My drug knowledge is growing. I am so inexperienced, heck at 61 years old, I have never even been drunk in my life. I was told today the cost of a YaBa (crazy medicine) pill is 50 baht ($2.11 CAD). What this or that is called, how to smoke ice and YaBa, placing a coin your mouth to prevent burns, etc. I knew nothing, now I am getting rather fluent in it all.
When your photographing in this world, it is best to know what is going on. Knowledge is never a bad thing. Even this kind of terrible knowledge. There is also ice here (meth) and all kind of solvents, that are inhaled. I see cans of all types, today saw an old paint stain can. The old standard booze is also in heavy use. Saw too older men I have known and photographed since 2018 drunk today mid afternoon.
This addiction stuff is brutal. I asked Khun Apple today if she ever missed her old farang (Western) husband. He was in their 60s she in her 20s when they married. She said she did. I asked her if she thought of quitting drugs and going back to her family (4 children) in Issan province, she it was too quiet for her there and she could not return. I told her that I had been photographing "under the freeway" for about 10 years now and that at least 4 people I knew had died. She just nodded and said she could not go back home. I will be surprised if she is alive my next trip here. The life in addiction, life "under the freeway" is just too fucking hard.
800 baht of donation work today. So that is a good thing. I guess when I went missing for a while the Thais were asking where I was (free food). Today was a better day 'under the freeway'. We fed around 12 people, plus a dog with yellow eyes.
