It was time for that year end trip again, this time we went to Thailand. Flying into Bangkok, we made out way up to the Central Plains and visited Sukhothai (the capital of ancient Thailand) then up into the far northern highlands of Mae Hong Song.

We hiked up waterfalls and through bamboo forests, rode a motorcycle for the first time in my life, ate fried crickets, met interesting locals, met even more interesting fellow travellers, took almost every kind of transport that was available (train, bus, tuk tuk, taxi, motorcycle even an electric bicycle), survived a 16hour bus ride back (almost couldn’t make it back to Bangkok as all the flights and buses were fully booked, we managed to secure the last 2 seats back) and so on. Overall it was quite an adventure.

Here are some of the photographs I took along the way, starting with the 35mm photos shot with my Voigtlander Bessa R3A but this time instead of using my 15mm (one of my favourite lenses), I forced myself not to bring it and instead went with the 25mm F4 Snapshot Skopar instead. Since I’ve bought the lens I’ve hardly used it at all, so I figured it’s about time to wipe off the dust that’s been collecting over it. Along with the 25mm I brought along my next favourite lens, the 40mm F1.4 Classic Norkton. I would have brought along the 75 as well but I wanted to reduce the number of lenses I was carrying around as there was still my Mamiya 6 to be packed into the bag.

Anyway here are scans of the 35mm photographs, shot on Kodak Gold 200 and Ultramax 400. Consumer grade film that have really nice saturated colours, a very forgiving film latitude but at the expense of some serious grain.

I’ll give  a quick visual run through of our journey through Thailand. The medium format photographs are at the bottom of the page.

Taxis are relatively cheap in Thailand, just be weary of the traffic. The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel took longer than the plane!

In the middle of Chatuchak weekend market, shot from the thigh with the 25mm prefocused.

There wasn’t much to photograph in Bangkok itself, partly because my hands were often ladened with shopping bags. Here’s a shot just before we boarded the train in Bangkok to make our way to Phitsanulok in Central Thailand.

Once in Phitsanulok, we took a Song Thew and then a local bus ride to New Sukhothai and from there another bus to Old Sukhothai (the capital of ancient Thailand). There scattered among the grounds were small ruined temples, some which have been restored slightly.

Nice quiet place to cycle around, but nothing compared to the temples at Angkor in Cambodia. At least it wasn’t swamped with toursits.

We stayed at New Sukhothai, the town an hours ride away from the Old City. It’s a small town but you can get most of your supplies here including surprisingly well stocked pharmacies.

The local market district is worth a quick visit in the morning.

Roadside food stalls.. yummy..

On the map, our guesthouse was near a river. Unfortunately we didn’t realise that the river was actually more of a concrete lined canal. Yet people have found a way to do some fishing in it.

Our second day in Sukhothai was a bit more interesting, we went to hike up a waterfall. It wasn’t in any guidebook, luckily our guesthouse recently started organising trips to visit it. Coincidentally there was a big gathering of local scouts and girl guides who were setting up camp at the base of the falls.

There were a few different falls, this being one of the smaller ones.

I took a dip under the rainbow soon after I took this photo..

This is the main waterfall which took us a good 2-3 hour hike to climb up to.

Our next destination was Pai, up in the mountains in the North West of Thailand. Another train, another bus, a whole day’s journey to get there.

Our first day there we borrowed electric bicycles from our guesthouse, but soon realised that they weren’t powerful enough to tackle the hilly terrain. I got off my bike to take this shot only to have the bike fall on me, scratch up my ankle and at the end have that eyesore of a post block my view of the sheep being herded back from the grazing.

Kids playing basketball on the other side of a Chinese Village

This shot turned out surprisingly well. I was worried that the film latitude wasn’t enough, but it’s so amazing what can be captured on negatives as opposed to slides.

Unfortunately, we never got to stay by the river. But there were just SO MANY local tourists perhaps it was better if we didn’t.

Lots of dogs running around on the streets. I almost ran into two myself. These couple of pups were growling over a few chicken scraps.

Would have been a nice place for a beer or two.

Heard so much about it, but was really put off by the sheer number of local tourists that swarmed the tiny town of 3000. I literally mean swarmed.

This was the closest we got to seeing the fabled long neck women. I’ve visited them before but it felt more like a zoo, so much so that I seriously don’t recommend anyone to visit them.

For the most part of the trip, the sunlight was just incredibly harsh. Hardly a single fluffy cloud in the sky, and as a result the only time it was suitable to take some colour photographs (with slides) was at dawn or dusk.

A really sweet elephant we met. Works only a few hours a day taking tourists down to the river and through the jungle. Too bad she was off duty when we visited.

Pai Canyon. Quite a sight really. A single path that cuts across the landscape with sheer cliffs on both sides.

More waterfalls of course.

We had enough of the crowds at Pai and we moved on to Mae Hong Song town. This is the lake in the middle of town at which the night market will be centered around. Wat Chong Klang and Wat Chong Kham are in the background.

Wat Doi Kong Mu overlooks the entire town. Well worth a visit in the morning or evening.

The view’s pretty amazing at the top of the hill, you can see the surrounding mountains all the way to Burma.

What’s a visit to a town without visiting it’s local market.

We rode a motorbike for 3-4 hours to get to a lake up in the mountains called Pang Oung, famed as the “Switzerland of Thailand”.

Unfortunately it was lacking the snow capped mountains in the background to complete the “Swiss look”.

I saw this vista as I was riding up to Pang Oung and I knew that I needed to get a shot when I came down. This is an overview of the town of Naphapak, a half-Hmong, half-Thai Yai village where thankfully there was a shed that sold gasoline (we were down to a quarter tank by the time we reached Pang Oung).

The last day in Mae Hong Song didn’t allow for much photo taking. We went trekking through the hillside jungles and through bamboo forests. Wasn’t the easiest of treks and as such wasn’t the most conducive time to take photos either.

I’ve never seen bamboo that was so thick before, I think they were about 6-8 inches in diameter!

After a winding 16hour bus ride, we were back in Bangkok to usher in 2010 and pack our bags to return to sunny Singapore.

Here are the photographs taken with my Mamiya 6. All the colour photographs were taken with Kodak 100VS while the black and white ones were with Fuji Neopan Acros 100 or Neopan 400.

Like I mentioned previously, the only time to take photos with colour slides was at dawn or dusk. The light up in the mountains in the rest of the day was just ridiculously harsh. As a result I took mostly black and white photographs for the majority of the trip. These are the few which I took during dawn or dusk.

The cows weren’t too pleased that I was there.

Just after sunrise with a little bit of fog still in the air. Perfect for taking photographs.

A pair of Nagas (correct me if I’m wrong) overlooking the surrounding hills atop of Mae Hong Song town.

Wat Doi Kong Mu

There are even more lanterns released at night from the temple.

The sound of a bamboo forest creaking in the wind was one of the most peaceful sounds I’ve ever heard.

Remains of an ancient temple that once stood in Old Sukhothai, the ancient capital of Thailand.

This is one of my favourite photographs of the series. In the background another ancient ruin with a reconstructed statue of Buddha.

I took a few minutes waiting for the pigeon to fly by to complete the photograph. See if you can spot it.

Wasn’t sure if waterfalls look good in black & white, but this turned out pretty well.

This was the waterfall I took a quick dip under.

Even at 100ISO, F22 and a ND filter, I think I could only get it down to 1 second as the sunlight was just so strong. Thankfully I still managed to get enough movement in the water. I used my tiny tiny 10cm tripod for this.

Never found out what was beyond this bridge, on the other side were 3-4 dogs who were barking at me even from this end of the bridge.

I shot this from a far, before I startled the cows which made them stand up.

This was the oldest cow of the lot, look at it’s wrinkles! It was also the only one who didn’t budge when I got near.

The elephant from Joy’s Elephant Camp in Pai. Really friendly girl (or lady, she’s 36yrs old). Really hungry too!

Pai Canyon in B&W. I wonder if anyone has cycled that route.

Pang Oung, the “Switzerland of Thailand” just before sundown.

The village of Naphapak about 40km away from Mae Hong Song Town.

Again using my minuscule tripod to slow down the shutter in order to show movement in the water.

This was the very last B&W photograph I took of two buffaloes grazing by the river just before sunset.