Good buddy Python Pete wrote to me with a suggestion a few weeks ago.\u00a0 His comment and idea was that I probably had thousands of photos (which I do) and I probably had a few favorites (which I do).\u00a0 His suggestion was to share those here on the ExNotes blog. I thought that was a sterling idea.<\/p>\n
I shot the photo you see above on a sultry night in Bangkok’s Arab district (every night is sultry in Bangkok).\u00a0 The street is unofficially called Soi Arab; officially it’s Sukhumvit Soi 3\/1.\u00a0 That road (and sidestreets off it) are lined with Middle Eastern restaurants, a cuisine I love.<\/p>\n
Bangkok’s Arab district attracts many folks from the Middle East partly due to its proximity to those countries, partly due to a vibrant nightlife, and partly due to a world class hospital that treats people from that part of the world.\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 I was in town to teach a couple of engineering courses and enjoy Bangkok. It’s one of the world’s great cities.\u00a0 Take it from me:\u00a0 Never say no to an opportunity to visit Bangkok.<\/p>\n
So as I liked to do, I walked to Soi Arab and sat down at a sidewalk cafe and\u00a0 ordered a plate of hummus and chips.\u00a0 While I was enjoying my dinner a group of several Middle Eastern types entered and sat at a nearby table.\u00a0 All but one were burly guys dressed in dark business suits.\u00a0 The exception was an elegant older gentleman dressed in traditional Arab garb.\u00a0 Distinguished would be an appropriate but not quite adequate adjective.\u00a0 \u00a0Majestic would be more on the mark.<\/p>\n
I kept stealing glances at this fellow, thinking it would be great to grab a picture.\u00a0 I guess I was a little too obvious.\u00a0 I noticed a couple of the dark suiters with him (obvious security types) were looking directly me.\u00a0 One of them stood up and walked over to me.<\/p>\n
“Uh oh,” I thought.<\/p>\n
“Is there a problem?” the man asked.<\/p>\n
“Uh, well, no,” I said with mixed emotions.\u00a0 I wanted to get what I knew would be a great photo, but I also wanted to continue breathing.\u00a0 “It’s like this,” I said, “I’m an amateur photographer and your principal would make for a very dramatic image.\u00a0 I don’t wish to offend or insult, but I’m wondering if there’s any way I could take a picture of your distinguished protectee.”\u00a0 As I said it I realized how stupid that sounded.\u00a0 Anyone who travels with bodyguards doesn’t want to be photographed.\u00a0 But the words were out there.\u00a0 The words “rendition” and “beheading” crossed my mind.<\/p>\n
The security guy looked at me.\u00a0 He didn’t know what to think (I’m told I sometimes have that effect on people).\u00a0 He walked back to his table and leaned over to whisper to the man you see above.\u00a0 The flowing headdress turned my way, I saw a smile and he motioned me over to his table.\u00a0 I had my Nikon and I got the photo you see above in a single shot.\u00a0 I have no idea who he is, why he was in town, or exactly where he was from, but that photo is one of my all time favorites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good buddy Python Pete wrote to me with a suggestion a few weeks ago.\u00a0 His comment and idea was that I probably had thousands of photos (which I do) and I probably had a few favorites (which I do).\u00a0 His suggestion was to share those here on the ExNotes blog. I thought that was a … Continue reading “Phavorite Photos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[96],"tags":[2003,2002,2001,2004,903],"class_list":["post-12925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-good-stuff","tag-arab-district","tag-bangkok","tag-favorite-photo","tag-soi-arab","tag-thailand"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/DSC7759-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12925"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12935,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12925\/revisions\/12935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}