Thursday, October 21, 2010

Subtly Sultry: South-East Asian Dreaming On A Balmy Day

I want it all - the exhaust fumes, the fresh food smells, the dark grey grids of Bangkok and the incense wafting through it all...

Moving from concrete-strewn Sofia to colour-saturated Sydney, I felt like nature was overwhelming, and made a point of opting for man-made non-outdoorsy environments whenever possible, where I could read without having to worry about bugs making contact with me. But now, whenever I travel to less extravagantly naturally blessed locales, I realise that Sydney should bottle what it has and export it.

That said, there's something about Asia which has insinuated itself deep into my soul... it has both nature and culture, the showy allure of its deeply curvy wats (temples) complemented by buckets of green and spillages of blooms. Beautiful art can be found in the big cities... (Should I become a painter in Thailand? I can see it now, mingling with Phuket's art society, drawing beautiful loops of pink onto sky-blue canvasses, shopping for art supplies, setting up my materials, bringing my European and Australian influences into Asia's art scene...) I never thought I could be satisfied with so little. I never thought the world could be so full, luscious and charming, even while battling off pollution and the (perhaps deeper) hazard of hesitation.

1 comment:

  1. From 2003-2006, I was obsessed with the idea of moving to China. I made several trips to the continent, but eventually had to admit that it seemed like a much better idea in theory. In late 2009 I was supposed to go to Buenos Aires, but at the last minute decided to go to Bangkok instead... the last time I had been there was 2005, while depressed, and hadn't really had the chance to explore it - all I remembered was overwhelming humidity, a small, empty, thin-walled room and fatigue casting a shadow over the simplest of everyday activities.

    But when I went back to Thailand in 2009, it was like something was brought out to me that I hadn't seen before... I fell in deep like. I realised I'd never really given it a chance before, and now I'm determined to float around and soak up all the layers of goodness I can find in my sunny, traditional but corners of The Land of Smiles. It has turned my agenda for conquering the rest of the world, if not upside down, then to an angle.

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