Monday, November 28, 2011

Wild Man In The Klong (Canal)

I arrived in the slum at sometime after 3pm got out ran across the busy road and started photographing the slum shacks and the filthy canal. I had been doing this for maybe 10 minutes when I heard a noise behind me and a wild 30ish Thai man ran past me, he had a wild look in his eyes looking over his shoulder like someone was chasing him, I looked back but no one was chasing him. The man dashed past me down a dirty slope to the canal water and jumped into the filthy bacteria filled water, the water was all the way up to his neck shoulder level. He kind of half swam, half walked 20 feet or so to the next pillar where he climbed out of the water. I photographed him as best I could then followed him down the canal. He ended up stopping another 100 or so feet down the road he had wild eyes and he constantly looked around, he was under the influence of some drug or maybe multiple drugs and seemed to be extremely paranoid. I talked to him as best I could, sometimes he answered my questions sometimes not, I learned his name was Baung-hee and he was 41 years old. I continued to talk to and photograph Khune Baung-hee, he would talk to the air, bang his hand against the concrete pillar and dig around in the dirt talking to himself, often quickly looking at me and away (he was hard to photograph). After 20 minutes or so I gave him 20 baht and told him to go buy himself something to eat. Later in the day I saw him again near the slum homes I was visiting, some people their said he was dangerous, that he boxed people.