It's been a while since I've posted. The beginning of this month was a holiday in Japan (where I am now) so I decided to take a break. I had pretty much been on the road nonstop since August 2009.
To get back into the swing of things, I was looking forward to attending the Thailand Travel & Dive Expo (TDEX), which was scheduled for this coming weekend.
In fact, I spent quite a bit of time putting together a talk/ presentation titled "The End of Photography", which I was really looking forward to giving at the show.
TDEX has been postponed.
In case you don't already know, Bangkok is sort of a war zone right now. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the situation in certain parts of the city is...let's say, "unstable"...with tires burning, shots being fired, and general mayhem being the order of the day.
I am not Thai, but I lived for many years in Thailand, and I've spent a lot of time in Bangkok. I have many close friends there, and it's one of the places I consider home. Bangkok is one of the few cities I actually enjoy spending time in.
...which is why I've been in a bummed-out, depressed mood for the past couple of days...unable to get motivated enough to do much.
Bangkok is in the midst of the worst civil disturbance in memory, worse even than the shootings in 1992. I was there in 1992, and it was nowhere near as bad as now.
Things are sort of like this:
Not such a good way to be, especially when people and life in Thailand tend to be more like this normally:
There are obviously a number of deep-rooted issues that need to be worked out, but I really hope that some semblance of sanity emerges soon. Too many people have died already, and it's going to take a long, long time to heal the wounds that have been opened.
Peace.