The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

Samut Songkran is about an hour's drive from my house.  It is the home of the famous Floating Market - a tourist favorite.  There are actually three major floating markets in the Samut Songkran region.  There were literally thousands of people there . . . but I only saw three real foreign tourists all day. Apparently the recent troubles in Thailand have scared the tourists away.  That is a shame.  The Floating Market is a really beautiful and fantastically interesting place to spend the afternoon

The Floating Market is actually a real functional local market built along both sides of an estuarial canal with sales being made both from the old wooden shops that line the canal, and directly from the boats that ply the canal with goods from the farms and sea.

The Floatng Market, though popular with tourists, is a living market.

Life in Thailand as it has been for thousands of years.

A traditional klong (canal) boat and boatman in traditional clothing.

The town of Samut Songkran is estuarial, so seafood finds its way easily to the grills of the boat vendors.

Timeless river trading -- the easiest way to move goods from source to market.

The shops that line the canal are old.  Many are kept in beautiful Old Thai style. This one is actually a "Home Stay" hotel.

Many beautiful touches of beauty adorned the homes.

A young Thai Tom Sawyer.

Everything from gnarly fruit . . . . . .

. . . to steamed fish . . .

. . . to grilled squid . . .

. . . to colored cotton candy in plastic cups was for sale at the Samut Songkran Floating Market.

Frangipani flowers appear in clusters.

They unfurl like a flag.

When new, they have a texture like torn paper.

Frngipanis are wonderfully symmetrical.

The symmetry leads to a secret world.

A secret world of light and fragrance.

The fragrance of the frangipani can fill your whole yard with a sweet breeze.

The frangipani holds the perfect olfactory memory of the equatorial tropics for me.

They smell like love gone.

Flower photos from my recent Lopburi week-end.

Hibiscus.

A bird of paradise back lit from a setting sun.

A flower with obvious extraterrestrial origins.

Pollination happens.

Succulents abound.

The lotus flower is ever-present in Thailand.

Lovely.

Orange beauty.

Red flower clusters back lit in by the early morning light.

Flowers in the Funeral Parlor Flower Market (FPFM).

I love these small upcountry Thai market towns like Lopburi.

A nice park to pic-nic while giving your childern a peek into the afterlife.

With the recent political problems have come some nice agitprop street art.

Images of women.

They love their "Jazz King" in Thailand.

Lopburi is the home of the Continuous Potato Chip [singular].

Spent the week-end in Lopburi, Thailand -- an easy 90 minute drive north of Bangkok.  Very pleasant . . . and interesting!

Parts of Lopburi, around the Monkey Temple, are completely overrun with monkeys. A photographers' paradise!

Casual city dwelling monkeys.

Monkeys here . . . . .

. . . monkeys there . . . .

. . . monkeys everywhere!

And I do mean EVERYWHERE!

A wonderful old Buddha near the Lopburi Monkey Temple site.

Centuries of worshipers' gold leaf has nearly obscured the Buddha statue's detail. This Buddha statue is in a long room with a very bright red ceiling along with tall windows down each side, giving it this interesting redish glow.

New gold leaf added every day to all the Buddha images in the Wat (Buddhist Temple).

I bought a bracelet to wear for the next month -- to remember the day and the spirit of the Monkey Temple.

. . . .  and one for the private home.