August already! We are back in Bangkok and back at work this week – so it’s a good time to try to catch up some on “Wanderings” from last month. One of the highlights of my short stay in Paris two weeks ago was a much-anticipated trip to the Rodin Museum. A word of advice: if you want to visit this museum [Musée Rodin], midday on a Sunday is probably NOT the best time!
When I reached the street where the entrance is located, there were unruly queues extending in both directions from the doors. More throngs were visible lining up inside. My French passed ‘rusty’ years ago and has since deteriorated into rags and remnants, so I was a bit shy to ask anyone to help me make sense of the unclear signage. Instead, I joined one queue, hoping to listen into surrounding conversations to establish if it was the right one. As soon as I lined up, a Spanish tour group arrived out of nowhere and half of them decided they would prefer to be ahead of me rather than behind. This was particularly annoying as my Spanish is less existent than my French and I still didn’t know if I was in the right place!
I thought I’d try the other queue for a while, and was lined there, fidgeting but otherwise not moving for about 15 minutes, when I overheard enough to realise that this was the line for those who had pre-purchased tickets. I considered giving up, but the museum is not open on Mondays and I had missed it on my last Paris trip. So, back to the first queue I returned.
 Sorrow and Pathos: One of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais (1888-1895) Although it seemed to take forever to gain entry, once inside, most of the crowd melted away. Between the huge gardens (over three hectares, according to their website) and the two buildings, the museum can contain a huge number of patrons without feeling unduly squashed.
Perambulating clockwise, the first sculpture I spent time with was the incredibly poignant “Les Bourgeois de Calais”, which represents the conquest of Calais by the English in 1347 after a long siege. The six Burghers, each with his own distinct expression of despair and defeat, are en route to hand the keys of the city to the English King in symbolic surrender.
- Les Bourgeois de Calais, by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), in the Gardens of the Hôtel Biron
 Space to Sit: Le Jardin d’Hôtel Biron  Hands of the Three Shades Les Trois Ombres : The Three Shades or Shadows (Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917) in Bright Sunshine Foot Detail ~ Andrieu d’Andres (Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917) You can buy a ticket which is good only for the gardens, and Parisians and visitors alike make use of this option to come and sit in luxuriant green, surrounded by flowers.
Spacious Gardens, Musée Rodin Nature’s Own Sculptures: Gardens, Musée Rodin I’ve never forgotten seeing my first ‘live’ Rodin, over thirty years ago when The Kiss was on loan to an art gallery in London. The sensually smooth curves of cool marble just beg to be touched. The beauty of the Rodin Museum, as opposed to the Henry Moore exhibit which I visited at The Tate Gallery in London two days later, is that you can get up close to most of the sculptures, and you can photograph most of them, albeit without flash. All the Moore’s, by contrast, are off limits: many are behind ropes or behind glass and no cameras are allowed.
THAT Kiss! Le Baiser ~ Unveiled 1898 Heads and Reflections ~ Rodin’s Father: Jean Baptiste Rodin, 1860 & A Young Girl with Roses in her Hat, 1865 Museum Staff ~ Rodin Museum Geometry: Angles and Lines in the L’Hôtel Biron Aspects of Thought: Le Penseur Torso de l’âge d’airain drapé (1895-1896) Beautiful gardens, a beautiful building, stunning works of art… all in all, an afternoon well spent!
More of my Flickr photos of sculptures and carvings are HERE for anyone who is interested.
(Photos and museum visit: 18th July, 2010)
Posted in Culture,Fine Arts,France,Museum,TravelTags: art,fine art,France,museum,Paris,Photo Blog,Rodin,sculpture,Travel Blog,Ursula Wall
If you are recovering from jet lag, need to ride out a miserable cold, and have to endure a tropical reudu fon [ฤดูฝน] or rainy season, there can be no better place than The Spa Resort (official site) in Koh Chang to do it. I know, it sounds like I am writing an infomercial! We stayed very cheaply, as we’d bought a special package at a Thai travel fair last year, but I’d readily go back at normal prices. The dates we had booked well in advanced turned out to be fortuitously timed, as it was right after an exhausting European trip and there was a Thai long weekend we’d forgotten about so we were able to stay longer than we’d originally planned. It was also semester break at the university, so I added a few days on my own. This extra time was doubly lucky, because we’d also forgotten how long it takes to get to Koh Chang and we needed an extra day just to recover from the trip! While it might only be 385 kilometres (officially) from Bangkok to Trat, this feels a lot longer when you are travelling on Thai roads in a public bus with too much baggage. (This is ME we are talking about: I may love travel, but I’m very bad at it!) I never know what to expect on Thai buses: VIP buses have attendants in snazzy suits and hats who provide you with water, blankets and snack boxes. This bus didn’t. On the plus side, it also didn’t have a video system on board, so we weren’t subjected to excessively loud slapstick comedy, which is the norm on many distance buses. A few brief stops and six hours later, we were in the bus station in Trat, hauling our gear onto a song taew [สองแถว], essentially a pickup truck with two facing rows of seats and a tin roof, which was to take us the half-hour drive to the ferry. Although we were told the ferry trip took 45 minutes, it actually lasted an hour, which was followed by half an hour in the resort van. By this stage it was late, and we were truly ready for dinner. On our arrival at the restaurant we discovered that although there IS wine on the menu, there was none in the bar. So, it was a good excuse to do a “mini-detox” and go without. It seemed to be the least we could do, as many people come to the resort to do three- or seven-day fasts. No fasting for me at the moment, thanks! Especially as the menu is so appealingly healthy. Fasters are accommodated with an incredible range of juices and smoothies. Halal, vegan and raw-food diets are catered for. The vegetarian options are extensive, but there is also a range of seafood (this is an island, after all!) and a smattering of chicken and pork. We thoroughly enjoyed every meal we ate. Having an entire week of grey skies with little sunshine is a rarity in Thailand, even in Koh Chang which is one of the wettest parts of the country, and even during the wettest month (July) which is now. Usually, even during rainy season, we have short afternoon storms or overnight rains. I’ve never seen anything like this last week in Koh Chang! To be fair, it is not raining now, and the sun did come out for about an hour today and briefly yesterday. But, truly, I’ve never seen so much incessant rain. So, as I said earlier, if you have to endure the rainy season anyway, why not sit in a spacious, airy cottage room with a high, thatched roof, and a partially covered balcony overlooking the verdant jungle. The best part is, the air con works if you want it, and the WiFi is pretty good. There is also TV and DVD – not that I turned them on. The large umbrellas got us to the restaurant for meals, to the sala [ศาลา] or open-air pavilion for the guided morning meditation and yoga, and to the massage rooms for traditional Thai or oil massages. What more could you want? When the rains broke for a moment or two, we cycled or drove to nearby fishing villages. One of the highlights for me was chatting with the workers at a nearby fish-farm. Add this to jobs I’m glad I don’t have to do: sit on a swing suspended in seawater, sorting squiggly grouper into baskets by hand according to size. Yuch!  I hope you enjoy the photos. More photos from Thai islands and beaches are on my Flickr site here and here.
Posted in Culture,Every Day Life,Thailand,Travel,WorkTags: fish,fishfarm,fishing,KohChang,people,Photo Blog,thai,Thailand,TheSpa,Trat,travel,Travel Blog,Ursula Wall,work
As we were heading for our departure gate at Heathrow yesterday and watching the rain on the airport windows, my husband remarked: “There won’t be too many planes flying at Farnborough today.” True. Pretty miserable weather for standing out of doors and peering up into the grey clouds! How lucky we had been to be there the day before (Wednesday, July 21, 2010), under beautiful sunny blue skies watching more than twenty aircraft of various shapes and sizes put on a dazzling spectacle.
It’s been a busy week, and I was going to post some photos from the Rodin Museum in Paris, but the sculptures have been there for about a 100 years, so I’m sure they’ll wait another week or so! The Farnborough International Airshow (FIA), on the other hand, only happens once every two years, alternating with the Paris Airshow.
It was an exciting experience for me, because, lets face it, flying IS thrilling. I’ve been in quite a few small planes over the years, but could probably still tell you stories about each individual flight, they are so vividly etched in my memory. For example, there was the time in the twelve seater Fokker Friendship over the Barrier Reef when we all got worried because the pilot pulled out a map! Then there are the views from the seaplanes over the Georgia Straight to my mother’s house in Canada… Or the views of the Himalayas from the front seat of a helicopter… Or there was the time in the Cessna over the Prairies when I got to handle the controls…. and so on… The whole concept of being in the sky with the birds has fascinated people for all of recorded time.
Welcome to Farnborough! It’s a bright sunny day, perfect for flying… Farnborough (click for the official site) is primarily a trade show: lots of men and women in suits and shiny shoes representing countries and corporations, trading business cards and placing billions of dollars in orders. Official photographers were carrying their equipment around in small trucks, so knowing almost nothing about airplanes, and not enough about photography, in the morning I set myself the task of trying to take some ‘pretty’ pictures of ‘shiny things’ at the static displays.
Reflections: Boeing 777-300ER Jet from a Canadian Airforce Boeing 737-53A Swiss PC-21 Trainer US Airforce F18 Cowling The Bio-Fuel Powered Way of the Future: DA42 (EADS) The World at my Nose: PC-12NG Of course, people love talking about their favourite things, so there was no shortage of knowledgeable people willing to explain their equipment and show participants around.
The highlight of the day, however, was the three hours of flying displays. This provided me with a new challenge in tracking moving objects with the camera… Moving? The jets are routinely doing 170mph when they touch down!! If you are scrolling through the photos, be sure to look at the wonderful flying machines in action at the end. If you want to see more, I’ll be uploading more samples into my Flickr Farnborough set.
US Marines’ Gunner Scott and his UH-1Y. Everyone was Enthusiastic to Share their Knowledge US AirForce Personnel – at your Service. The four-propellored A400M can turn summer-saults in spite of it’s bulk! Airbus A380: manoeuvrable in spite of being the world’s largest commercial airliner. Puffs of smoke and Union Flags… … came drifting in… … for a stunning three-point Red Devil landing. Next came the Blades, who twisted and looped and ducked and dove for over fifteen minutes. The elegant but deadly F-18 Hornet drops her Michelins to come in for a 170mph landing! Another clunky-looking military transport, the C27J was doing peanut rolls in the sky! The Aermacchi M346 Advanced Jet Trainer was moving so fast, my camera lost it in the cloud vapour a few times. Photography buffs: panning shot! 🙂 The 50 year old AVRO Vulcan can keep up with the youngsters any day. Note the camouflage and the open bomb bays. Bone crushing noise on departure, wings everywhere… the BAe Typhoon. Leaving a mirage from the heat of the jet exhaust, the F16 Fighting Falcon brings it all home safely.
Posted in Aviation,Great Britain,Travel,WorkTags: airforce,airplane,airshow,armed forces,commercial aircraft,England,Farnborough,FIA,flight,flying,people,Photo Blog,Travel Blog,Ursula Wall
Living in Bangkok is always an adventure. Rules and regulations are as amorphous as shape shifters, and it’s often difficult to know where you will end up while trying to follow them. As ‘farang’ (colloquial for ‘foreigners of white European appearance’), we are required to renew our visas annually. Ahead of time you can never be sure whether this will be a painless fifteen-minute process or a whole day adventure. We were due for renewal, so last Monday we headed to the “OneStop Office” armed with a visa broker to assist and a pile of paper to prove our claim: originals and multiple photocopies of passports, visas, permits, letters of employment and our marriage certificate. After eight years, our file is getting rather thick, as every year requires new copies of the same documents! Anyway, the “OneStop Office” has moved, and the result was that this year the whole process took place in a more convenient location and was relatively painless and quick, leaving me and my camera with time to explore the Wat (Buddhist temple) across the road.
I’ve taken a lot of pictures of wats and buddhas over the years, and if you are interested you can have a peek in my various Flicker albums by clicking the links: wats, buddhas, monks, Thailand, and/or Bangkok.
This time, my focus was on the workers. Thais have a word which is said to be one of the four pillars of the culture: sanuk:สนุก, which basically means ‘fun’. If an activity is not fun, people don’t want to do it. This sometimes gives visitors to Thailand the impression that people don’t work very hard, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Many people have difficult or dangerous physical jobs which they might be expected to perform for twelve hours a day, six days a week for very little pay. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that they want to have fun while working! As I was wandering around the wat (Wat Hua Lampong), I came across two striking examples of this.
The wat was suffering from drainage problems. The first group of workers I spoke to (albeit haltingly!) told me that they had to find out how to get the water ‘out’. As you can see from the attached photos, this involves using shovels made from bamboo to dig the glop out of a ditch while you are standing in it, and then bagging the glop and removing it. Certainly NOT a job I envy! But, inspite of the uncomfortable nature of the work, the workers were cheerful and good natured: they chatted with each other and one broke into song regularly. They were accepting of my pesence with my camera, joking about whose picture I should or shouldn’t take.
Wats are a hive of activity. While I was there, there were homeless folk sleeping on floors, dogs and cats underfoot everywhere, little novices running around doing errands, painters and builders involved in the ever-ongoing process of maintaining and beautifying the wat and its many salas (free-standing rooms), as well as monks and lay people engaged in the supplications, blessings and prayers that you might expect. The second group of workers that I chatted with briefly were making new chandeliers for one of the halls: painstaking, fiddly work, all done by hand. The women were sitting outside on the marble stoop, where there was a little breeze to take the edge off the 30° sticky afternoon, stringing rows of glass beads together with metal fasteners. Their colleague was inside the hotter pavilion, afixing these lenghts of beads onto a large large frame.
I was sweating, just taking the pictures! Sanuk, yes, but still very hard work.
Posted in Culture,Every Day Life,Thailand,Travel,WorkTags: buddhism,people,Photo Blog,religion,thai,Thailand,Travel Blog,Ursula Wall,wat,work,worship
Once upon a time, people wrote letters to their family, friends and colleagues when they had something to say. They sent greeting cards on special occasions and postcards when they traveled. In this age of electronic media, the form of these interactions had changed significantly, while the purpose remains the same: to communicate thoughts, feelings, ideas and impressions.
I am exceedingly fortunate: I live in a region full of sights and sounds, and have the luxury of exploring it regularly. My intention with this PhotoBlog is to share snippets of information (500-1000 words) and snapshots of observations (5-12 photos) weekly, on or about Thursdays. I’ve already discovered that this may not always be possible! In the ‘good old days’ letters, cards and postcards went missing once in a while, and so it is in this global age of the internet. Even in modern cities, LAN lines often don’t work and WiFi’s can be patchy when you least expect it.
On top of all that there is the steep learning curve: even though old dogs CAN learn new tricks it can take longer. I’m new to this Blogging stuff, so I’m not quite sure how it will all take shape. I hope to add new things weekly, and when time permits, to return to older digital images and stories, and possibly even dig out some film… Remember film?
So, lets see how it all goes. I hope you will enjoy my Weekly Wanderings.
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Lovely shots and colour tones
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Nice shots… count aside the troubles from enter the museum, it is still worth it for taking so many lovely photos… 🙂
Hi Peggy! Nice to see you on my new PhotoBlog. I’m glad you like the photos. (Gabe says “hi”.)
[…] for the Henry Moore sculpture exhibition, hoping for a ‘companion piece’ for my Rodin Museum visit. Wonderful sculptures, but no cameras allowed! […]