A good (or should I say interesting) way to learn about a country’s people is by taking the various forms of transportation the locals use. For longer trips in Laos, that form is the bus. Here are six essential things you should consider taking to make bus travel in Laos enjoyable bearable:
What was supposed to be a trip of a few weeks turned into an adventure of almost three months. I was “embedded” with an international NGO medical crew (more on that in later posts) photographing their activities. Now I’m leaving Laos. Click any image for a larger version.
Laos is amazing—I think I’m in love. This is one of those posts that could go on and on, and I was going to try to keep it brief and to only 20 28 or so images. However, if you are looking for brevity, this ain’t the post… I go could on for hours. I will write some more posts on certain aspects I want to delve into in greater detail in later posts, but let’s get on with it…
So… I created a bit of an issue with my carry everywhere point-and-shoot Canon Elph 110 HS that I bought for my trip to Thailand/Laos. Let’s just say a visit to the factory will be required… don’t ask. If I mention “water buffalo” will that suffice?
I’ve been in Xamtai, Laos, waiting on authorization from the local authorities to do a photo project with an international NGO working here. So, I’ve been keeping busy photographing the very cool bamboo water wheels that the Lao use to move water from river level to the farmland above.
As I wandered down the river I noticed a bunch of Hmong busy on the other side of a large truck. As I came around the truck I was briefly taken back to the scene in Apocalypse Now where the camera is cutting back and forth between Willard killing Kurtz and the ritual slaughter of a water buffalo.
Ever have one of those moments that strongly reminds you of a movie? I had one of those not long ago. I was in Vientiane, Laos, across the Mekong from Thailand.
On the move again, entering Laos. Was only, err, somewhat eventful. I’m sitting in the Don Muang Airport in Bangkok, about to board, and one of my front crowns (all four of my upper front teeth are crowns; my original teeth were all damaged when I was a kid) comes off with a bite of a granola bar. This thing has been reattached to the post several times and just doesn’t want to stay fixed. Great. I quickly clean it off in the bathroom (taking care to not drop it down the drain) and wedge it back into place. No chewing until I can get affixed back in place. Sorry. No pix of that. Would you want to really see that?
But then on the plane things get a bit odd. We are getting close to landing at the Udon Thani airport and get the ‘sit down and buckle up’ message. As I’m in row 7, I visit the restroom just to the rear of the cockpit. But when I’m done with my business and come out, I’m not greeted by a plane full of sitting down and buckling up passengers—I’m greeted by the back side of an media circus. Three people with pro still cameras, a guy with a video camera on a Steadi Cam-type rig, and three or four assistants. I couldn’t get to my seat. I couldn’t actually go anywhere but stand by the door of the restroom in a bemused state. Turns out that the guy in charge of the whole operation is standing right next to me and spoke English. He told me that this woman was proposing marriage to her sweetheart on the plane in her wedding dress. Now that’s a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. She came on board with her dress packed in a bag and went to the bathroom, quickly changed, and as the media crew lept up, pounced on her fiancee and proposed…
Mr. In-Charge takes the PA microphone and announces the whole thing and the entire plane starts to cheer. Much more interesting than the airline-provided in-air entertainment.
I’ve had a project about American consumer culture creeping around in my gray matter for some time. I don’t recall how it happened, I’m guessing I was doing something mindless… and I got the damn theme song from The Mickey Mouse Club stuck in my head. I immediately started bastardizing it (a strange habit I have with song lyrics) until it turned into M-I-SEE!, K-E-WHY?, M-O-USA! Neither had I seen an image that established the look of the project, nor had I expected to find it in Bangkok…
I’ve always been interested in the spectrum of sexual identities and in Thailand observations are more easily made than elsewhere. Ladyboys, or Kathoey are quite common and are referred to as the Third Sex. Somewhere betwixt and between a male and female, their appearance can be quite stunning. As far as I can tell, anything between growing long hair and wearing feminine clothing to full on sexual reassignment surgery counts. As if someone were counting. I’m not.
(Rollover the images to compare.)
So, being the naturally inquisitive person that I am, I went online and met Angie and asked if we could trade her time for my photographs for her portfolio. She models, and sadly also works as an escort. She doesn’t want to be an escort, but the modeling pays very little and being an escort a considerable sum more. Especially since she is a full post-op ladyboy. I take it that that is a little bit rarer in amongst the very large population of ladyboys in Thailand. So, an impromptu meeting was set up and we shot for an hour or so. I was quite taken aback by her appearance. (more…)
I went to Chinatown in Bangkok yesterday. I had been invited by a friend, Bob, that I had met in the Taipei airport and his friend, Maeve, a line producer in the film biz in Hollywood. What an intense experience. I’ve been to the Chinatowns in NYC, Los Angeles, and Seattle, but this was a whole new experience. The Chinatown in NYC is very intense… at least until you visit the one in Bangkok.
He’s a little gaunt, maybe even severe. And he salutes me—and I don’t get saluted often. Hardly ever. I guess that’s not surprising. So on my first jet-lagged day in Bangkok I was a bit caught off guard to find myself saluted by a very serious man dressed suspiciously like a police officer.
What was it? Maybe my shaved head, suggesting military? Maybe It’s the two-toned, collared shirt that I’m wearing. If you are somewhat color blind and squint at it a bit, you might think it was one of the military shirts worn by the guards at the US Embassy, which is just down the road from my hotel. Head, shirt, both, neither. I couldn’t tell.
