Hidden Unseen

Phraya Nakon Cave

Nestled deep within Thailand’s Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, almost 300 kilometres south of Bangkok, the Phraya Nakon Cave is one of the most exquisite caves in Thailand and definitely one of the most photographed. The main attraction is the Kuha Karuhas pavilion located inside the Phraya Nakhon. The pavillion was built by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) in the 1890, when he visited the place and fell in love with its beauty. Later, King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) and the present King of Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) also visited the cave. The main chamber contains the signatures of both King Rama V and King Rama VII on the wall.

The cave can be reached on foot from Laem Sala beach inside the park. The up hill path leading to the cave is steep and rough. It’s long – about 430 meters – but along the way there are rest stops where you can take a breather and enjoy the view of the sea below from the top.

Phraya Nakhon is actually two sinkholes whose roof has fallen in, illuminating the cave with sunlight, especially in the morning. This is the best time to visit the cave. The cave was named for Phraya Nakhon, ruler of the city-state of Nakhon Si Thammarat, who inadvertently discovered it over 200 years ago when a gale forced his ship ashore.

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Amazing Frozen Air Bubbles in Abraham Lake

Abraham Lake is an artificial lake on North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta, Canada. The lake was created in 1972, with the construction of the Bighorn Dam, and named after Silas Abraham, an inhabitant of the Saskatchewan River valley in the nineteenth century.

Abraham Lake is home to a rare phenomenon where bubbles get frozen right underneath its surface. They're often referred to as ice bubbles or frozen bubbles. This has made the lake famous among photographers.

Photographer Fikret Onal explains the phenomenon: "The plants on the lake bed release methane gas and methane gets frozen once coming close enough to much colder lake surface and they keep stacking up below once the weather gets colder and colder during [the] winter season."

“Even though I've walked on a frozen lake before on every occasion, the frozen Abraham Lake made me feel completely uneasy since the lake was not covered with snow (it was too cold to snow, below -30 Celsius with wind chill). Even though the icy surface was around 8-9 inches thick, it still scared the hell out of me not only because of the fact that I can see all the cracks in all directions everywhere and to see the darkness of the lake bottom through the glassy surface, also the deep boomy, underwater and cracking sounds coming from the underneath of the lake surface…”

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Indoor Clouds

Berndnaut Smilde is a Dutch artist living and working in Amsterdam. Born in Groningen in 1978, Smilde received his BFA at Minverva Academy and his Masters in Fine Art from the Frank Mohr Institute.

In his Nimbus clouds series, Smilde creates actual clouds, typically inside empty gallery spaces, and then photographs the results. The process is scientific, as he carefully regulates the temperature and humidity of a space to create ideal conditions for a cloud. After misting an area, he then sprays a short burst of fog to create a fluffy, albeit brief, cloud.

Smilde uses strategically placed lighting installations to enhance the dramatic effect of the cloud’s appearance. As he explains to Probe, an online gallery:

“I imagined walking into a museum hall with just empty walls. The place even looked deserted. On the one hand I wanted to create an ominous situation. You could see the cloud as a sign of misfortune. You could also read it as an element out of the Dutch landscape paintings in a physical form in a classical museum hall. At the same time I wanted to make (for once) a very clear image, an almost cliché and cartoon like visualisation of having bad luck: ‘Indeed, there nothing here and bullocks, it’s starting to rain!’”

1. Nimbus Cukurcuma Hamam II, 2012

2. Nimbus Minerva, 2012

3. Nimbus D’Aspremont, 2012

4. Nimbus II, 2012

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Strange Double Helix Cloud over Moscow

On December 24, 2012, a strange double helix cloud was spotted just outside Moscow, Russia. A series of amateur photographs were submitted to a Russian site called netall.ru on the morning of the occurrence.

While it is not entirely known what caused such a phenomenon, there is a fairly extensive investigation under way on the website metabunk.org which believes it to be some kind of contrail.

Contrails or vapour trails are long thin artificial clouds that sometimes form behind aircraft. Their formation is most often triggered by the water vapour in the exhaust of aircraft engines, but can also be triggered by the changes in air pressure in wingtip vortices or in the air over the entire wing surface. Like all clouds, contrails are made of water, in the form of a suspension of billions of liquid droplets or ice crystals. Depending on the temperature and humidity at the altitude the contrail forms, they may be visible for only a few seconds or minutes, or may persist for hours and spread to be several miles wide.

The images were submitted the following day to Reddit by aphexsm, who believes it has something to do with a local liquid propellant rocket engine manufacturer called NPO Energomash which is a design bureau based in Khimki, a city just northwest of Moscow.

The strange cloud has drawn many comparisons to the double helix structure of DNA, one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life (along with RNA and proteins).

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Marketplace With a Railway Track Through it

Maeklong Railway Market, located in Samut Songkhram, Thailand, around 37 miles west of Bangkok, looks like any other open-air market in Asia. There are tropical fruits and vegetables such as lychee, durian, and mango in big brightly colored piles, variety of dried spices, pastes and herbs, freshly caught seafood and other local foods. The crowd weave their way around in between vendors, picking up whatever they need for the day. The market is sheltered by low-hanging awnings/umbrellas and if you look closely, you will notice that you are actually walking on train rails.

Then a piercing siren sounds and in a flash the market transforms - the shoppers disappear and the stallholders whip away their produce. One moment you see the locals shopping for their vegetables and the next moment the vendors will scoop up their baskets and boxes and anything that lies over the track. The market comes to a standstill as all the vendors hold on to the poles supporting their awnings to make way for the train to pass. It is such a tight squeeze that the train travelling at about 15mph almost touches the fruits, vegetables and everything else at the marketplace as it passes through.

Once the train is gone, the vendors push back the stalls and awnings into position and everything goes back to normal as if nothing has happened. After all the market has been here for generations way before when the railway was set up in 1905.

Thais call this place Talad Rom Hoop Market which literally translates to “Market Umbrella Pulldown”. You will understand the name once you see the video.

Trains runs through the Maeklong Railway Market 7 times a day, 7 days a week. In the morning, the train passes by the market 4 times. The train arrives at 0840hrs from Ban Laem Station and departs from Maeklong (Samut Songkram) Railway Station at 0900hrs. The next train arrives at 1120hrs from Ban Laem and depart from Maeklong (Samut Songkram) Railway Station at 1130hrs. In the afternoon, the train passes by the market 3-4 times. The train arrives at 1430hrs from Ban Laem and departs from Maeklong (Samut Songkram) Railway Station at 1530hrs. The next train arrives at 1740hrs from Ban Laem and may or may not depart from Maeklong (Samut Songkram) Railway Station. Do note that the train schedule is subject to change so check the schedules with the train station before planning your journey to Maeklong.

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