A Sense of Calmness
My time in Ban Panthom had been quite peaceful and quiet so far. Spending most of my last seven days here to understand the relationship between the people and places, and recording vernacular timber buildings as part of the international field school was interesting as well as challenging. Due to the calmness of this place and the smiling faces of the residents, I wanted to spend more time in Ban Panthom and enjoy the cool breeze and shade alongside the canal.
The narrow alleyways in Ban Panthom had been the most interesting for me. During my travels, I have forever been fascinated with alleys and activities that occur around them. A sense of mystery could be easily felt in these hidden spaces in the city. In my view, these exciting spaces tell the truthful tale of a city than most overrated tourist spots. Hence, I make sure to record them in my camera or sketchbook.
Due to its calmness and proximity to Khao San Road (tourist hot spot), several cafes could be found around the Ban Panthom area. To experience how it feels to be a tourist in Bangkok, at the end of our first day of fieldwork, I decided to try the bookshop+ café, Passport Bookshop that was very close to our study area.
I must say that I was very impressed by the shop. It has all the ingredients of a great bookshop – good coffee; fine collection of books for sale and free-to-read; and of course, nice ambience. Most books were in Thai, although some were bilingual and in English books too.
It was raining heavily when I visited this bookshop with some of my fellow participants of the field school, so we had coffee and read a while waiting for others to arrive. We used their upper floor for our field school discussions for around two hours and later we all finally headed to our respective accommodations. While waiting for our van to drop us back to our place, I wrote few postcards to myself and my friends! Thanks to our awesome instructor who bought a pack of postcard for us (which I think was a sweet gesture). Hopefully people receiving my cards would like them. I recently picked up this rather interesting (at least to me) habit of mailing postcards to myself from different places I visit. I sometimes even print my digital photographs and post them as postcards to myself. It makes the entire process more meaningful and memories of my travels more lasting.
Even today when I think of Ban Panthom, I feel calmness inside me. Wish I could experience its cool breeze; a walk along the canal; the warmth of the locals; good coffee with great books; or just relax and watch people passing by on the road.