CHA'AM, CHA'ILL

While Fee met with a scholarly monk a few weekends ago, Kevin snuck out to the beach.
Kevin was unashamedly tagging along a weekend trip to Cha'am, about 2.5 hours south of BKK, with a group of friends of a friend. The core of the group graduated in the same architecture cohort from Silipakorn University, the top arts school in Thailand, and most all were coworkers at Art4d magazine, as well as practicing architects and photographers.

The primary focus of the one-night trip was certainly food - a trip to the local seaside market turned into an umpteen-dish feast, which covered two picnic tables on the deck of a very po-mo orange and green beachside house. The eating and drinking and talking went on long into the night. And Kevin realized just how cryptic inside jokes can be, especially when delivered in rapid-fire, call-and-response, slang-heavy Thai. In such times, one learns to laugh simply at others' laughter.


With quite a number of serious photographers in the bunch, there were several periods of photomaking. One, late Saturday night, involved long-exposure 'writing' with flashlights (see the magazine name above, kevin is the 4); another, a long, slightly hung-over group session on the beach before heading back to BKK Sunday afternoon.