March 22, 2024, heading to a neighborhood I had never been, exciting!
A 1.5-hour trip on a shabby bus through the red-hot afternoon city; no AC, all windows open with the winds blowing from each direction, every part of the bus rumbling, dusty ceiling fans whirring...
Strangely, I like these trips. But I need a time to recover. Something cold to drink usually helps.
An air-conditioned 7-Eleven convenience store, full of refreshing drinks and food, is the best after such a trip. These stores are everywhere in Bangkok, that's truly convenient.
Having recharged, I dived into an alley and started the exploration.
I was heading to an alley I found on Google.Maps. A quite hidden one, with a narrow bridge over a major canal. I knew that canal, it's quite busy with old speed boats plying along it, serving as public transportation. I had traveled on them many times and always wondered what was on the shores.
At last, Google.Maps showed that I was near the alley leading to the bridges I had chosen to explore.
But what is this??
The alley turned out to be a narrow canal with a pathway adjacent to it.
I was frozen in indecision - such a path could lead to courtyards of cramped neighborhoods, where, for example, there may potentially be angry dogs...
But OK.
Indeed, I came to a "cramped neighborhood" with a dangerous-looking dog (chained happily) with many Myanma women (covered with thanaka) relaxing there. There were two Thai monks there too. These people were having a talk, it could be a sort of serious talk, and I didn't want to be involved in this, considering I speak neither Thai nor Burmese. I passed quickly to the bridge and was rewarded with the view:
Yes, these boats serve as public transportation, I travel on them from time to time.
I crossed the bridge and continued walking along the narrow canal (khlong in Thai):
There was someone in the bushes squatting - I passed quickly saying "sorry" and thinking "Jeez!" That could be a homeless person who has no facilities other than bushes or a drunkard (few among Thais, but they exist too).
At the end of the canal, I found ideal conditions for cat photography.
Full of cats, firstly. Secondly, roofs are in front of you, you don't need wings or a drone.
There is sunlight from the sun at the golden hour while most of the city is already in the deep shade at that part of the day. Look at that:
I will return!
That orange person decided to talk to me using not meows but "oh-no-no-no"-es. 😀 I couldn't help answering him in the same way: "oh, no, no, no, no!" and again and again. 😀
It turned out I wasn't alone in the alley. 😁 A boy was listening to cat screams in my performance 😁:
When he saw I had noticed him, he disappeared in the house and returned with his own adorable pet.
😎
There was also a scene of people saving a cat who had fallen in the canal. 😀 I will share that in a separate post.
From the canalside neighborhood, I went to a railside area I already knew.
It was too late for another catsploring photo mission, I was just passing, heading to a nearby market and a bus stop.
What luck that I found this area!
Keep walking, delving into the blocks of multi-storey buildings...
Photographing the last sun rays caught in wires...
Gilded with sunlight brutal houses...
People, more people, and again people. And new 1.5 hours in an old bus right to the faraway outskirt of Bangkok.
More images and stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out the previous ones on my personal Pinmapple map.
I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm and a Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on March 22, 2024, in Bangkok, Thailand.
