34. Muang Boran, Thailand May '99

After returning from Japan, we just took a couple of weekend trips from Bangkok over the next couple of months, the first of which was to Muang Boran, or "Ancient City". Muang Boran has tourist trap written all over it, and the idea, of recreating Thailand's most famous sights all in one park (shaped like a map of Thailand no less) makes me cringe. Almost every country has some such silly attraction, and I've always laughed at the idea, yet here I am, about to say something nice about the place. Somchai was taking a photography course and was assigned to take photos from the park, so that forced me to overcome my innate aversion. I must say it's a pretty entertaining day out. The place is huge, and has something like 150 monuments recreated, pretty authentically too. It also comes with a big dollop of homespun Buddhist wisdom, as the owner explains his motivations for sinking huge amounts of money into this project that will never break even. I'm still not clear on the motivation, something about reversing the world's moral decline and promoting world peace. While it doesn't make sense, it sounds nice and let's you feel a bit less like a trapped tourist.

I once met this guy on an airplane who lived in Florida. He saw my thick passport and got him talking (and talking and talking) about travel, and he boasted that he never had a passport. Why? Because he lives near Epcot Center, so why travel when he can just get in the car and see all the world's countries in one place! Muang Boran sells itself along the same lines, i.e. see all of Thailand without the travel, but that's a terrible reason to go. But do go if your photography professor assigns you the job of photographing it, or, more generally, if you want to spend a day wandering around pretty buildings in a nice setting. It's an easy drive from Bangkok, so it's easy to do your part in reversing the world's moral decline.