MColeGrady
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mcolegrady.bsky.social
MColeGrady
@mcolegrady.bsky.social
80 followers 120 following 120 posts
Independent Travel Writer & Photojournalist🪶
NGO Freelancer💓
Anthropologist & Lover of Places🌏
Human Interested in Interesting Humans🫂

Bukit Lawang, Indonesia 📍 Living and working in a Sumatran NGO

https://substack.com/@mcolegrady
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mcolegrady.bsky.social
Never in the eyes of gods did I feel so small – then again, the eyes are always watching.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 18, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
It’s not meant to be comforting; inflections of power rarely are.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 17, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Where life itself is packaged and commodified, are we to find some sort of respite in the grotesque?

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 16, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Bangkok is something of an absurd character in that sense: it’s the demon fish that I choose to write about.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 15, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
"You like it?” I shrugged and smiled and shovelled another spoonful of critters down my gob.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 14, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Routine has the nasty habit of making the most spectacular of things a few shades less vibrant.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 13, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
"If I drink this, I’m going to get belligerent." When I was living in Mumbai, in a world so far away from the middle of Silom Plaza’s food court, a friend of mine would proudly declare his intentions before getting completely, utterly and absolutely shitfaced.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 12, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
The weighted spiritualism pasteurised by a fake gem necklace, the roots of this organic system, were as salient as its blossoms.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 10, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
I believe that to be the beauty in natural systems: the aesthetic of a willing unknowingness and a recognition that understanding is inherently reductive. I neither know nor want to know.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 9, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Like a bouquet of plastic flowers perfumed with synthetic oils, centuries-old belief systems are neutered behind the window of a London-based spiritual wellness store.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 8, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
An energy drawn from the unknown laws governing how many flowers are appropriate to give to your first sweetheart - or what counts as a reasonable amount of bruising before it can no longer be sold.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 7, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Pak Khlong Talat: a street of marigolds and orchids and roses, of pollen and perfumed syrup hanging in the air with smoke and dim sum steam. I was immediately enraptured.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 6, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
I simply cannot afford to be stabbed.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 4, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
He readjusts and sends a gentle pulse through the ink, and the light above his head moves with him.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 3, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
I feel neither lonely nor alone.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 2, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
I’ve landed in the arms of a single eyeball with eight feathered wings jetting out in irregular directions, but the feathers are also made of eyeballs, and it drops me in front of three demons, at least they look like demons but I am not sure.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
September 1, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
I speed up my pace and am now aware that I'm not actually floating; there is gold on either side and I don't know when it will end.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 31, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
I’d probably be more embarrassed than hurt if I got stabbed.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 30, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Statues can only aesthetically indicate that they do not wish to be photographed. In this sense, they often make excellent subjects.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 28, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Amidst my hunger, I still spent the better part of a giddy hour trying to identify characters from the Ramakien on the palace's murals - I still winced when the sun reflected off its iridescent gems.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 27, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
The King's ghost is nowhere to be found; the palace is empty.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 26, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
The Grand Palace crawls with my Rakshasa kin, and there are neither divine weapons nor armies of tawny monkeys in sight. The Yakshas are immobilised by their golden cloaks. Despair, for the king’s head sits atop a profitable golden platter.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 25, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
The new tiles and coats of paint, the renovations and underground corridors and metal gates may lend the ghosts occupying the Grand Palace a certain softspokenness, but with the right ear, perhaps one can still hear King Rama calling down from the heavens.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 24, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
You're met with a silence broken only by the noise of a flock of white collared workers wearing red dresses on a company-sponsored trip.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 23, 2025 at 10:50 AM
mcolegrady.bsky.social
Divinity can wait until I’m finished eating.

#TheViewFromHere #Bangkok #Photography
August 21, 2025 at 10:50 AM