By Kaye Mortley

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Bangkok is so often used for stopovers in flights between Europe and Australia. Various tourism agencies offer layover sightseeing packages in Thailand’s capital. But for many travelers, Bangkok is not an opportunity for tourism, but rather a symbolic stopping point in the long, cross-continental journey—a pure break between departure and destination. Bangkok has become a physical space representative of the displacement of travel and Stopover Bangkok attempts to capture this experience. Layering dialogue, observations, background noises, translations, and interactions between locals and travelers, Stopover Bangkok weaves together various forms of unfamiliarity into an audio tapestry that is simultaneously calming and jarring, rich and textured. Recurring noises relating to transport keep the restless momentum of travel and the various voices played throughout the piece recreate the adopted traveling community—a community based on unfamiliarity and transition. Stopover Bangkok was originally broadcast in 1989 on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.