Guest photographers

 It's really easy to get cute pics of kids around here. As you might notice, however, I tend to not to take pictures of people, unless they're far away (so they're unrecognizable) or known (so I assume I have permission to take their pics). I mean, kids are cute by nature (except in Songkran festival, when they become vicious water gunners) here and everywhere. They looked even cuter here, as the striking poverty makes their smiles shine brighter amidst the lack of toys, clothes, and so many other basic things. Most of them would happily pose in front of a camera, so why not shoot tons? I have an issue with the power of the camera to create an even bigger gap between them and I. I mean, animals are cute too, but these are people like you and I!!! They must be treated somehow better than simple photo opportunities!

Maybe it's my issue, but for me, taking pictures of people is a way of connecting, of making them feel closer to me rather than putting them away only as objects to be photographed. So I tend to question myself about how to establish an even relationship between me and whoever is on the other side of the camera, if there's some sort of "Fair photographing", paying respect to the photographed's humanness the same way that I'd like to be treated (nothing totally new, anyways. Susan Sontag talked about cameras, guns and violations  back in the 70's -check "On Photography").

So, these limitations came evident after kayaking for 6 hours in the gorgeous Nam Tha river in northern Laos, in a great group of 2 guides and 8 tourists. We arrived into a tiny village populated by Khmu people where around 50 kids were playing in the river shore and, as soon as we landed, they took the kayaks and goofed around! How cute! And then they posed for anybody willing to take pictures, doing whatever cuteness kids can do. How to avoid taking the camera out and bang bang, start shooting?!? Sarah took a few pics (kind of a way to encourage me to shoot) but I needed some sort of wild card to feel OK doing it.

Maybe it's my male, geek-leaning personality, but who doesn't like to play with new toys, especially those that you're not supposed to touch? So I lent the camera to the kids, taught them how to use it and let them take pics of whatever they wanted.  It was quite refreshing, I have to say, to see them shooting pics! The adults who seemed to be looking after the kids looked happy and curious as well, so after letting them play for a while I felt OK to take some pics of them.

And here are some and their shots! As you might suppose, the main attractions were... us, the falangs (foreigners in Lao). It was funny to see the kids pointing at us saying 'falaaaang!!!' and seconds later... hear a click from the camera!





For some reason my tummy was the subject of a few shots. Maybe because they pointed straight, and since they're shorter, that's what they got... don't know really



This definitely opened the way for us to pose for them...

I taught one kid how to flip the camera screen, so he could take a self portrait. Here's what he got of himself:

After they got bored photographing falangs, they turned around to shoot new pics. Some shots turned up quite good, I have to say. (I did a bit of cropping, I admit, but the shooting wasn't mine)

At this point I felt that we were comfortable enough with each other, so I asked the kids if I could take a few pics of them. Of course, the pics turned cute! (Well, some of them were crap but blame the photographer for that) Still, I don't want to idealize the kids, they are no less and no more than others! I mean, if I were raised next to a river with almost no clothes nor toys, struck by the sun every day, wouldn't I react like they did? I might have been cute... I'd be certainly excited handling a photo camera given by a falang... 

bad luck with duck

So, Laos has it in for me.
After my wood in the eyeball and motorcycle hit and quasi run, I guess bad things come in three's?

I came down with food poisoning all night long in Vang Viang Laos and after a full night of memorizing the unclean toilet bowl for scratches up close and personal, I'm ready to go home.

We've finally made it to Vientiene today..30 minutes short of making it to the U.S. Embassy before they close...is that a fourth?  After a 4 hour public bus ride of trying hard not to puke on anyone, I'm a bit tired and need of some Rest and Relaxation!

Note to fellow travelers of Laos:
If you're in Vang Viang for a night, do not eat the duck soup, or better yet, avoid non Farang street food in general!!!!  Laos is definitely not Thailand when it comes to safe and cheap grub.

Louang Probang, Laos

sores and bruises

In every country we've visited, I've managed to somehow slightly injure myself in the weirdest ways.
Every situation is slightly awkward in the sense of, how did I manage to do that?

In Indonesia, I burned my leg on a motorcycle engine and scraped my big toe open on a piece of coral.
In Malaysia, I discovered sand flies and sunburns
In Thailand, I discovered bed bugs, mosquito bites and extremely spicy food

But it wasn't until the very end here in Laos that I've managed to stumpify myself on how I get into the oddest situations.

A few days back I managed to have a splinter poke itself into my eye ball while kayaking.  It's all okay now thanks to sleep and saline solution, but...how did it get there?  I don't know!

And today!  I'm peddling away at 2.5mph on the side of the road and two kids on a motorcycle manage to hit me and knock me off my bike.  There was a great gathering of the neighbors, lots of talking and serious looks and then an announcement by a neighbor women of, "it's ok" and everyone dispursed.  I'm pretty sure one of the young men (aged 12-15?) broke his leg, but was trying hard not to make a scene.  I walked away in ok shape with a bit of road rash, bruising and a frown.  How did this happen?  I don't know!  Bad luck.

Luckily I'm still in one piece and with only 1 or 2 weeks left here in Asia, I can't do much more damage!

I don't mean to complain....or maybe I do.....grrr bugs and bikes!  For every minor problem, there has been so much gained in the experiences we've had here!  This could just as easily have happened anywhere else.  The places we've seen and the people we've met have been totally worth the scrapes and scratches!

Laos - The Nam (River) Ou

Water buffalo

French baguettes

Potholes – a lot of them

Mountains – a lot of them

Bus drivers bargaining for groceries

Baby Boars with wiggly tails

Lao Lao  (rice whiskey)

Baskets of sticky rice

Giant chicken eggs

Flat tires

Kip

Trekking/Kayaking from a village near Luang Namtha

Border crossing into Laos!

Oh so easy!
40 baht - longtail boat ride across the river
$35 US - one official Laos visa for US resident (Chile = $30)
10,000 kip - Lao Beer
My head hurts a bit from all the exchanging!
(which will continue because they use Baht, Kip and US money here!)


We successfully made it into Laos, crossing the Mekong River by longboat to Houayxai yesterday! YAY!
We've now had our first "Beer Lao" as well as our first... Lao papaya salad, sticky rice, noodle soup (like Pho) and grilled chicken!
We looooove Laos food!!!!


Today! An air conditioned 4 hour mini bus ride delivered us to Louang Namtha in the north of Laos!!
Although the road was partially non existent in places, the a.c. worked! Rodolfo didn't yak on the curves!
( ...and it beat the other alternative of 2 full days on a slow boat down the Mekong with no food or water)


What will happen tomorrow?
Well! Let me tell you!
We signed up for a trek adventure!
Tomorrow we hike up a mountain, spend the night in a tribal village and the next day, KAYAK!
Rodolfo's kissing my feet right now for my willingness to get sporty...as he should!
(Mom...just to let you know, you're listed as my next of kin just in case I don't make it!)


The weather is a bit cooler here, the food is delicious, so far so good!!!
We'll look forward to getting to show some incredible pics post crazy wilderness trek!!!

MSR

What am I talking about?
Mango with Sticky Rice!
As embarrassing as this is to admit, it has become a staple...an essential, in our daily diet. I don't know how we are going to live without it ever again!

Here's how it works:

We eat dinner....we're full. And then Rodolfo gets that look...the MSR look....and the begging and the pleading starts.  Then, we somehow find ourselves winding around dark alleyways like stray cats, looking for a pile of mangos on a cart.  When we find it, which we always do, that's when things get exciting! It's 5 minutes of the best show ever!

"Sawat dee kaw! We want that!!!!" Pointing at the large metal bowl of sticky rice with giant grins on our faces.

Here's where the art comes in....
Step 1: The sticky rice
She carefully moulds two heaping handfuls of the sweet coconut soaked rice from the giant metal bowl covered with a cloth, to a styrofoam plate and sets it down.

Step 2: The mango
From the large pile of mangos lying in a pyramid of love in front of us, she'll pick up one, and put it back. Then she'll touch another one without picking it up and make a face of uncertainty. From there, she'll go to the other side of the pile and without hesitation pick it up immediately. I have no idea why this is, but it's happened every time.  What?  They just sense it?  What are they looking for?  I have no idea!

Step 3: Peeling
Watching this part is awesome!!!!! They always have a very sharp long knife, and peel half of the mango very carefully from head to toe. She'll then cut the peeled part (half the mango) away from the seed and then cut the half vertically into little squares of love and slide the whole heap onto the sticky rice. (Mangos are a bit smoother/riper here with a much flatter seed, so they're much easier to cut)

Step 4: Accessories - sugar sauce and nuts!
This is different at every place we go. Some vendors pour the sweet sugary coconut sauce all over for us and sprinkle the little crunchy nuts on top (still not sure what the nuts really are, accept that I'm addicted...nuts are not an essential part, but I always hope for them!). Many places give you small bags tied with rubber bands, so you can add your sauce and nuts directly before eating when you get home.***

Step 4: EATING!
They give you little plastic thai soup spoons to eat with....they usually give us two, the more plastic the better here! They put our styrofoam dish into a plastic bag for us... If you try to say no, it gets a little confusing and I'm pretty sure we hurt their feelings...like I said, plastic and styrofoam are king here. But anyway! One mouthful of melting mango into the chewy rice with the bit of sweet from coconut and that little bit of crunch from the nuts. ABSOLUTE HEAVEN!!!!! Totally worth the 20-40 baht (.70-$1.30) every night!!!!

***A lot of Thai people buy their meals from street vendors on their way home from work. You buy 6 or 7 different rubber banded plastic bags of food (curries, noodles, stir frys) and then take them home to eat. This makes buying some market food difficult for us, since we don't really have a kitchen to eat it in, but we've managed to...manage!

Chiang Rai - Chian Guesthouse

This morning was the first time in weeks where I haven't woken up in a sweat without air conditioning!
We've stopped in this lovely Northern Thai city on our way to the Laos border, where our plan is to head slowly down towards Vientiene, to catch a plane to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - to catch a plane to Tokyo, Japan - to catch a plane to Minneapolis MN, USA!  But before all that, we still have a few more weeks of fun to go!

I write this overlooking the Chian Guesthouse pool after eating a huge veggie omelette and a tea for $1.50.
Our night of perfect sleep put us back a whole whopping $7.50 with wifi and pool included, so just budget wise, it will be sad to leave such a perfect traveling spot.  Plus, there are two adorable little fluffy puppies that live here. PUPPIES!!!!!

Today, the plan is to mountain bike thru the countryside and see what we see.  Perhaps some temples and gardens, perhaps some forests...we'll see what we see!!!!

Northern Thailand Pics - a week of water

We've just spent the last few days motorcycling thru the North of Thailand!  We left our packs at our guest house, rented a bike and went!

This also happens to be Thai New Year...what do Thai people do at New Year when it's really hot?  Why they throw large buckets of dirty river water at people while they are driving down the highway of course!  What else?

The Songkran Water Festival has been in full swing these past few days! We couldn't have picked a better week to be on a motorcycle..
on a highway...
with all of our essentials exposed to the open air....
It did feel kind of good to get wet in the heat though!!

Day 1:
First stop was to Doi Inthanon National Park where we got to see 3 different spectacular waterfalls and spent the night in a tent where a kind ranger gave us a trash bag for our rented pillow and sleeping bag (because you can rent a tent and gear here for $9!)...we were hoping for a secret "don't bucket us with dirty water" word...but the bag was handed over to us instead, with a look of..."oh you silly tourists, what were you thinking!!!!"

Day 2:
From the National Park, we spent the morning wandering about a serene royal garden and an isolated waterfall and then enjoying a day motorcycling thru mountains bathing in a serene and quiet waterfall called Mae Pan Falls, which we discovered after a 40 minute hike thru the forest!  AMAZING!
 Back on the road we passed many little villages, deserted sandy fields and plenty of mountains with cows, snakes (we almost ran over one in the dark) and people with water buckets in the road, finding our way in the dark to a small village and an open guest house!  Whew!  The temperature changed drastically with every mountain climb and the views were incredible!

Day 3:  Day of assholes and beautiful mountains
We spent all of yesterday biking thru mountains, towns (including Mae Hong Son and Pai), and getting lots more water thrown at us.

One lovely gentleman with a very large bucket almost got ran over by us, jumping in front of us on the highway...but he got scared by me screaming my head off....which was good!
"SLOW DOWN!  OH MY GOD!  WHAT THE $%^ ARE YOU DOING!  AHHH!!!!!!!"
(I think I stunned him into getting out of the way.)

Another lovely gentleman threw a large bucket on our heads from the back of a truck as we were swerving down the side of a cliff....a lot of people die this week (a few hundred have gotten hurt according to the Bangkok Post)...but we didn't...and that's good...and drove on.

We're extremely glad we did it!  Loads of fun getting to see all the beautiful mountains, trees, waterfalls galore, and getting very, very wet.

It's been a great past few weeks in the North of Thailand!  Here are some pics of Lampang, our elephant adventures, Chiang Mai, and our great motorcycle trek thru the north!
Click here for pictures!!!

Happy 32nd Birthday Rodolfo!!!!!

Today is Rodolfo Ernesto Perez  Roa's Birthday!
YAY!!!!
So we're celebrating by:
eating cake
riding elephants
climbing temples in the mountains
and buying cowboy hats....
while eating sticky rice with mango...
because that's Rodolfo's favorite food!!
YAY!!!!!!

ELEPHANTS!!!

We spent an incredible day yesterday getting to meet some wonderful elephants at the Elephant Conservation Center (near Chiang Mai in Thailand). We got to feed them bananas, we got to ride an elephant thru the jungle, we got to see some baby elephants with their mothers and then we watched them take a bath!

Rodolfo's birthday is tomorrow and one of his biggest dreams for the trip was to ride an elephant!! WE DID IT!!!!!

Elephants are incredible animals!!! They eat a lot, drink a lot and poop a lot, and they're covered with the most incredible black stiff hair with extremely rough, dry and hard skin. (They made special gift paper out of their poo. Really pretty!)

There is a great conflict in Thailand amongst westerners whether or not riding/visiting/seeing elephants is humane. We visited the particular center where they also keep the royal white elephants and it also houses an elephant hospital and their were mainly Thai visitors in the center. The area is full of big natural ponds for elephant romping and a serene forested country side. The elephants we met looked extremely happy to be there! The caretakers use a stick with a small metal hook on the end to communicate with their elephants behind their ear, but they never hit or hurt the elephant with it....our particular elephant rider spent a great deal of time massaging his elephant behind the ears with his bare feet and calmly talking to her as well to communicate where to go next.

Although I don't speak elephant, they looked very happy to me, and we were extremely happy to meet them!
WE LOVE ELEPHANTS!!!!

Melodion-ing

What a GREAT DAY!
I walked into a music store and bought myself a MELODIAN!
I asked for the "accordian type keyboard that you blow into"...
....and made some awkwardly weird gestures.....
and they had it!!!!
They even threw in a wooden flute for Rodolfo for free!
I'm hoping to get back to music with my spare time!
Perhaps a two man traveling band is in order!

(Also in this picture is a delicious Thai Iced Green Tea!  YUM!!!!)

Pictures!

Photos from central Thailand, including the River Kwai and the ruins at Ayutthaya and Sukhothai!

Click Here!!

normalcy

Things I've gotten used to

(in no particular order)

cats with crooked tails

plastic bags for plastic bags

peeing standing up

chickens wandering

waiting...waiting...waiting...

eating lunch food for breakfast

dog balls, cat balls, balls

where are we anyway?

the wrong side of the road

soda pop in plastic bags

a great lack of cheese

rice

sweat

geckos

Suphanburi

We took an unexpected pit stop in the lovely city of Suphanburi on our way up north!

It has been wonderful staying in a real Thai hotel, meeting incredibly nice and happy Thai people and seeing
Thai local attractions....all very different then the advertised packaged tourist sites we are used to being offered.  We went up a tower to see the city, bought mangos and man pants at the local market and we even found a chicken shrine!  All in all an incredible experience!

The River kwai, Biking, monkey school

We took a bike ride around town today and got to see a great many things:



The bridge and the cemetery....wow....the history, you know?
the cows....big!
and the monkey school!  They teach unwanted monkeys how to pick coconuts.  Many of the monkeys come from local farmers/families in Bangkok who buy them as pets when they are babies...really cool monkeys!