Island days - Thailand...

(All Photos by Tavarua)

"Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness”

- Kahil Gibran

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”

-Albert Einstein

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” - Kahil Gibran

Thai Silk - "The Legendary American" - Jim Thompson

(All Photos by Tavarua)

"The legendary American", the man who created the still existing Jim Thompson Thai Silk Company. A former OSS intelligence officer and architect.  In 1948 he had established himself as a silk distributor.

He collected  Asian objets d’art at a time when few westerners had the fascination for Asian antiques. His home now a museum located on the bank of the Saen Saeb Canal.

 6 Soi Kasemsan 2, Rama 1 Road, Bangkok.

The first weavers of the Jim Thompson silk brand were the villagers at Ban Krua..

Frank Crowinshield the former editor to Vanity Fair arranged for Thompson to meet Edna Woolman Chase - at the time the editor for Vogue - she was the authority in the world of fashion.  Soon after their meeting Thai Silk was photographed for Vogue.

Jim Thompson House is six traditional Thai teak wood houses which were transported from Ayutthaya and Bangkok’s Ban Krua community.

After his mysterious disappearance in the Malaysian jungle in 1967 - his home with its collections were donated to the people of Thailand by his nephew.

East meets West - Italian marble floors.

East meets West - He had Belgian Chandeliers in the ceilings of his house.

Where will life take you??? I am in Thailand...

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

- Theodore Roosevelt

Early Morning - Life is Good

Tavarua - Thailand June 2013

Burmese Python

Black Scorpion

A few minutes prior to this photo - two black scorpions stung one of the hands of the man below...Not a word was spoken...No face expression...Silence...

Scorpion stings are painful, equal to a large hornet. The symptoms from these black forest scorpions should abate within a few hours.

The physical "battle scars" after a life long experience among  king cobras and other reptiles - this man stated that he had been bitten by snakes 287 times  - the picture tells it all. Both arms, legs and head had definitely enough scares.

Cobra