop CS4, and resized them with Genuine Fractals. Mostly I was able to correct for tilted photos, lens distortion, and a few exposure sins I had committed at the time. With a couple of exceptions, I think they turned out pretty well, considering. These photos were taken in March 2001.

Bangkok 2001

In March 2001 I was in Bangkok on business for a couple of days. I had an afternoon free so for the princely sum of about $35, I hired a car and driver and zipped among the landmarks of Bangkok. It was fun. It was exotic. It was efficient. I saw a lot, but didn't learn much. Some years hence I would travel to Bangkok again, see many of t ...

Updated: Nov 09, 2008 4:07pm PST