Thailand
Photos from a first trip to Asia in 2013.
I remember the fish, dark and eel-like, roiling the muddy river water when market sellers threw them scraps. I remember sipping ice water between bites of spicy green papaya salad at a crowded lunch stall. Below us, five lanes of traffic circled Bangkok’s Victory Monument, as chaotic as in Manila or Cairo. A former priest took us on late-night motorcycle ride to see ladyboys perform in the red light district. A friendly security guard taught my friend how to wrap an orange sarong around her waist. The Buddhist temples tapered to heaven, the golden faces of deities fearsome or serene. Visitors placed coins in their mouths, covered them in gold leaf. We bought colorful pastries wrapped in thin plastic bags for the rickety overnight train to Chiang Mai.
Steven Tagle is a writer living in Switzerland. He was an ICWA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Fellow in Greece (2021-2023) based in the Evros region and islands of Chios and Crete, from where he explored the culture, history and economies of the country’s border zones and their importance to national politics, society, economics and geopolitics, including Greece’s mounting role in the Eastern Mediterranean and transatlantic alliance.
Beautiful snapshot of Bangkok's sensory chaos. The eel-like fish image next to teh gold-leafed temples captures that contrast perfectly, the gritty market economics right alongside sacred space. Those overnight train rides to Chiang Mai always feel like time travel, and honestly the rickety trains are part of what makes Thailand memorable beyond the usual tourist stuff.