On tuesday afternoon David and I went out to explore some abandoned houses that we've been seeing from the car every time we have been going in to Hua Hin. It was very hot and humid so we had brought lots of water with us.

I had to stop to take photos all the time and was always a few steps behind. These surroundings take my breath away!

And then we were there!
These house started to get built in 1997 but for some reason they weren't finished and since then they have just been standing there like skeletons of what could have been really pretty houses.

Can you see David by the way?

The vegetation has been taking over the entire area. It looked really amazing in the setting sun.

David had his camera monopod with him partly for the ability to take steady photos high up in the air but also to seek through the grass and bushes in front of us for snakes.

Let's go inside!

It was a lovely light moving through the otherwise kind of grim insides of the houses.

And the view from those windows!

Almost like paintings! With The Black Mountains in the distant.

I would love to have a real photoshoot there with models and everything. That would have been great, I think!

And on the other side of the houses: This. *sigh*

And to think that this would have been their back garden!? Imagine what it would be like to take your morning coffee with you out on the porch, or just sit down on a stump somewhere and breath it all in. Truly amazing.

David tries to grasp the beauty of it.

One of the things I can't resist taking photos of: Ruins and weird stone things covered in vegetation.

And grass/flowers in setting sun. It's like an addiction really; I just have to photograph it!

All of a sudden we had company! By this little fella. He followed us closely for a while but thankfully never touched us. A lot of the dogs around here have been vaccinated and helped by the local dog rescue but not all of them so you can't pet them no matter how adorable they may be.

They are building a gated community for finnish people here. I still really don't understand the point of building communities where only your own countrymen could live. I think it's sad actually.
Maybe there's advantages to this but all I can see is a distancing from other people and why do you wan't to live in another country if you only get too see the same boring people as you do at home? Is it only the warm weather you're after then? If there's something I'm missing here please let me know because this truly baffles me.

At this point we were very warm and tired but not very far from our house.

Just a quick stop at the little shop for something to eat. These shops have everthing you need and also works as restaurants.

After this we got home and I found five really large mosquito bites on my thigh. All of them att the same spot. Almost like they had a little party on my leg without me knowing about it. Isn't that rude!?

On tuesday we went to Monkey Mountain!

I don't really know what I expected but I at least wasn't prepared for how many and unafraid they were!

These two are obviously gossiping.

Hi there, tiny monkey!

One of the tourists bought a bucket of food for the monkeys and all of the animals rattled over the ground like rats and the girl in the middle looked very shocked and even squeezed her eyes closed trying to get away as the monkeys were climbing each other to get to the food. Some monkeys carry rabies so I really don't understand why they do that as a tourist attraction.

We climbed the stairs up to the top.

And admired the view over Hua Hin.

After that Claes' dad took us to a restaurant close by, frequetly visited by thai people but not by so many tourists.

The food was lovely and so was the bright coloured ice tea.

On our way home we stopped by a fruit stand and I bought fruits that I've never seen before. Some of them were amazing and some of them were quite boring. I love buying fruit when I'm in Sweden and even more over here. I could survive on fruit only.

On the afternoon David and I went on a little adventure but that deserves a blog post of it's own so I will show you all about that tomorrow.

Now lets jump straight to dinner on wednesday instead!

We went to one of the pier restaurants. This one had a little bit too much to choose from. Here you can see David struggling with the decision.

The view was lovely. I really can't believe how beautiful Thailand is!

A moment later this guy came to take his boat.

In the evening David and I walked to the little shop close by our house.
Dolly the dog ran ahead but waited for us to catch up. Such a sweetie!

Bird with tassel on it's head sang a tune for us.

KIT KAT!!!

This is just outside the shop. It's in the middle of countryside! Dogs and cows everywhere.

The flower of the day is my favourite thai flower this far. So pretty!

Bye for now and see you all tomorrow again!

/Lotta

On our last day in Bangkok we had a few hours before we had to leave. We started with taking some silhouette photos in front of the big windows.

Us.

Then we went out to get som food. Everywhere in Bangkok there is a crazy amount of electrical wires. It doesn't look very safe but I kind of like the mess.

Sometimes we felt like we were walking around in a film set supposed to look like Bangkok. It's almost too typical.
I love these kinds of streets with lots of stuff going on at the same time.

A car mended with tape. Of course.

A tiny old house sqeezed in between two big, boring new houses. There's a place for everything in Bangkok.

Street cat. Cool cat.

We finally found a restaurant and when they served us our rice they had shaped it into different animals. I got a fish, Claes a turtle and David got this bear.

David is morbid and chopped the head off of his bear.

Then we walked back to our hotel.
So much happening in this photo: The guy with all the eggs to the left, the street food people doing the dishes, lots of different houses, cars and stuff. And then the trees. They pop up everywhere on the sidewalks and sometimes it's really big trees. I love that, it's an enormous city with lots of people and cars but there's still room for trees.

When we got back to the hotel we picked up our bags and waited for the ride to Hua Hin.
Bye bye Bangkok, it's been some really amazing days!

We arrived in Hua Hin in the evening. It was already getting dark, which happens very early in the evening here in Thailand.
We live in a gated community in the country side. It's not what David and I are used to on our trips, it feels so fancy. We have our own house and there's a pool on the area. Thailand is a country with big income inequalities and it becomes apparent here where Thai people guard, drive and wash the foreigners clothes.
Thai people are very service minded and sweet and as a swede I'm used to be doing all these things for myself. I find it hard to really accept these differences but at the same time I know that this is a job for them and they want to work to get an income. Especially now when there are very few tourists here and it's harder to get jobs for them.
It's a tricky question and I struggle with it quite a lot.

Cat on (hot tin) roof.

When we woke up the day after we couldn't wait to see the city of Hua Hin! It's a very nice little town with lots of tiny streets and houses.

And they have a beach!

We haven't been down to the water yet but don't worry, it's coming.

I leave you with this pretty flower. I have been taking many photos of thai flowers during this trip. I love to see all the amazing flora that we haven't got in Sweden.

Okey, this is from the first evening again but I just had to show you some more photos from that amazing sky bar on top of our hotel.
This photo was taken by David and it was almost pitch black at first but after some editing I really like the grainy feel to it.

Cocktails and smiles.

The golden dome.

Aaaah, the view! The sky bar was at the 64th floor and the hotel staff was everywhere around us telling everybody to walk carefully. I was not allowed to stop and take a photo from the top of the stairs because apparently lots of people trip and fall from the strong wind up there so therefore I had to wait with the photographing until I had reached the skybar safely.

Fuzzy kissing with a view.

So, new day!
This guy showed us the way to the boats. When he saw Davids film equipment and my camera he started to talk about film making. He was a real film afficionado and loved the work of Luc Besson. He talked so passionately about cameras, camera angles and how the tecnology today makes it easier for everybody to make movies. He laughed all the time and told us he makes films too. He also told us about the time he had worked at a hotel where Oliver Stone had been working on a movie and he got to help out a bit.
He was really proud of that. Such a sweet heart!

Hello!

Sweaping guy in alley.
I can't believe my luck with this photo. The glistening water on the ground, the man in the middle sweaping and the dark framing. I love it!

Under the bridge.

On the boat! David looking all proffesional in the front of the boat.

Pretty view.

And now follows some photos of houses along the edge of the river. I'm amazed over the different kinds of houses built on top of eachother. Lovely, in my opinion.

I love that people here wave when I take photos of them! That almost never happens in Sweden.

What is everybody looking at?

Ahaa! The giant golden Buddha!

Isn't that indian woman pretty!? I love how she's posing so gracefully in front of the Buddhas enormous feet.

In the temple garden.

We tried to find a quicker way out. It didn't work but we got to see some sleeping people along the way.

I really like that thai people just lay down to sleep wherever they are in the middle of the day. They always put a blanket over their eyes and then just shut out the rest of the world for a while. It looks peaceful.

In the afternoon David and I went to the movies!
We saw Prometheus in 4D. That means 3D plus the chairs are moving, they spray wind and steam/water in your face and there's smoke coming out from the sceen, among other things. We were a bit worried that it would be too much of the moving/splashing thing but it actually worked really well on this film. When the spaceship was flying over a planet the chair moved slowly and it felt as if we were flying for real! And when a head exploded and water got sprayed in my face I screamed out loud thinking for a split second that I had gotten blood all over me.
Before the movie started everybody suddenly stood up. At first we thought the people next to us was leaving before the movie even started but then we realised that everybody was standing because of a "commercial" about the king. It was almost like a music video with clips of the king doing great stuff for the people and lots of happy kids smiling.
As a Swede I can't imagine doing that kind of thing for our king.

After a quick lunch David and I visited the giant electronics market Pantip. It was HUGE! I bought a Bamboo tablet to get my handwriting into my computer easily. You will see soon!

Later in the evening we went to the Red light district. David and Claes are working on a short documentary about ladyboys and prostitution and we went there to film the surroundings. We went in to a bar where young girls in bikinis where dancing on a stage in the middle of the room with numbers on them for the customers to choose. We took a beer and I wanted to drink it as fast as I could because I just couldn't stand to be in there. It was horrible! The girls looked so young (one of them looked like she was about 12 years old, but thai girls look younger than they are so she might have been older) and some of them looked really sad. I just couldn't cope with seeing how the (white) men came in there looking at the girls like they were objects for them to buy. And for them I was the same! No, I most definitely am not! When we got out of there I started to cry. It was really shattering to see this so openly.