Optical illusion as an art form in Korat
Every time we (volunteer) work at the House of Mercy Foundation, we also make time for ourselves. We usually go over three weeks. Two weeks for work and then less than a week for sightseeing in Thailand. Can all the experiences sink in and we will at least come home somewhat rested. This year Henny and I settled in Nakhon Ratchasima or Korat.
We decided to turn the last day of the holiday into a museum day. We had seen a brochure on the hotel desk of some kind of art exhibition: Arts of Korat. It was also on our map. Since we never had a map with the songtheaw lines, we always have to ask which songtheaw to have. We don't speak Thai and we are therefore dependent on the English of the addressee.
The lady at the bus station was very helpful. She parked us on a chair in the waiting area and after about ten minutes she brought us to a songtheaw. It left immediately and at the first exit it already went in the wrong direction according to our map. Na a few hundred meters we got out, kindly thanked and paid the driver and stopped a random songtheaw.
The driver of that put us on the right songtheaw. Every bend and turn following our map we came in the right direction. But …. all of a sudden he turned and took another street, went to fill up somewhere and we were lost. Asked the driver, but he couldn't read a card.
We started walking at random, but we soon had enough of that. So we rang the doorbell somewhere. Explained and showed what we wanted on the card and folder. The woman understood us and told us how to walk in Tenglish, but we didn't understand that. But she had the solution: she called her husband, who led the car and took us to the museum: down the street, turn left and after a few hundred meters we were at our destination. We thanked him and his wife very much, of course.
When we arrived at the museum, we were welcomed with great respect. We paid and were asked to take off our shoes and were given cloth slippers instead. In a temple you also have to take off your shoes, so we didn't find it very strange. But we hadn't received slippers at any temple yet.
We were invited to visit the museum with a wave of the arm. They are all rooms with murals. Sometimes they continued on the floor: hence shoes off and slippers on. Near each painting was a mark on the ground. A photo of how you could capture the painting on film hung nearby.
One or more people were always missing from the painting. The intention was that one of the visitors would stand in the painting and that the other visitor would take a picture from the marking. The unfinished painting was well lit, so you could (and should) work without flash. Fantastic.
We were the only visitors and had a great time photographing each other for a few hours. The paintings are made by Thai artists.
Submitted by Adelbert Hesseling