View of Wat Phra Singh, chiang Mai, Thailand
SOLD, mixed media on paper, 8" x 10"

At first, Raja wanted to commission a drawing of rusting war artillery in Vietnam, but his wife Sarah convinced him that a drawing of temples in Chiang Mai, Thailand would look better in their house.

While Lauren went to a cooking class one day, I sat outside Wat Phra Singh with my sketchbook. I started with water color, then added more details with pencils and markers. It was a sunny day and the sun gleamed off the tops of the Wat's spires, so I incorporated gold foil from a Beer Chang bottle into the picture.

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Teen Muay Thai fighter | Photo by Lauren Girardin

Todd and I leave the calm, historic back alleys of old Chiang Mai and head through the ancient city walls and over the moat to a part of the city where the vibe ramps up a notch. Loi Kroh Road is a nightlife zone teeming with people busily indulging their vices, exuding the same desperate nonchalance as high school kids sneaking a smoke between classes.

What you want, Chiang Mai's got, whether it's mini-skirted, fake-boobed, pool-hustling hookers; the lulling kneading of a three dollar foot massage; a new wardrobe of cheap designer knock offs; a gluttonous street cart meal of guoy jub, pad see ew, and papaya salad; or the sad familiarity of a Big Mac.

Right now, we're in the mood for violence.

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And Kala Devours it All, Bangkok, Thailand
SOLD, mixed media on paper, 8" x 10"

When my friend Travis commissioned a drawing of Bangkok, Thailand, he gave me an interesting assignment:

"What I remember best about traveling is observing the commotion of these places packed with other people going about their lives, but somehow feeling apart from it all, taking it in but not having to abide by the same daily routines or the shackles of time and place."

"I like the idea of the anonymous throngs of people in habitual motions against the backdrop of places, sights or scenes that a traveler or visitor would consider less ordinary."

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Immense brass Buddha-ish head | Photo by Lauren Girardin

For most people, Bangkok is their first encounter with Southeast Asia. The months-ago closing of Thailand's southern Pattaya airport due to political protests made Todd and I wary of banking on Bangkok as our way out of India. When Bangkok's airport was barricaded, and all transportation in Thailand was bogged down soon after we landed in our alternative port, Saigon, Vietnam, we felt like the smartest travelers this side of the Tropic of Capricorn.

So, instead of flying into Thailand, we're on a thirteen-hour tin can mini-van ride from Cambodia. We don't feel so much smart as dehydrated.

Crossing the Cambodia-Thailand border is a scene change as extreme as rounding a corner between San Francisco's Tenderloin district and Union Square, a move that takes you from hop scotching around the Tenderloin's bruise-dotted meth heads, and piles and puddles of unmentionables, into Union Square's waves of tourists freezing in ill-advised shorts, and mammoth chain stores and restaurants.

It turns out that we have a bit of the Tenderloin with us on our border crossing. And unfortunately, that bit is driving our mini-van.

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Sad Puppy - $5, marker on paper, 9.5" x 6"

After a family wedding in Newark, Ohio, Lauren and I were ready to go home. We didn't realize it would take 14 hours to get there.

How much entertainment can one squeeze out of the SkyMall catalog and an in-flight magazine?

Good thing I brought my sketchbook.

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Biggest basket, really more just a building though| Photo by Lauren Girardin

Miss us?

Blame some intense family time, the social insanity that is San Francisco in August, and the pressure of of searching for a job during a recession – but we must apologize for the recent lack of storytelling here on Ephemerratic. We'll take you back to our global road-trip adventures soon enough, but first, we have to interrupt for a more recent excursion to Ohio.

That's right. Ohio. Land of the um, cornfields. Home of the...cornfields.

For city folk like Todd and I, Ohio is a sort of kind of travel adventure. It may not carry the exotic allure of Thailand – which we're about to launch into stories about – but there's something very foreign about Ohio.

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Sign at Angkor Park | Photo by Lauren Girardin

Before Todd and I left on our round-the-world trip, we debated whether or not we wanted to visit certain countries, concerned that money we spent would help support a repressive government or military. With the U.S. government's well-known evils, we certainly couldn't take a holier-than-thou approach, but we still wanted to minimize our traveling cash adding to the grief of anyone. We're hippies like that.

Places like Burma, China, Malaysia, and Turkey were all on the chopping block. Some countries made it onto our route. Others didn't. When it came to Cambodia however, we didn't even know enough to know to consider it. Now we do, so we want to share.

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I knew that I would find inspiration for artwork in the temples of Angkor, and I was not disappointed. Fantastic jungle trees twist around intricately carved ancient temples, slowly crushing them. Lauren and I spent three days biking around the archaeological park, and then I went back for one more day just to draw.

A Tangle of Trees in Ta Prohm, Cambodia - $65, mixed media on paper, 8" x 10"

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