This wall says kindergarten and shit in the same breath. A dog pees on a heart/diamond. A body slips downward. Numbers float without explanation. Nothing here is subtleâand thatâs the point. Thai street art loves childlike language when it wants to insult power. Not poetic. Not symbolic. Blunt. Bodily. Embarrassing. The vocabulary of early childhood turned into a verdict on what weâre taught from the start. If innocence is the story institutions tell themselves, this wall replies with reality: whatâs labeled pure is already treated like waste. Bangkok doesnât dress critique up. It hands it back to you exactly as it was givenâ crude, public, unavoidable. đ´ Red text ŕ¸ŕ¸ŕ¸¸ŕ¸ŕ¸˛ŕ¸Ľ Translation: Kindergarten This word is very clear and standard Thai. It refers specifically to pre-school / early childhood education. ⸝ đľ Blue text ŕ¸ŕ¸ľŕš ŕ¸ŕ¸ľŕš Translation: Poop, poop (or more naturally: âpoopingâ / âshitâ, repeated for emphasis)
Bangkok reminding meâagainâthat endings are just another form of beginning. Sunset in Nonthaburi.
Today I went to immigration to get a one-month visa extension.
Not because I love paperwork.
Not because Iâve made a careful plan.
Because I donât know where Iâm going next.
People like to imagine nomadism as motionâairports, train windows, stamps filling up passports. But the truth is that a lot of this life is waiting rooms. Plastic chairs. Fluorescent lights. A number printed on a slip of paper that tells me when itâs my turn to explain myself.
A one-month extension is a pause button.
A delay tactic.
A small bureaucratic way of saying: Iâm not done yet, but I donât know what comes after.
Iâve been doing this long enough to recognize the pattern. When Iâm certain, I donât hesitate. I buy the ticket. I leave. When Iâm not, I stall. I buy time. I let the city keep speaking to me while I listen harder.
This isnât fear. Itâs not indecision in the way people mean it. Itâs attentiveness.
Iâve learnedâsometimes the hard wayâthat leaving too early is just as reckless as staying too long. Cities donât always announce when theyâre finished with me. Sometimes they taper off. Sometimes they stop showing me anything new and start showing me myself instead.
Thatâs usually the sign.
Right now, Iâm in between. Between chapters. Between exits. Between the version of myself that arrived and the one that hasnât decided where to land next.
The immigration office doesnât care about any of this, of course. They care about copies. Signatures. Fees. Dates that line up neatly in boxes.
So I paid for thirty more days.
Thirty days to walk without mapping routes.
Thirty days to notice walls, not landmarks.
Thirty days to keep photographing things that wonât make sense until much later.
People sometimes ask if this life gets tiring. It doesâbut not in the way they think. The exhaustion isnât from movement. Itâs from choosing. Every extension quietly closes other doors.
But Iâve also learned this: rushing clarity never works. The next place doesnât reveal itself under pressure. It shows up when youâre paying attention to where you already are.
So this month isnât about planning.
Itâs about listening.
To the streets.
To the art thatâs already peeling.
To the parts of myself that surface only when I stop asking, Whatâs next?
