Wat Sam Kong Temple

It seems to have been a long time since I blogged a temple. I have a vague plan to blog all the Temples in Phuket, though it could take for ever. A lot of temples in a small area! Some are important, some serve small local communities, some are easy to find, some are hidden away. A couple of weeks ago I visited Sam Kong Temple (Wat Sam Kong) which is only a few km from my house and we've driven past the entrance hundreds of times.

Sam Kong (meaning 3 hills) is in the North East of Phuket Town. The area is an older part of town, and like Kathu just down the road was an important part of the tin mining industry in times past. Like Kathu, many of the locals in this area are Chinese Thais who came to Phuket during the tin mining boom in the 19th century. There is a Chinese Shrine close by too. The Sam Kong temple entrance is about 200m along the bypass road from the Tesco Lotus junction (officially called the Sam Kong junction) towards the main airport road (location on Google Earth).



As usual for a small local temple, not much going on, just a few monks sweeping up leaves. The main building was locked up. A few dogs lazed around the grounds and then all dashed off at once to picked a fight with a visiting stray.





Not a big temple at all, but as always I felt that temple calm despite the 4 lane road a hundred meters away! Flowers had been placed around a tree. The monks had certainly kept the place leaf free. There was a nice lawn in front of the bell tower ("hor rakang" in Thai).





The day before I visited had been Asarnha Bucha Day, one of the most important Buddhist days remembering the first sermon of the Lord Buddha. A few people were still coming to receive blessings.



One of the older monks decided to stop sweeping and have a chat. I think he wanted to practice his English. I asked if he'd been a monk all his life. No! He had never even served as a monk when he was younger. Been too busy getting an education. As far as I could make out he'd worked in the local government in a town in the north of Thailand and now was retired. After working all his life he said he needed some peace and so had come to Wat Sam Kong for 3 months.



After a chat it was time to buy some new brooms from the broom man. Only 20 Baht each.. or maybe that was a temple discount? The temple at Sam Kong is near a busy road, a couple of hundred meters from a shopping mall, only a few miles down the road to Patong Beach. The quiet side of Phuket is never far away.

Event: War of the Worlds

I’m going to take a wee break from chronicling my trip to New York to post about The War of the Worlds.  I went to see the 30th anniversary live show of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds on 20 June, the night before I flew to New York.  Of course, a more diligent blogger would have come right home and blogged about it that night but I trust you won’t judge me too harshly! 

In case you’re wondering what I’m going on about, I’ll give you a brief recap.  In 1898, the infinitely talented H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds.  In 1938, a radio dramatisation of the story led to a mild panic amongst listeners owing to its format of simulated news broadcasts.  I doubt many people truly believed the Martians had landed but in the months before World War II, reports of poisonous gasses and invasion would have been frightening if heard out of context.  In 1978, Jeff Wayne released a musical concept album based on the book.  The double album was about 90 minutes long and it tells through music and song the story of the Martians landing and their attempt to take over Earth.

It begins exactly as the book does: “No one would have believed in…

[press play]

I have to apologise. My simple little point-and-click camera might be okay for photographs but it takes shocking videos of limited length.  If you did listen to the clip above, you may have recognised the opening chords.  This version is actually quite famous.

For me personally, this was a very exciting event.  I’ve been a fan of this version for so many years that I know the entire double album off by heart and was absolutely thrilled to have the chance to see it performed live.

 

They had a full orchestra and Jeff Wayne himself conducted.  He received such a loud applause when he walked out onto the stage.  You can just see him there on the screen above.

  

The story is narrated by The Journalist and was originally performed by Richard Burton on the 1978 album.  His image was computer generated during the performance and his original narration used.  Justin Hayward performed the parts of The Journalist that were sung.  I almost fainted when I saw him there on stage (luckily I was seated).  This wonderful man was the lead singer of the Moody Blues and his voice is still really good.  There were actors playing the roles of The Artillery Man, Parson Nathaniel, The Parson’s Wife Beth, Carrie and the Voice of Humanity too. 

Look! Justin Hayward!  Sorry, I was a bit too far away to get decent photos of the cast.

It’s probably worth mentioning that I refused to watch Tom Cruise’s film on principal.  I’m just not a fan of Tom Cruise, his Mickey Mouse voice, the fact that he broke Nicole Kidman’s heart or the fact that they took my beloved War of the Worlds and set it in the modern day.  So this was the first time I’ve seen a proper model of the Martian fighting machine and it was awesome!

I took my brother along with me because Stephen had no idea what it was all about.  We had a fantastic night and I loved the performance so much that I’d certainly consider going again. If I have a spare £50 lying around and they come to the UK.

In the meantime, I’m going to Mika on Friday (Ste likes him and I won tickets) and both Pixies and Shpongle in October.  It’ll be the second time I see both those bands.

New York day 3: Circle Line Cruise

On Tuesday morning I got up nice and early and went through to Pier 83 on West 42nd Street. If you want to take a Circle Line Cruise, I'd recommend booking ahead of time at the Circle Line website or using your CityPass which you already bought yesterday on my say so.  I’d also recommend checking the schedules online as the option I decided to go on, the semi-circle 2 hour cruise, only runs twice a day at 11:30am and 3:30pm.

The Hudson River

The Intrepid at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum

After finding myself a nice seat, the boat pulled out of the pier. 

Ventilation shafts for the Lincoln Tunnel

Chelsea Piers where all episodes of Law and Order are filmed

The boat goes really, really fast so it is hard to take photos.  In addition, the boat is obviously tipped at an angle as it speeds along so I had to come home and adjust the tilt of every single picture I took! 

The hole left in downtown Manhattan where the World Trade Centre used to stand

Eight years ago, this photograph would have been dominated by the towering giants of the World Trade Centre.  In fact, I would have had to reduce my zoom to fit them into the picture.  How very sad.

[Click on the photos for enlargements]

Today, the best way to locate Ground Zero is to look for the cranes as they rebuild the World Trade Centre.  I went to visit there on the last day of my trip so more about that later.

Once again, the spirit of New Yorkers moved me as the guide on the tour told stories not of bitterness but of triumph and achievement as he described the events of 9/11 and beyond. 

Ellis Island

The Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island

The East River

The Staten Island Ferry

I loved the story of the Staten Island Ferry!

“With $100 borrowed from his parents, Cornelius Vanderbilt purchased a periauger (a flat-bottomed sailing barge) and began a ferry service between Staten Island and Manhattan. He repaid the hundred dollars one year later. By then he had earned a profit of $1,000. Eventually, his ferry service became known as the Staten Island Ferry, which is still in operation today” - source

The Financial District

Among the buildings you can see above are: 1 Financial Square (the silver and black glass building with graded corners), 120 Wall Street (the limestone stepped building), the Continental Centre (the green glass building).

The Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge

The Watchtower Building

The Watchtower Building in Brooklyn Heights is for sale if you'd like to buy the old Jehovah's Witnesses' headquarters.

Excuse me while I indulge my weakness for bridges.  The Brooklyn Bridge is above and the Manhattan Bridge is below.

The exquisitely ugly Williamsburg Bridge and the Domino Sugar Refinery

View of Midtown Manhattan with Stuyvesant Town in foreground.

Tudor City with the United Nations to the right

Another view of the beautiful Tudor City

At this point, the boat turns around and continues back the way it came. I was a little chilly by that stage so I got a famous New York pretzel and a cup of hot chocolate. The Circle Line Cruise is a long cruise and two hours is a big chunk out of your day in New York (especially if the second half is a repeat of the first half). I would rather recommend a tour that goes from one point to another than spending an hour going back the way you have just come. Perhaps then it would be best to take the three hour Circle Line cruise and then use your CityPass for the Statue of Liberty rather.

At about half past one I finally hit land again and with slightly wobbly legs, decided to head off to the Museum of Modern Art.

The Phuket Photo Walk

Saturday July 18th was the day of the "Phuket Photo Walk", part of the World Photo Walk, with groups of photographers getting together all on the same day to take photos of their town or city. According to the Worldwide Photo Walk website, there were 900 walks with over 30,000 participants. I had seen the walk advertised in the Phuket Gazette the week before, so logged in to the website to sign up for the Phuket walk. I am a total photo amateur, but I like taking photos and this blog is always quite image oriented as I am a firm believer that a picture is worth a thousand words. Although that might depend on who is writing. Maybe Wordsworth could compete with a photo, but my prose tends to be less poetic, so I rely on photos.



I had no idea what to expect on Saturday. All the photographers were to meet at Cafe 154, Royal Phuket City Hotel in Phuket Town at 9am. I was expecting a whole bunch of pros with huge lenses. I was worried I'd be feeling a bit inadequate, but was happy to see that most looked like normal folks who just like taking photos and I saw several familiar faces. Phuket is not so big, so if you've been here a few years you tend to know quite a few other residents. There were only a few really fancy cameras around. I have a Canon EOS 20D, which is now a few years out of date. I saw an assortment of Canons and Nikons and even a Hasselblad. I think most of us attending were hoping to learn a few things from this walk. This was the first time I tried using the RAW format for taking pictures rather than just recording jpg images. RAW images do not convert the data received by the sensor, so can be manipulated to create just the right photo. They also take up acres of memory!

 

The walk leader was Kim Khamzin, a proper pro photographer with a huge lens. He lives in Phuket and takes a lot of photos with models. You can check out his photos on Flickr: Phuket Photo Project. It took a while for everyone to gather and then we took the group photo, had a little chat and set off towards old Phuket Town which is always good for photography. It's a couple of blocks from the Royal Phuket City Hotel to the old town. Phuket town is not huge, easy to walk around, I never seem to get bored with camera in hand.



Once we reached the clock tower at the corner of Phuket Road and Phang Nga Road, we all went off our separate ways, although over the course of the next couple of hours we bumped into each other around the old town. It was a sunny morning, we were lucky with the weather as it had been rather wet during the week. Everyone took different routes around town. I think most headed directly to the old town, whereas I detoured a couple of blocks south to a street called Soi Taling Chan where you can find a Chinese Shrine, a Mosque and a Catholic Church within a couple of minutes walk.

 

If you have a camera and want to see something of the real Phuket, not the tourist beaches.. get to Phuket Town, take a walk. I had an enjoyable couple of hours wandering, crossing paths with other photographers, stopping for drinks in cafes (it was a hot morning), sampling temples, old Chinese shops and getting plenty of smiles...



 



A few of my favourite pictures from the walk... These doors are on Soi Romanee, a little street in the heart of old town.

 





(Update) The photo above has been reprinted in the Phuket Gazette hardcopy edition this week - see a photo on my Twitpic page.



Many more photos on my Flickr page. I signed up for Flickr a few years ago and had not uploaded anything for over 2 years until this week! Click on the second link for the group page on Flickr for the Phuket photo group, most of the recent photos are from Saturdays walk. There were about 40 people in all, some locals and some resident foreigners. There's a good mix of photos on the Flickr group - it's always interesting to see how different people view the same subject, the photos show what different photographers find interesting.

• My Phuket Photo Walk Photos on Flickr
• Phuket Photo Flickr Group
• Phuket Photo Walk Video on Youtube

After about 2 hours, a bit before midday, I was getting hot and headed back to Cafe 154. On a hot day in Phuket, I do like to see signs saying "Special: Draft Heineken 99 Baht". Yes, please!



As everyone drifted back to the cafe, there was a general passing around of cameras to compare photos and ideas, and it was decided to have another meet up on the 30th July at Cafe 154, Royal Phuket City Hotel starting at 7 - 7:30pm. If you are in Phuket and interested in photography or just want to chat with people who live here, do come along. Kim has asked people to bring CDs or USB sticks with their "best" photos to the meeting. It should be a good chance to learn something, or at the very least a good chance to drink draft Heineken :)

A few more pictures from Saturday...





 

And finally, I saw this little fortune sticker on a small shrine outside a house in the old town. I'll settle for happy.