Tropical Heat Tour: Thailand Part 19
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Bangkok, Thailand
This evening, I sought an escape from the never-ending tropical heat inside the air-conditioned comfort of Siam Paragon, a gigantic five-story shopping mall that bills itself as “the pride of Bangkok.” This place is where upper class Thais and wealthy foreigners go to shop, eat, watch movies, go bowling and even look at sea life in a huge aquarium. I made my way around most–but not all–of the walkways of this seemingly endless synthetic world, and since it was so huge, I had to sit down and rest a couple of times. And I only ventured into a three or four stores! I don’t really even like shopping malls; I was just hoping to find some interesting photographic situations, but I only came across a tiny handful.
If you’ve been following my blogs during the Thailand section of the Tropical Heat Tour, maybe you’ve noticed that I’ve posted several photos of Thai spirit houses. In case you’ve wondered what that is, a spirit house is a small structure erected in front of a home, business, temple, or even in a rural area to appease and house the spirits who inhabit that land. If humans do not ask the spirits permission to build and / or start a business and / or live there, the spirits may cause the humans’ efforts to fail. A spirit house usually contains one or more figurines of people, animals and maybe even furniture, and can be built in a wide variety of sizes and styles. Read more about spirit houses.
Roll over photos for captions.
Words and photos ©2012 Arcane Candy.
The escalator shot is great!
I’ve got a good friend in Ho Chi Min city if your looking for some Vietnam action.