There's a piece of a Boeing 747's fuselage sitting in an abandoned lot, smack in the middle of Bangkok. Along with that chunk of jumbo jet, there are a number of other sections of various planes, and piles of wings, tires, landing gear, and other junk. How could I not go and check that out?
A few families have made homes out of a couple sections of fuselage, and they'll let you in through the locked gate for a small fee. Once inside, you can pretty much go where you like, as long as nobody is living there. It's definitely not safe and you need to be careful of missing floors, jagged metal, no real stairs, entrances or exits, and all the other dangers in any junkyard. But with a bit of caution, it's an awesome place to spend a couple of hours exploring and shooting photos. Here's what I saw in Bangkok's airplane graveyard:
The cockpit has a small hatch that leads out to the top of the plane. As big as the 747 is, it's got an oblong shape that makes the sides really steep and gives little room to safely sit on top.
Pretty interesting seeing an airplane in cross section.
Some recent rain allowed for some pretty cool reflection shots
This would be really creepy if this had been a crashed plane. Fortunately they're all just scrap that reached the end of their usability.
The front of the main cabin on the 747 ends in the nose of the plane. The cockpit is at the front of the second floor cabin.
That's me, giving some perspective on just how big a 747 is.
The plastic panels are all gone on this plane leaving the insulation exposed.
The whole fuselage of this plane is here, in 4 different sections.
Somebody must have hung this here after the fact. It's not dangling by the oxygen tube as it should be. Makes for a good photo though.
The late afternoon sun coming through the windows makes for some nice contrast between light and shadow.
More light and shadow.
Me again. It was so hot out there and I wiped the sweat from my forearm on my shorts making it look like I have some weird crotch sweat. Oops.
Ramkhamhaeng Road, one of Bangkok's biggest roads is seen through the cockpit window. The red vehicle is a songthaew - a popular Thai mode of transport that's pickup truck with two rows of benches in the back.
Tires from various airplanes. This being Thailand, dogs and chickens have free run of the place.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll have a video from here edited soon.