19 December 2017. Last day in Champasak

As this was my last day in Champasak and the next three days would be spent making my way to Hong Kong, I decided to have a relaxed day pottering around the town.
I spent some time visiting the nearby Wat
It was filled with the noise of the strimmer outside and smoke from the little bonfire.

Then I made my way along the road with its colourful gardens
to the very laid back Champasak with Love guest house and restaurant for a ginger tea and later some lunch. The large boat that had been moored off the tourist office and that I think belonged to La Folie was slowly making its way along the river.


The afternoon was an opportunity for a last lengthy sit contemplating the Mekong -

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

27 November 2017, Day at the National Gallery Singapore

Image
The National Gallery of Singapore was on the verge of opening last time I was here two years ago. It is an amazing triumph, fusing the old Supreme Court sand City Hall. The Supreme Court has three floors of galleries devoted to South East Asian Art. The City Hall houses temporary exhibitions as well as the Galleries of Singapore Art. Frankly is was more than a day's worth of viewing. Quite apart from the art in the galleries, there is the architecture of the building(s) and the views from the decks at the top. I started with the South East Asia galleries. This is a chronological exhibition, starting from the early nineteenth century. So everything was in the context of a Western intrusion in some shape or form. The first galleries showed early art by Asian artists or Western artists on Asia with the former keen to produce the sort or art wanted by westerners, For example, The story then moved to art that was more in protest against colonialism such...
Read more

25 December 2017. Artless in Kowloon

Image
So, I had arrived at my last day. Having checked in my bag at Central, I took the Star Ferry to Kowloon, planning to spend a couple of hours in the art gallery. It is part of a 'South Bank' type complex and first of all I visited the concert hall. This had an exhibition of art by students that was a mix of calligraphy and figurative work. That proved to be almost it on the art front. The gallery had closed not long after my last visit - in August 2015 and was due to open early in 2019. It struck me as a bit like closing both the National Gallery and Tate for four years. But there we are! Outside there were a couple of interesting sculptures and so they had to suffice for my artistic input. So instead I set off for a wander around Kowloon taking in the Park that was full of groups of ladies having a Christmas Day get together. After that, I went to the Jade Market and the large Tin Hau temple with its amazing figures. In one of the rooms, a group of mo...
Read more

26 November 2017. Dusting down memories and the Harbour Front.

Image
I set off in the morning planning to cover some of the ground of my last visit. This took me to St Andrews Church and then the National Art Gallery. On the Green opposite the Gallery (and that also looked like the ground for the Cricket Club), a football competition - The Asia Cup, was taking place. The pitches looked like a quagmire and wouldn't be great for cricket for  while. I carried on via the Arts House and Victoria Theatre. The Riverside is very pretty and home to sculptures representing the old Singapore. . There is also an installation of modern sound-emitting sculptures outside the Asian Civilizations Museum. There seemed to be a Graduation Ceremony nearby and the Cavenagh Bridge provided a good photographic backdrop for pictures.  I then went down to the Telok Ayer area, looking in at some of the Temples and ex-Temples along the road, including Fuk Tak Chi, a Chinese temple. I wan...
Read more