Places 3 - Amnad's Watergarden, Bangkok, Thailand:

Today's photo has quite a deep significance for our family. It was taken during my first visit to Thailand.

The background story goes like this:

A good friend of my father is from Thailand. Amnad spent part of his college days in Swansea and became a close friend of my father. They became close because of their shared love of music and art, but had lost touch for a number of years.

Fast forward 60ish years and upon telling my parents of my business travel plans for my first trip to Thailand my Dad calls out in surprise "Oh! you must look up Amnad, he would love to meet you!".

After a significant amount of research on my Mother's part, contact was successfully made. Amnad quickly arranged to spend one of my free days with him. We had a brilliant day, during which he showed me some of the sights of Bangkok. But also we had the most amazing dinner at his home.

To give you a bit of context Amnad has spent many years developing and establishing the garden that you can see in the photo. The warmth of the welcome and the hospitality shown along with the beauty and tranquility of the garden will stay with me for a very long time.

Following this my Mother and Father also visited Amnad and had a wonderful holiday in Thailand the next year.

I suppose this shows that the progress of time and the amount of distance has little effect on the bonds of friendship.
Location: Bangkok, Thailand

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