Thailand is a bit of a blur. I’ve now forgotten the first moments after our arrival at Suvarnabhumi Airport, but my memory picks up the story is on our drive into Bangkok, where we were shuttled into the city via private car with Jen’s parents.
Snapping myself out of the post-flight daze, I was suddenly struck by the realization that we had been driving on the highway past very tall buildings for at least 10 minutes already and we were still far from our destination. I knew intellectually that Bangkok was a big city, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me what that meant. My standard for a city at that moment was still New York City, whose skyline is the most impressive in the US.
But Bangkok is much, much bigger than NYC. By comparison, in fact, the boroughs of New York seem a bit quaint. This initial impression of the size of the city never quite left me alone throughout the short trip, where my mind could barely stitch together a directional logic to tie together the brief glimpses of tiny corners we saw. I eventually gave up, telling myself to forget about trying to wrap my arms around it, you’d have to live there for decades to begin to comprehend.
I spent a lot of our time waiting around for buses snapping long exposure shots of tuk-tuks and scooters. This was one of my favorites.