Friday, November 30, 2007

Bangkok, Thailand

The Buddhist temples here are so cool to just stare at, I took many pics of these



The statues all throughout these places were awesome



Amazing - it was so peaceful here



The various poses of the Buddha



Just to give a little scale to how big the inside of these temples were



View from one end of a city street; the area I was staying in was a nice, slower part of Bangkok



As I was wandering one of the neighborhoods, I kept hearing this "whoop! whoop!" sound. When I went to investigate, I found that someone had a pet monkey!



There are lots of cool little bars and outdoor patio areas like this to kick it at



There are friggin 7-11s everywhere throughout Bangkok.....seriously......everywhere



This is the public transportation system in Bangkok: an open-bed truck with a tarp over the top.......they call it a bus - I almost got killed on one of these.



There are also hot pink taxis everywhere. It's really hard to be cool in one of these.



Backstreet to one of the neighborhoods I wandered into.



Yet another humongous temple that I strolled past. I couldn't stay here too long though cuz there was a pack of wild dogs just mugging me and for some reason my Dog Whisperer trick wouldn't work.



Caught a shot of this kid feeding these gigantic fish in the river



Also headed up to the top of the state towers, which had such an amazing view of the city



What a view, and the scotch was so cheap here!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Charmenar, India

Made it out to Charmenar to see the palace, the mosque, and the Hindu temple.....palace is below



View from the roof of the palace - yes, there really are that many people on a given street here



I strolled down on of these back streets to see what was going on and I got mobbed by a swarm of people asking me for everything from money to getting a picture taken with me........crazy shit.



The local hospital just behind the open market



The buses here drive like they're competing at Le Mans or something



And I damn sure ain't getting on one of these tuk-tuks; these things are powered by lawn mower engines....sometimes I see like 15 people crowded into one of these!



Also hit up the largest mosque in India; over ten thousand people gather here for prayer on Friday afternoons



Ventured inside of the mosque - I had to take my shoes off (what a risk taker huh?)



The locals actually let me inside of the temple to take a pic (that's not me on the left though). I got blessed too, which was pretty cool. Glad I did that.



The size of this place was really impressive.



Then made it out to a Hindu temple. This place was so beautiful - made entirely out of Italian and German marble.



Unfortunately they wouldn't let any cameras or cell phones inside, so I only got a few shots from the outside. This temple was so peaceful, I could have stayed there for hours.



Shot of the temple at night.



And of course, I've been hitting up the buffets at the Marriott, the Sheraton, the Taj Krishna; this is the entrance to the Sheraton.



Nice little view of the pool while eating out on the patio.



I didn't even bother with getting the regular food - had to cut straight to the good stuff.



The calm before the storm, things are seconds away from getting serious

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Singapore (back at it again)

As most know, I'm out on my next adventure....first off, there's no other way to fly than Singapore Airlines - talk about service. These guys know how to treat passengers right, and the airbuses are really spacious.



Singapore International Airport is friggin huge! There's a mall, food courts, a hotel, a movie theater, bars, a massage parlor, and armed military men walking around with big ass machine guns (I opted not to take a picture of them).



There's a lot of foliage in Singapore, which makes this place really easy on the eyes.



I was told that the government looks at Singapore as a country within a garden. It looked like this everywhere I went.



Singapore has an "Eye of Singapore," which they clearly ripped from my homies in London - c'mon guys - strive to be original.



The skyline here is phenomenal though; I understand this whole "four tigers of the east" deal now.



This place is so clean it's crazy - I started feeling guilty just walking around and leaving footprints behind me.



It's highly impressive how developed this country is. I didn't realize there was such economic momentum here.



Took a stroll through the city, a really safe place. And of course, more trees.



The downtown is particularly impressive. There are literally towers in all directions.......and there's a statue of some random Brit on the right......brilliant!



Jumped on a little boat and started out on a cruise down the river.



Singapore is ultra humid. For a hot minute I thought I was gonna jump in the water, but as you can see by the color, I decided against that.



There's a really cool little "on the river" culture here (kind of reminded me of Amsterdam). All those tents in the distance are little bar/chill areas.



A shot of downtown from the river.



More shots of the river front life - nice place to have a cold brew.



I was drenched from the humidity at this point. Had to step out and have a Foster's, which is clearly the beer of choice in the east.



Shot from across the way of the Government Assembly building.



There was development happening all over the place here; I haven't seen this many cranes since I was in Dublin!



A picture of the MerLion, which is the "mascot" of Singapore. Top half is a lion, bottom half is a mermaid.........I didn't ask.



All in all, Singapore is pretty tight.