CLICK ON ANY OF THESE IMAGES FOR A FREE STREAMING SUBSCRIPTION OF HYLAND, a digital lifestyle magazine featuring residential decoration, design, architecture, art, travel, fashion, cuisine, good works and reflections.
Issue link: http://digital.hylandmagazine.com/i/117839
blond ferong and her little daughter. My daughter was oblivious, but I learned to smile at them and they would often giggle back to me. But, I, too, had something to look at. How could every bus driver have a facial mole with a 6 inch piece of hair growing from it? How could everyone have one fingernail so long that it curled around like a land snail? The white buses are long gone and now the Sky Train offers no such mysteries. If the buses have given way to the Sky Train, the Chao Phrya River has not succumbed to such a fate. It cuts through Bangkok and now, as then, teems with barges, houseboats, lighters, longtail boats, floating markets and taxis. It supports hotels, restaurants, temples and wats, villages, houses and farms. It is the one place where one can observe so much of what is Thai life and culture. It reveals to me that Bangkok is at once a new and bustling city and yet a city full of the past. Each visit lets me savor both. H Susan B. Edmands returned from SE Asia and worked for many years as an executive in the consulting industry with a focus on the chemical industry while she raised her family and served on the boards of several chemical associations. She restored two antique houses in Connecticut where she built stone walls, refurbished the abandoned gardens and refinished most of the furniture. She has been involved with the First Step Job Training Program for many years as a mentor and advisor. When she is not visiting with her six grandchildren, she and her husband visit SE Asia as often as possible, where, as she says, her soul resides. HYLAND