late

Was in Chiang Mai for the Chinese new year,
there was a small parade ~ a bit late to post, but, so far,
I don't travel with a computer.

There's a big exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery
I'd like to see. & a possible cyclone I'd rather not.

tableau

Something about this small tableau felt so sad..

..the chance encounters, & unexpected moments we come
across while travelling ~ at all times of course, yet the
senses are honed, in a way, while on the move.
(& then we make up stories to fit what we think we see..)

I don't know enough to comment on current events in Thailand;
perhaps they'll get to vote, I wish them well.

inspiring talk by V. Ramachandran on Ted.com

red

Took several hundred photos every day, that's a lot of temple
pictures.. in Thailand, Buddhism seems very much alive,
as are the temples: for instance the Sunday market in
Chiang Mai spills into several big temples, with
food stalls, massage etc. It's not separate from the everyday.

At this time of year there is a lot of burn off across Asia,
the air is thick with smoke, & its tragic to see the hills &
forests razed to the ground. In northern Thailand there
are serious complications with land use & ownership.
Some interesting general crop info here.
Can it be so hard to get it right?

mirrors

Many of the temples have some use of tiling with small
pieces of mirror, enjoy how the reflection fractures
like a cubist painting. It's so exhilarating to see new things
every day, also to see known things anew. Must have visited
at least 50 different temples.

Heard about the huge earthquake in Chile, but only just saw
these photos on the Big Picture

slow as

Feeling as slow as the proverbial wet week,
plus it's raining a lot. Here I am at a wild mirror-
tiled wall around a Chiang Mai temple. Maybe I'll
post less often, at least till I get the photos into
some sort of order.

Haven't been on the web for 5 weeks. The first
favourite I checked out: Phantasmaphile

returned

Got back to my house yesterday, a little the worse for wear.
Still uploading photos. Will I continue this blog?
Too much time deleting stupid ads that show up as
comments, also dozens of spam per day, for viagra &
watches & sleazy money schemes, on my email.
At the least I will leave off the comment function,
but then how do I hear from the ones
whose comments I'd enjoy?
Does blogger.com have a blocking option for spam?
If you know how, please leave a comment.

geckos

You see geckos everywhere too ~ including here in Byron
of course, there's a pair growing very large on insects
hunted near lighted window, every night.
Above were behind glass & at my guesthouse, in Thailand.
As a kid, I tried to photograph a small doll in front of a goanna
~ they were big out west, easy to imagine dinosaurs.. or dragons.

a 'persistence of vision' toy, the zoetrope