SE Asia — Pictures II: Patterns (and videos)

Everywhere I see them there, I stop and stare at patterns,
I don’t care, I must declare, I’ve got a flair for patterns,
On my hair, the clothes I wear, my savoir faire is patterns,
All I see is patterns,
The patterns that repeat. “Weird” Al Yankovic

Wat Rajbophit, Bangkok

Wat Pho, Bangkok

Wat Arun, Bangkok

Zooming out #1: I took a close-up picture, and then one from farther away, and so on until I got to the big picture.

Zooming Out #2:

Zooming Out #3:

(This one isn’t actually from the same part of the temple, but the pattern is analogous.)

Zooming Out #4:

Temples of Chiang Mai

A few from Luang Prabang

(The following two are the same door. I couldn’t get the whole thing in frame from a good angle.)

Wat Preah Prom Rath, Siem Reap

And…

Angkor Wat and associated temples

(There are other pictures of the bas-relief murals in the previous post. I duplicated a few other pictures for this post from the last post, but I decided that the murals are already a gray area between patterns and art, so I shouldn’t really duplicate them. Hence why I don’t have many pictures here from this engraved-everywhere place.)

Also!

Chinese New Year celebration, Siem Reap

This was in a back alley in town. These guys were a wandering troupe of Chinese New Year merrymakers, and apparently celebrated just wherever a celebration was needed. The building they’re walking through in the video is a restaurant, and after this they went to a massage place. I don’t know if the business owners pay them to come and celebrate the new year, or if these guys just go around and ask, “Hey, mind if we celebrate the new year in your building?”

Video tour of Preah Khan (I think), Angkor Wat complex

It’s hard to get a feel for a place just from pictures. But a video can make it feel a bit more like you’re actually there. Or at least I hope so. The sudden pan to the left at the end was because the bird that you hear was really loud in real life and I was trying to move the shot to where it sounded like it was calling from.

File under: photos · Places: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia

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6 Comments

Anonymous

History

More fantastic pictures. Your new mug with you and your uncle at crater lake is being made. We still have the CD. G.Pa.

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Anonymous

History

These pictures are so tantalizing. I love the pattern theme. It makes me look at things differently. Thanks for putting them up.

I have saved the picture from Crater Lake, fortunately. I'll make several of those mugs so if one breaks it's OK. Grandma

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Chuck

History

Glad you like them. I heard Micah's steadily reading my blog and working his way to the present day, so I suppose he'll find these soon. Micah, hope you can tessellate some key parts of your world with these.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to reply about when I can meet you in Spain. I have some figuring to do before I can actually answer that question. I was planning to do Germany until early or mid October, then go to England. I suppose what I'll end up doing is moving Spain to after Germany. I just have to figure out when I can meet up with my English parkour contact. I'll have to make a schedule of some sort, but I think I may end up having to meet during the later, more inconvenient end of your trip. I'll let you know when I know more.

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Anonymous

History

You absolutely must look into publishing a book about your trip, including the pictures. Maybe even two books!

Also, I don't know if your G&G mentioned that Chuck and I will also be with them on the Spain/Portugal trip, and we are really excited about the chance of seeing you!

Aunt E.

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Anonymous

History

If you could get to southern Spain by Oct. 16 (a night before, actually) and we could figure out how it's done, you could go across to Tangier in Morocco for the day the way we are doing. I figure our group must have it organized by public ferry or other boat. We could check into it. I'm sure you wouldn't mind adding the continent of Africa to your world wanderings, even if only for a day. If not that, then it would be nice to see Lisbon together. I've already been there, so I could skip the formal tour with the group. It is a fun place to be. Grandma

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Anonymous

History

Some of the edifices that have these patterns must have taken decades to build. They are incredibly intricate. Very impressive

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