The Last Banana

If you've been with me from the beginning, you may remember the "Banana Saga of July 2013".

1. One day, my boss Geoffrey offered me a banana. Then, he began hiding bananas in my desk.
2. I retaliated by hiding a banana in Geoffrey's desk drawer.
3. Bananas continued to be exchanged throughout the month.
4. Bananas continued to appear in strange places until the joke finally died down about a month later.

Yesterday evening, Geoffrey announced that he had officially decided to retire from teaching. I hope he enjoys retirement, though he will definitely be missed here at the office.

This morning when I arrived for my last day of work, I received a call from Geoffrey on my cell phone. He told me that he had left something for me in his desk drawer. Inside I found:

One last banana.

Enjoy retirement and good luck, my friend! Thanks for the memories and the laughs and for teaching me weird things about the UK.

We will definitely stay in touch, and I hope to go to Mae Sot together again very soon.

Photo Gallery: Lady Grey (Fujica)

Shot on Lomography Lady Grey Black and White Film ISO 400 with 1970 Fujica Compact 35

See also: Chiang Mai Photo Gallery

Original Posts:
Chiang Mai
Mae Khlong Railway

In this post, I'll share some interesting photos that I took over the past few weeks with my Fujica camera. The first half of the roll was shot in Chiang Mai.

alley by a temple

Black and white photos shot on film, in my opinion, remove the sense of time from a scene, and emphasize instead the sense of place.

Thai statue

I'm still not great at adjusting the f-stop properly, especially when the film speed doesn't match the camera's available settings, but I think I'm starting to get better.

riding in a songtaew

I also shot a few more photos at Chiang Mai Train Station. On our return journey to Bangkok, we were lucky enough to ride on one of the brand-new night trains!

Thai night train

I still haven't tried out this camera with a roll of 100-ISO. Maybe I'll pick up a roll of Earl Grey film (Lomography's 100-speed) to test out. I do most of my shooting outdoors, and it's usually very sunny in Thailand.

Chiang Mai Station

The 400-speed film, and this camera in general, do well in shadow though. Even in this image, inside the train, it's not too dark.

brother on the train

I also carried the camera on a recent weekend trip to Samut Songkhram. To get there, we took another train, but one that was quite different from that nice comfortable night train! The third-class commuter train had an open window, and we enjoyed the coastal scenery on our way to the floating market.

girlfriend on another train

We arrived at the docks, where we crossed on a 3-baht ferry to the other side of the river to wait for the next train to continue on.

docks at Samut Sakhon

I knew I was almost out of shots. I tried to finish off the roll by taking some "artsy" photos so that I could switch to a roll of color for the bright and cheerful floating market. I wanted to be sure to capture all that color and activity!

docks

We waited at a small local temple for a few hours for the train to arrive to take us on the final leg of the trip to Samut Songkhram. I shot a few pictures of the prayer bells, but only one turned out. I still have a problem with the images blurring. I think I'm just not used to shooting with a slow shutter, and need to practice keeping the camera more still. I will get better!

prayer bells

For now, I'll just keep practicing and keep improving!

Film photography, especially with black and white, is a fun hobby and one that is, thankfully, not so expensive to get into here in Thailand.

Stay tuned for a few more of these posts soon.

My First Book: The Long Road From Pub Street

Hey everyone!

I just wrote and published my first book!

Wherever I travel, I always carry around a small, battered, leather-bound notebook, in which I record all of my thoughts, experiences, and feelings about my adventures.

After returning from an amazing nine-day long adventure across the whole of Cambodia, I had a nagging feeling that I should start to share my thoughts. I couldn't shake the feeling, and began to feel inspired to transcribe and clean up my stories a little bit; to share my travels with anyone who was interested.

If you are interested in travel to Cambodia, or if you enjoy travel essays, you can read all about our recent adventure in my new book, The Long Road From Pub Street: A Cambodia Travelogue! Learn from our mistakes, and come along on a journey to the "Kingdom of Wonder".

download today from Amazon.com!

In this short and entertaining travelogue, Michael Desrosiers tells the story of a journey overland across the Kingdom of Cambodia, a small, rural, and often-overlooked corner of Southeast Asia.

The journey is unforgettable, but not always pleasant. Along the way he and his incredibly patient girlfriend contend with wild monkeys, a raging Typhoon, baguettes, jellyfish, and the dastardly "twerking bug".

Part old-school travelogue, part portrait of a foreigner's view of a country, "The Long Road From Pub Street" is at times lighthearted and at other times introspective. Desrosiers never takes himself too seriously as a writer or a traveler, but seeks to discover the country around him with an open mind.

Discover the mysteries, magic, tragedy, and beauty of the "Kingdom of Wonder".

CLICK HERE: You can download The Long Road From Pub Street TODAY for $2.99 on Amazon.com!

Photo Gallery: Chiang Mai (Fujica)

Original Posts:

Doi Suthep
Chiang Mai Old Town
Train 10 to Bangkok

Shot with 1970 Fujica Compact 35 on Lomography 400

aboard the train to Bangkok

I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this. I am very pleased with these photos! Even though my camera's settings only go up to ISO 200, I shot these on a roll of 400. I had to adjust the aperture accordingly, and I think I'm getting a lot better at using my Fujica!

I took the camera with me when I was exploring Chiang Mai, Thailand with my family.

inside the teak temple

Chiang Mai is a colorful city, and this camera really picked up on that. The lens on my Fujica is excellent and contrast, and I've found that it shoots especially well indoors, in shadow, and in lower-light situations. That may be because the film I shot with was just a little bit faster than the shutter. There's still lots of room to experiment!

Chiang Mai shrine

Notice in this photo how the shadowy area with the green jungle plants looks a lot richer and deeper than the more washed-out half which was in direct sunlight.

Wat Phra Singh

I'm a little disappointed about the light leak on the lower left corner, but I still really love this photo. I like pictures that tells a story. Here, a Theravada monk delivers a sermon and bestows a blessing upon a few devotees in a small chapel at Wat Doi Suthep.

a sermon

This camera does well with colors. I'm not sure what it is, maybe the lens, but the photos definitely have an old quality to them that photos other film cameras I've used don't.

temple bells

However, this camera was made in the year 1970, almost fifty years ago. It was built for black and white film, so the next roll I shoot will be in monochrome (I actually took a roll of black and white film with me to Chiang Mai as well, I just have to take it in to the photo shop).

Doi Suthep

For color, I maintain that the camera functions best indoors or in shadow. Outside on a sunny day is almost too much light. I must try a lower speed film next time. 400 ISO isn't really meant for full sunlight.

lion

I cropped the following photo into a square to remove some random guy who got in the corner. There's me and my mom climbing Doi Suthep!

climbing Doi Suthep

The photos that I appear in were shot by my brother, Kyle. He's a decent photographer himself!

preparing to board the train

A Weekend at Amphawa

Our train arrived at the Umbrella Market in Samut Songkhram, and we soon made our way to the famous Amphawa Floating Market!

summertime in Thailand

Arriving at the market, we immediately hopped aboard a tour boat to cruise the canals and take us to five temples along the river. Dusk began to fall as we bought a couple of coconuts to sip as we cruised along.

canals

It had been sweltering that day, but out on the water, a cool evening breeze was blowing, and it felt nice!

canal tour

Each temple was special and unique. One of the temples had 200 year-old fresco murals on the walls!

beautiful fresco murals

Another was famous, as it was the abbot of that temple that, according to a well-known Thai ghost story, trapped a famous and powerful spirit in a jar.

evening at the riverside

a monk sweeping the temple

The fifth and final temple was the most famous of all! The tiny original sanctuary was overgrown by the roots of a sacred tree, making it feel a lot like something from an adventure film.

It was dark when we arrived back at the market, and time for a delicious seafood dinner; the freshest seafood dinner possible! At the floating market, vendors grill and prepare tasty fish, crab, prawns, and all sorts of shellfish right on their boats, and serve it to customers sitting on little plastic stools on the boardwalk. We ordered tons of scallops, mussels, a giant salt fish stuffed with lemongrass, and two plates of pad thai goong, all washed down Thai-style with a glass of Chang Beer served over ice. (I know, I know... but you do get used to it. Super light beer over ice in Thailand helps beat the heat).

the freshest seafood dinner!

I had wanted to wake up early the next morning to see the monks making their alms rounds along the canal on small rowboats, but I was feeling too exhausted after the long journey the day before to want to wake up just before dawn.

early morning on the canal

Still, we were up pretty early for a hot cup of tea and a stroll along the nearly-empty canals; the village had not yet woken up to begin meeting the packs of tourists who would arrive in the afternoon.

floating market at morning

 We discovered a beautiful and quiet temple along the river, with a Khmer-style chedi quite like the one at Wat Arun in Bangkok, but pure white.

beautiful Khmer-style chedi

I had been to Amphawa before, but never in the nighttime or morning. It's a totally different experience than just coming as a tourist on a day trip! I would never have thought of taking a weekend trip to Amphawa, but I'm super glad I did! I am very grateful for these sorts of experiences that I have from time to time in Thailand, which let me feel more like a local than just a foreigner.

a vendor prepares for the day

Mae Khlong Railway

There's another semester finished!

Graduation was on Friday, and the annual "March Chill" is in full effect. Now, there's little to do but relax until it's time to go back to the US in April!

To celebrate the end of another school year, Pinky and I took a weekend trip to Samut Sonkhram to visit Amphawa Floating Market. We decided to go by train and take the scenic (and very long) route!

leaving Bangkok

We started our journey at a very small, hidden train station in a part of Bangkok neither of us had ever been to before. The ticket for the first leg of the journey cost me 10 baht, but was free for Pinky (commuter trains are free for Thais).

at the station

Just over an hour or so later on the rattling third-class train, we arrived in Samut Sakorn, down near the coast just south of Bangkok, where a large river empties out into the Gulf of Thailand. The air was salty and breezy, and the water briny. We could tell we were near the sea.

From the station, we had to transfer to a pier to cross the river to the other side. To get from the station to the pier, we had to take a 40-baht bicycle rickshaw trip pulled by a very strong old man.

on the rickshaw!

That was the first time I had ever taken a bicycle rickshaw before! Foreign tourists very rarely come this way, and there were no tuk-tuks. We were in a very local area.

rickshaw driver

Three baht apiece bought us passage across the wide muddy river to the other side, where we awaited the next train to carry us on the second half of our journey.

at the river

Across the river, we had a seafood lunch and waited two hours for the next train. We took the time to explore a nearby Chinese shrine with a large statue of Guanyin, the Chinese female Buddha, which had a cool, shady area to hide from the hot sun.

Guanyin Statue at a temple

Another temple across the street had one of the coolest-looking monk statues I've ever seen! It looks like everyone is getting ready for summer!

very cool monk

There was no train station there. The train pulled up in front of the temple and market area, and we hopped on, paying another ten baht to the ticket attendant on board for the ticket forward.

With the window down, the sea breeze was really nice! We passed old tin-roofed shacks and palm trees. As we got closer to Samut Songkhram, the scenery got marshier and the air got saltier.

marshy scenery

When we chugged past mounds of sea salt drying in the hot afternoon sun, I knew we were nearly there. Sea salt is one of the iconic products of this region.

salt ponds

Then, we arrived!

We were pulling into the famous umbrella market, a market built right on top of the train tracks. As the train pulls in, the vendors scramble to pull back their baskets and carts, and fold down the awnings and umbrellas that cover the market to keep it cool.

We were lucky enough to have arrived on this very famous train!

at the umbrella market

Looking down, it was hilarious to see the tourists all smashed up in the tiny narrow gap left by the train. Visiting this market is one of the big experiences most guidebooks will recommend, but not so many foreign visitors arrive on the train itself! As the train slowed down and arrived in the station, the canvas and tarp umbrella coverings were just inches from our window.

tight squeeze!

Yes, we could have gone there in one hour by bus, but what's the fun in that? Sometimes it can be nice to take things slow, to explore and have an adventure. After all, isn't the journey what's most important?

Photo Gallery: Bangkok Days (Fujica)

My brother and I are a lot more alike than I normally like to admit.

Besides our common interests in travel, religion, and culture, we also share a common hobby: film photography.

Kyle currently shoots on our Granddad's old Olympus camera, which I also used for high school photography class years ago.

My brother left me a few rolls of film to get processed in Bangkok, since even black and white is so cheap to develop here (color $3 and b/w- $5 per roll).

While I was at it, I got a couple rolls developed that I had been sitting on too. Here's the second test roll from my "new" 1970 Fujica Compact 35.

Shot on a roll of Lomography 400

self portrait!

I'm still trying to get a hang of the camera. It has a light sensor, but I suspect that it hasn't worked in some time, so I never shoot on "auto mode". I have to adjust the f-stop manually, and I'm still learning how to do that, because Granddad's camera was automatic!

the city

One thing that has really impressed me about this camera is its ability to shoot exceedingly well in low light! Sometimes in bright sunlight, the photos get quite washed out; the sky ends up just white, and the contrast is a little too high (probably my fault, not being used to the manual aperture settings) but in low light, it has an excellent range! When shooting at sunset, or even indoors in the dark, like in an underground subway, Fujica turns out some of her best.

subway

One afternoon, I decided to cut through Chulalongkorn University as a shortcut across downtown. "Chula" is the top university in Thailand, and the campus is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, with its Thai architecture and lotus ponds.

lotus pond

 Because of its age, the camera's film-speed setting only goes up to ISO 200. I think I would like to try a roll of 100 sometime to try to really test its range. This is shot on a roll of ISO 400, so I had to lower the f-stops to prevent the whole roll from being overdeveloped.

Keep following to watch me learn more about this camera and re-discover film as a medium! I'm going to keep practicing all the time!

Chulalongkorn University