Adventure Time

Well as I start to write down a few thoughts to go along with these photographs, I realize the photos are about as scattered as my thoughts. I was hoping to post a few of these as I traveled, but during my travels both my kindle and laptop died. I will be using my brothers old macbook for the next few months. The featured image one of several from a couple sunsets that I took while I was in Ao-Nang, Thailand. This last month has been pretty crazy, I will give a quick overview of the locations and then move on from there. January 20th I flew from north central China to Kunming and within about two hours after my flight landed I took two different trains to get to a friends city called Weining. After four days there, and seven hours on a train back to a hostel in Kunming and meeting some fantastic South Africans and Canadians, I flew down through Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand. After about two weeks in Chiang Mai, I went down to a couple cities in Southern Thailand for about nine days. I found out vacation can go to long and I was happy after three last flights to be back in my city.

As I said, my month was pretty crazy. But I will start to explain the photos below now. The first two are of a man named Carl. He is a Vietnam Vet who has lived in Thailand for fifteen years. Currently a solid 6’9″, 6’11” in his prime. He was in the special forces during the war, and like many returned to this part of the world sometime after the war. A friend and I listened to part of his story for about an hour and a half one night while sitting in a thrift shop in Chiang Mai. He has been growing out his dreadlocks for twenty-six years. Hopefully I will get to run into him again one day.

One of my favorite things while I was in Thailand was getting to rent a scooter for around four dollars a day. It was nice to have the freedom to be able to roam around. This is a little more difficult in China as I am confined to buses, trains, and taxis. During my time venturing around a friend and I came across this small village just southwest of Chiang Mai. I figured no travel post would be complete had I not included not only a picture of my mode of transportation, and some kids that we came across kicking the ball around. It was fun to join them for a little while.  As I said these photographs are a bit scattered as we are jumping back to Weining, China. During the four days I was visiting my friend we went out one late afternoon with a couple of his friends on this boat in these canals. From a distance we saw black necked cranes and got to watch a pretty delightful sunset. The selfie was one of several attempts to take a picture with my friend who is behind me. Although it looks like he is flipping me off, he is actually holding up three fingers but the other two were cut off by my shoulder. He is one of my closest friends in China and I am so thankful for his friendship.  Last but certainly not least, these three are from my time in Southern Thailand. All taken while I was in one specific city called Ao-Nang. It was amazing to see the beauty of Thailand and marvel at the Creation. It is one thing to see the beauty of nature, but to know the creator of it all makes it so much better. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 19:1 The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Such an amazing blessing to get to see the creativity of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Well if you have read this far, thank you for viewing my photographs and I hope you enjoyed them. Let me know what you think any changes you might make, I love critiques. All of the photographs were taken with a Mark II Canon 5D and a 24 TSE- Tilt-shift Lens.