For my birthday this year, I wanted nothing external, no gatherings, no gifts, no distractions. What I craved instead was presence. To strip away the noise and find clarity in something simple, something real. The universe, as it often does, delivered exactly what I needed, but not in the way I’d imagined. Bangkok had been calling me for months. Two reasons drew me there: to photograph the city’s neon-lit streets at night and to spend my birthday at a meditation centre and le