Ottsworld Travel Experiences » Laos

Published in Pology!

Sherry — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:38:09 +0000

Laos if full of beauty

Just a quick post to let you all know that I received some good news the other day. The editor of Pology online magazine contacted me to let me know that they had accepted my Laos photos for their March issue!
www.pology.com
I have been a fan of Pology since before I left on my trip. It’s a nicely put together online travel magazine that provides a cultural perspective on travel as opposed to all of the nuts and bolts of hotels/airlines/tours, etc. They always have 3 photo essays that they publish and I always look at them in awe every month drooling with admiration.
I’ve submitted a number of photo essays to them through out the last 2 years and finally I got a positive response! Granted – I do feel like I need to say – I’m not getting paid for this…but the acceptance of my work is just as important to me. Yet being able to contribute to my rent would be nice!

Check out the spread on Laos!
http://www.pology.com/photo/08031p2.html

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Whiskey and Babies – Luang Prabang, Laos

Sherry — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:02:52 +0000

Mother and 5 day old child

Click here to see the photo documentary on Whiskey and Babies!

Yes, this may be an unlikely combination, however, when you enter a rural village in Laos, you never really know what you are going to encounter. I went in search of whiskey, and found a 5 day old baby.

We had heard that outside of Luang Prabang, along the Mekong River, there are rural villages that specialize in making moonshine…rice whiskey. We went to the village to learn more about the whiskey making business, and take some lifestyle photos. As soon as we arrived, a man came to us and started trying to sell us the local rice whiskey. He had a number of different kinds of whiskeys and rice wines, and he even had a large inventory of whiskey with snakes and scorpions in it. Mexico thinks that they have the market cornered on weird animal life in booze…well, a worm doesn’t stand a chance to a large snake. We sampled various types and each one seemed to burn more going down my throat. We decided to let the booze sink into our bodies by walking around the village to see if we could catch any moonshine making in progress.

We did find some families working on their whiskey making – however, what we became mesmerized by was the functioning village itself. There was fishing, farming, kids playing, men swimming, and women weaving. We slowly walked around the villages and wandered around narrow paths leading behind homes, into fields, and down barren roads. Around each corner we found something new to photograph.

As we were about to leave the village, the man who originally tried to sell us whiskey came running up to us. Instead of trying to sell us whiskey, he invited us into his home to see his 5 day old daughter, Et. He had heard that we were doing photography and wanted a photo of his new daughter. We sat and talked to he and his wife for about 30 minutes. She had delivered the precious baby girl in her hut only 5 days ago. The local medicine man delivered the baby who was perfectly healthy. The mother was giving a special bark and wood to boil and drink the water for after childbirth. The wooden remedy was suppose to be for improving the new mothers’s strength after the traumatic birth and blood loss.

We came to the village for whiskey, but got much more than we expected out of it. A fascinating look into rural life.

Processional for Food…Giving Alms

Sherry — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:36:49 +0000

Happy Monks

Click here to see the photo documentary on Giving Alms!

Every morning in Buddhist communities it happens like clockwork – giving alms. Giving alms is the process of monks going out to get food from people that want to make a ‘good deed’. People fill monk’s bowls with rice, drinks, oreos, biscuits – anything that they may enjoy. By offering food to monks, the lay Buddhist is making a stronger connection with the Monks and Buddhism in general. This is really the main source of food for the monks living in the temple, they depend on the community to feed them. It’s a wonderful ‘ritual’ and I was lucky enough to participate and witness it while in Laos.

In Luang Prabang the process of giving alms is unique. All of the temples throughout the city participate in the process as a processional…a parade of monks of sorts. They all leave their temples at 6AM and walk the main streets of the town in a long procession collecting food from locals and tourists.

I was excited to witness this colorful early morning ritual. I was out the door of my hotel by the painful hour of 5:30AM. In the complete darkness I walked up the street and was immediately bombarded by local women trying to sell me things. I am not a morning person anyway – but this immediate swarming was enough to make me want to go back inside and give up the photography of alms. However – I tried to politely say “no” and kept walking. As I walked up the street, I wondered how the alm process worked. I had never really witnessed this before – so I was confused as to how, and who, were going to be out giving alms as the street resembled a ghost town. As I walked myself out of my sleepy haze, a lightbulb went off in my head…the women were not trying to sell me trinkets, they were trying to sell me food to give to the monks…ahhhhh. If they had coffee, I would have paid them $20 for that! As the sun came up, I picked a corner and tried to communicate with one of the ladies selling food. She explained to me through charades that I was to give the monks sticky rice and biscuits while sitting on a mat on the street. I had to be sure not to point my feet at the monks and I had to remain lower than the monks as these were both signs of respect. I paid my $2 and they set up a mat, a container of sticky rice and a large plate of biscuits for me. I was ready for the monks to arrive. One problem though…if I was giving food out – how would I take pictures? I hadn’t thought this out too well I guess.

As I was waiting, another tourist, a young woman from the UK, came and asked to sit down next to me. She was holding Oreos and Snickers. I asked her if that’s what she was giving the monks and she replied, “Yes, I heard that the monks get really tired of sticky rice, so they prefer to have some chocolate once I a while.”.

I looked down at my pathetic sticky rice and biscuits and was feeling a bit dejected. Oh well – food is food, and the monks were about to arrive. I could see the orange blur off in the distance. There was a bunch of commotion to my right as tourists buses pulled up and let scores of tourists off. The ladies surrounded them like ants to a dead bug…trying to sell them sticky rice. Eventually the buses of tourists got settled down and assumed their positions on the street in an orderly fashion. I told the woman next to me that in addition to her groovy Oreos, she was also free to hand out my food as I needed a hand free to take pictures. We assumed a teamwork partnership!

The monks arrived in total silence, in bare feet, dressed in their bright orange robes, carrying their metal pots. I slowly provided them food as if I were a lunchroom cafeteria worker handing out Salisbury steak. Eventually my new friend next to me took over handing out the food so that I could take photographs. However – we eventually ran out of our food and decided that we would get up and follow the procession of monks for a while to watch more of the activities. As we followed them around the corner we noticed that there was a big blue basket in the middle of the street where some of them were dumping excess sticky rice. It seemed rather odd – but I’m sure if you had sticky rice every day – you’d also be tired of it.

We continue to follow the long procession and eventually came to the area where the locals handed out alms. I really enjoyed watching the locals hand out food – it seemed more meaningful in a way. As we walked with the procession and took photos, we eventually came to a temple where the monks were finishing their procession. One of the monks said that it was ok if we came in as it was a good chance for them to practice their English. We respectfully went in and sat below the monks and talked to them about their lives in the temple, the procession of alms in Luang Prbang, their educations, their families – it was a wonderful exchange.

The whole morning was an eye opening experience. Who needs coffee when you have cultural experiences?

The Fast and the Furious – Boat Racing on the Mekong

Sherry — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 05:36:56 +0000

The Fast and Furious

Click here to see the photo documentary on the Fast and Furious!

I arrived at the village of Tha Phra as the sun was going down. It was a normal Tuesday night for the men and boys of Tha Phra, they showed up on their motor bikes after a long day, they chatted amongst themselves, changed into their boating clothes, and played wicket ball. Wicket ball is a Laos game which is a mix of hackey sack, badminton, and volleyball. It was truly mesmerizing to watch their athleticism as they jumped through the air and contorted their body to kick the wicket/ball over the net.

The crowd of testosterone grew larger and larger as they gathered around the muddy banks of the Mekong preparing for boat practice. The Tha Phra boating team was like the Green Bay Packers of boat racing…they had a history of being successful…plus it helped that their team colors were green and gold. Actually though – I came to realize that boat racing amongst villages in Laos was similar to high school football in small towns throughout the US. There was a frenzy about it, the season was short, the whole town supported the team, and everyone was involved. Tha Phra was so crazy about their boat racing that they had two teams – an older team – men 25 to 35 yrs old, and a younger Tia team (Tia in Laos means small) for 15 to 25 yrs old. Like any normal Junior Varsity or Varsity team – some of the better younger men also rowed for the older team. The teams were each comprised of 50 people in a very long, narrow wooden boat. They graciously agreed to seat 51 tonight – I was to sit in the boat and take photos of the team at practice.

I made my way down to the muddy river’s edge for my first dip in the Mekong. The team was in the boat waiting for me. I gingerly walked out to the front, swung a leg over and set foot in the wooden boat. This wasn’t as easy as it would seem as the front of the boat was quite narrow and therefore wobbly. I steadied myself and went to sit down. Problem #1, my hips didn’t fit into the seat, once again reminding me that I am a giant in Asia. I squeezed my hips into the seat the best I could, and the young boy in front of me took the handle end of his paddle, knocked it against the inside of the boat 3 times, and immediately attention was given. The whole team bowed down in their seats, one more knock of the paddle, a guttural team noise in unison, and everyone sat upright poised with their paddles above the water…we were ready to begin. I really had no idea how fast the boat could go, but with the strength of 50 fit men paddling in unison, it felt like we were flying! Soon I realized that my first row seat did allow me some great shots – but at a price…the price of getting soaking wet.

It was boat racing season in Laos. The end of the Buddhist Lent marks the beginning of celebration, for Laotians, this means festivals and boating. The season culminates in a large competition in Vientiane, Laos’ capital city, at the end of October. Tha Phra was ultimately preparing for the Vientiane race, but first they had to get back in the racing swing by competing in local village festivals and races.

On race day we slowly made our way 30 km outside of Vientiane across the river on a slow, bamboo, single-car ferry. As we crossed the river on the weighted down bamboo ferry, I was in awe of all of the people on their way to the race, and I was equally in awe that the ferry stayed afloat! We arrived at the race and set up ‘camp’ at Tha Phra’s tent. We managed to get me a spot on the coach’s boat so that I could ride along during the races and take photos. The Tia team was racing today, and they had their game faces on. They were dressed in their green and gold uniforms, and some were wearing cowboy hats making them appear as renegades. Many had brightly colored bandanas on their head, or paint on their face – but mainly – they were serious. This group of fun-loving men that I met a few days ago went from laughing at me getting wet to barely noticing that I was there. I was happy to see their focus and determination.

The younger Tia team had its work cut out for them today. It was a hot day, and they would be competing against older teams, as Tha Phra’s older team were resting for a competition the next week. The boating fate of the village rested on these young men’s shoulders and paddles. Luckily, they easily won the first race – they made it look simple, gliding along the water as if it were ice.

I decided to once again ride on the coach’s boat for the 2nd race as it was a wonderful perspective for photographs as well as being the best seat in the house for the competition! As we waited for our team to compete in their next race, the coaches all gathered together along the river bank in their boats near the start line. I was the only female, English speaker there among 12 Laotian men. No problem, I’ve been in these situations before. However – as the waiting continued, more and more beer flowed among our coaching boats. In actuality I was surrounded by 12 very drunk men, who were shooting off fire crackers and walking across boats with no real concern of capsizing the unstable boats. I normally wouldn’t mind the thought of capsizing – but with thousands of dollars of camera equipment around my neck – I wasn’t too thrilled about the though of watching my camera sink to the bottom of the muddy Mekong. Since they were drunk and in the festival mood, they lit and threw the firecrackers in a sporadic, ‘my arm feels like rubber’, manner that would make the fire cracker land about 4 feet from me and the boat. I was getting less comfortable with the situation. Then, the final straw was when I notice one of the men take off his flip flop and quickly whack a scorpion in the boat – only a few feet from me. Now…I was officially freaked out. I filled my mind with thoughts of – “how the hell do I get myself into these situations?!”. Luckily the second race was about to begin – so the men had to pull it together and go give a pep talk to the team…thank goodness….yet I still kept on the lookout for additional scorpions.

The second race proved to be a bit more challenging than the first one. Tha Phra started off well, but soon fell behind. I watched as the team struggled their way back into a neck and neck race. The coaches in the boat were on their feet, the crowd was intently watching, it was a photo finish. However – it was not in Tha Phra’s favor unfortunately. They lost by an arm length.

As the day continued on, there were more races, some more heartache, and more powerful sun beating down upon everyone. At the end of the day Tha Phra finished 4th out of 8 teams, a very respectable finish for their young, Tia team. They had a lot to be proud of. Finally, as they came off the boat for the last time, their intense game faces eased up a bit and they turned back into young boys as if the spell had been broken. As they left the river banks for their team truck to transport them back to Tha Phra, they joked around, smiled, and even had time for buying some ice cream before being whisked away into the bumpy sunset.

Planes, Trains, and a Broken Down Automobile…

Sherry — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 05:36:36 +0000

Cowboy competitor

For the ‘best of’ Laos Photography – click here!

Note: The various photo documentaries will be in separate posts, so stay tuned on the site. The pictures you see in this post – well, these are the ones that didn’t make the ‘cut’…but I like them anyway!

I left Singapore on a photographic journey to head back in the world of rice fields, $4 massage, spicy food, small villages, and hill tribes – Laos. I hired Jonathan Taylor, a professional photojournalist out of Bangkok, to accompany me and tutor me for the next 9 days. These 9 days were the least planned of any of my travels to date; all I knew was that Jonathan and I were to take an overnight train from Bangkok to the border of Laos, cross over by foot, and the rest was a great big mystery to me. We would figure it out as we traveled. Jonathan would use his fluency in Thai to talk to locals and suss out some local ‘stories’ that I could photograph in a documentary style – and he could critique. I didn’t even have a travel book on Laos – I didn’t know what the currency was, what the map looked like, nor did I even know that it was a communist country…but the least planned trips are always my favorite.

The Thai train system was actually surprisingly nice. We traveled 2nd class, and had little chairs that folded out into a bed. We didn’t have a private cabin, but instead we had a little curtain that we could pull for privacy…think Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot. A waiter came by and brought us beers…what more could you ask for? We lugged our gear across the border into Laos. After the myriad of paperwork and purchasing of tickets to get into the country (you gotta love it when you have to pay to get in and out of a country in addition to the visa fees…they LOVE tourist money!) we hopped in a cab to head off to the border town, and capital of Laos, Vientiane. In the cab Jonathan was busy chatting away to the taxi driver, trying to perfect his Laos/Thai language mix (supposedly the languages are rather similar – or he’s a genius – I’m not sure which!). Pretty soon he turns around to me and says to me matter of factly – “I’ve got us all sorted out”. “You’ve got what sorted our?” I reply. I was hoping that he meant a hotel to sleep for the night as we didn’t have any plan for that yet. Instead he said the taxi driver said that there is a local boat race this coming weekend on the Mekong River amongst various villages. The taxi driver’s sons are on the team and they practice every night in the village, so we will go cover the practice and then attend the festival this weekend and photograph the race. He finished this news by telling me that the man said that I would even be able to ride on the boat and take pictures.

Wow…Jonathan does work fast. I have traveled through countries, taken tours, talked to locals – but I have never been able to get access to cultural experiences this fast. Jonathan turns around and says – “Taxi drivers are a great source of information. They always know what’s going on in town.” I’ll be damned…I guess he is right. The taxi driver, Mr. Sawatdee, was the ‘chief’ of his village and apparently was in the know – or he simply likes the idea of getting his village’s boating team photographed. Either way – it worked for me as I’ve always wanted to get involved with something like this…it’s sporty, different, and dripping of local experience and culture!

Within the next 10 minutes of the ride to town – we have a place to stay, a plan to be picked up at 4PM by Mr. Sawatdee to take us to practice, and a driver to potentially drive us further into Laos for the remainder of the week. Mr. Sawatdee apparently doesn’t do long distance trips, but as I survey my surroundings, I really think it’s that his car doesn’t do long distance trips. I doubt his car will make it anywhere further than 30 km. It’s an old, beat up steel machine, with a manual transmission on the steering wheel. Therefore we set up an ‘interview’ for later that evening with Mr. Sawatdee’s friend and long-distance taxi driver to meet him and to inspect his car.

Over coffee at the local Scandinavian bakery, we decided that if we worked on this boat racing story today (Tuesday), and then made sure that we were back in Vientiane for the festival by Sunday, that would leave the rest of the week to get to some other towns in Laos and find more stories. I had read once about the monks who take alms in Luang Prabang. They actually parade every morning at 6AM in a large group – it’s quite a site to see supposedly – and it’s very different from the normal process of a couple of monks going door to door to collect alms (trick-or-treat style) as you normally see. Therefore I was in favor of trying to make it to Luang Prabang (the middle of the country) to see and photograph the monks. There were many fun stops along the way that we could make, so we decided that if we could find a suitable driver, we would head off towards Vang Vieng, and then to Luang Prabang for the rest of the week. Great – we had a loose plan and story ideas, now we needed a driver.

After a long, wet night of photographing the team practice, Mr. Sawatdee drove us back to our hotel where we met his friend, Pang, and his car. It was late, I was tired, I was hungry, it was dark – my mind wasn’t really fully there as my stomach had taken over my brain about 30 minutes ago on the long, slow bumpy ride back to Vientiane. We met Pang, he seemed nice (I base this solely on his looks and demeanor as I don’t understand a word of Laos), and we looked at his car in the dim light. It seemed a step better than Mr. Sawatdee’s, it was clean, it had air conditioning (a requirement for us!), and it seemed to run as somehow it made it to our hotel. Pang was from Vang Vieng, our first overnight stop, so he would be able to help us find interesting stories and access to thing happening there. Perfect – we would leave in the morning for our roadtrip. That night we found happiness in French food and wine. I must admit, Vientiane didn’t really have a ton going for it – but it had some stellar coffee shops and restaurants. The food was incredibly cheap and good.

The next morning we took off early towards Vang Vieng. In the bright morning light, I got my first good look at Pang’s car…an old, circa 1975, Toyota Corolla that looked like a steel tank. The steel industry would have been proud that this substantial relic was still running. I surveyed my interior surroundings, 4 speed stick shift on the floor, some old levers for air conditioning and fans, the typical gods and charms hanging from the rear view mirror, door handles that didn’t work, tinted windows, and old seat covers. All of this was fine – as long as the car worked…and it did – so we took off. I also noticed that his steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car for Laos driving, this didn’t seem to bother Pang, so I decided that I needn’t worry about it either. As we drove I reminisced about how this car reminded me of our old family car – a two door Ford Maverick, 3 speed. It was the same ugly color as this car, and I think they were both built in the same year. I wondered if our old Maverick was still ‘alive’ somewhere in middle America. We made it to Vang Vieng shortly after lunchtime, found a hotel for the night and took off exploring the town.

The area around Vang Vieng was stunning – green, lush, and limestone rock formations jutting up high into the sky. I had seen terrain like this before – but never in the middle of a country. I’m used to seeing these types of formations in southern Thailand or New Zealand near the coast. Laos doesn’t have any body of water surrounding it – it’s a land locked country, yet the landscape felt like it was nuzzled up next to an ocean. Thanks to these rock formations there were caves everywhere. I wandered around in the rural areas near Vang Vieng, stumbled across some caves, and scenic rice fields, mating butterflies, and monks.

One of the things that stood out to me about Laos was all of the school children on bikes. I never saw a school bus, but everywhere I went there were school children riding bikes in large groups to and from school. They had an amazing sense of balance as most of them carried umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun as they rode. Thoughts of the circus popped into my head every time I would see a group of kids riding their bikes, balancing with an umbrella in one hand and holding on to the handle bars with the other. They didn’t carry these umbrellas to avoid getting wet in the rain, but instead they carried them to shield themselves from the sun. One of the great unexplained mysteries of the world to me will always be why ‘westerners’ all want to be tan, yet all of Asia wants to be pale.

As I walked back towards town I was bombarded with tourism shops selling rafting tours, hiking, mountain biking, and caving. This small town catered to the adventurous, budget backpacker. That lifestyle of adrenaline, drinking, cheap food, and drugs…this was a backpacker promised land. However – I passed up the traditional backpacker nightlife and tried to focus on photography like a good student. That evening Jonathan and I went through the first of many painful editing processes. Painful because I needed to reduce the hundreds of pictures that I had already shot of the boat practice, and Vang Vieng down to about 5 to 10 shots. When you become attached to photos, it’s hard to cut them…they are my babies! Yet Jonathan remained professionally focused…”Too much going on in the background”, “There’s no composition to this one”, “That pole is in the way and distracting”, “The subject has no relationship with the camera”, “You are too far away”, “ You cut off his elbow on this one”, “There’s nothing that grabs your interest”, “I’ve seen this shot a million times, and it has been done much better than this”, and the list goes on and on. Each criticism was hard to take, but necessary. This is what I was paying him for. Shooting people is hard…very hard. There are so many aspects to it – and you just can’t really control your subject – or the background of your subject. I’ve always said that the hardest part about managing people (my previous career) is that you just can’t control human beings. They will do what they want to do, feel how they want to feel. It’s the same issue with documentary photography. I thought I was running away from my old life and the unpredictability of people – yet here I am again – right in the middle of it. Jonathan did teach me ways that I could work with the subject or my surroundings to improve the shots. Most of this required some strange contortions laying on the ground, running ahead of people and taking photos as if you are paparazzi, standing on a chairs, or getting up in someone’s face literally; all things that intimidated me. I also found that I really needed to pay more attention to my frame…what was in the frame and what wasn’t in the frame. I had become good at framing things from a landscape and building perspective – but when you add people to the image, I get very caught up with trying to capture the people that I don’t notice what’s happening in the rest of the frame that could distract from or ruin the picture. I begrudgingly edited my boat photos from 200 down to 5 that would work for the story. Jonathan was a trooper to put up with all of my pushing back. I find that I become attached to my photos – especially if they elicit a strong, positive memory for me. Yet – I know none of you want to look through 200 photos – so I have to learn to trust Jonathan on this!

The next day Pang picked us up after breakfast and we took off for our long, scenic drive to Luang Prabang. Pang said that the drive would take about 5 hours. As I settled into my seatbelt-less rear seat, I noticed a mosquito out of the corner of my eye. As I followed it and focused in on it, I realized that there were about 10 different mosquito’s hovering around the inside of the car, just waiting for their breakfast…me. Of course, just last month in India I ran out of my malaria medication. I had decided to play malaria Russian roulette in Laos – little did I know that I would be trapped in a mosquito infested car for 5+ hours. I quickly found my deet and lathered up as Jonathan swatted at the mossies. I swear – either Pang slept with the doors open in his car at night – or these mossies lived in this car…I imagined that they had little neighborhoods in the cracks of the doors, and upholstery, as I have no idea how there could be so many mosquitoes in this car! We stopped, opened up all the doors and hoped that the mossies would fly to the great outdoors as opposed to staying in their steel condo. With the mosquito problem under control we pushed forward. After about 5 hours of driving through lush mountain landscapes, I realized that we still had 100 km to go. At our average pace of 30 km per hour – it would be at least another 3 hours. Since I had so much time in the car that day – I had a chance to really look at the car finally. I noticed that the dashboard didn’t work at all. No speedometer, no gas lights, no lights at all. The upholstery was ratty and mosquito infested, the horn didn’t work, the windows rolled down, but you had to push them up. Every couple of hours Pang would pull to the side, roll down his window, stick his hand out and open the door from the outside, run out into the bushes to pee and then literally run back into the car and keep going. I chuckled to myself as I imagined that I was riding in the Dukes of Hazard General Lee with doors that didn’t work. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Pang had slid across the car and hopped into the front seat via the open window. As we drove through the hairpin curves, we passed broken down buses, slow fuel trucks, and cars even older than ours slowly chugging up the mountain passes. However – the concept of passing was a whole new life or death activity. Visibility was already low on the mountain pass, to top it off, our driver was sitting on the wrong side of the car, and our horn didn’t work…every time he pulled out to pass a big truck I would say a little prayer thinking that we would surely die.

However – all of this was fairly typical Asian travel for me…until I heard the noise….the grinding noise coming from under the hood. It sounded like a blender trying to puree screws and bolts – clanking and grinding away – a noise that would make anyone cringe…but not Pang. Pang just kept on merrily driving up the hill. As the noise was crescendo-ing, Pang finally pulled to the side, rolled down his window, opened his door from the outside handle, jumped out, looked under the hood, fiddled around with the gear shift, got back in and resumed merrily grinding up the hill. Jonathan and I looked at each other in confusion. The metal blender only seemed to happen when we were in 2nd and 4th gear; however, 1st and 3rd gear seemed to be fine. Pang continued to drive in 4th gear, ignoring the blender noise. Jonathan asked Pang if everything was ok, and Pang turned and said that everything was fine, there was no problem. This is it…this is the one thing that drives me a bit crazy throughout Asia…the concept of ‘saving face’. I call it lying…they call it ‘saving face’. Tomaaaato, Tomotto….either way – the car was clearly not OK. After 10 more minutes of grinding along, as well as people staring and pointing at us, Jonathan asked him to simply drive the remaining 35 km in 3rd gear. I was starting to envision us hitchhiking down the mountain. Somehow, we did make it down the mountain and coasted into Luang Prabang right at dusk. We stopped at the first hotel we could find, got a room, and sent Pang on his way to go fix the car. Luckily we were planning on staying in Luang Prabang for two days, so we didn’t have to rely on the mosquito filled Toyota for a while. I was just happy to have arrived in one piece.

For the next two days I got up before dawn to spend hours taking photos of the monks taking alms. There were also sweaty afternoons spent photographing local women weaving, medicine men, newborn babies, and villages making whiskey (yes, of course there were samples involved). Evenings were spent enjoying the nightlife and painfully editing through the multitude of photos. However – we never heard from Pang about the status of the car which was a bit troubling since we needed to get back to Vientiane by Sunday for the boat race. Finally we had to go to our ‘plan b’…the friendly skies…Laos Airlines. Domestic flights are rather reasonable, and it beat spending a whole 10 hr day driving back in a ‘fixed’ car. Pang did eventually get the car fixed and showed back up at our hotel, but we had already decided upon plan b at that point so we agreed upon what to pay him and wished him the best of luck with his newly fixed car.

After an uneventful flight back to Vientiane, Mr. Sawatdee picked us up Sunday morning to take us to the festival and boat race. It consisted of a full day of being out in the sun shooting about 400 photos. It was a wonderful experience, one that was cultural, unusual, and just plain fun. I was able to ride in the judges boats and snap pictures of the race. Granted, I had to spend hours editing the hundreds of photos down to about 10, so this wasn’t an easy task. We celebrated our boating story by going out for one last night in Vientiane and then took the overnight train back to Bangkok.

My experience with Jonathan was educational, cultural, fun, and a lot of work…just what I was looking for. You will have to be the judge yourself as I have added the photo documentaries as short separate posts for you to view. The most important thing is that I will be thinking about my photography differently going forward – thinking about how to get the best shot, how to capture moments, how to tell a story – and hopefully taking fewer shots (less to edit through!).

Jonathan was fun to travel with – it certainly was crucial that he was able to communicate with the locals. We have a lot of fun memories from the trip – and we became versed in all of the modes of travel throughout Laos…luckily we didn’t have to hitchhike! The final piece of advice that Jonathan provided me was where to get a real burrito in Bangkok. I was in heaven…I had been searching for a burrito for the last year unsuccessfully. But his advice once again paid off!

To see the rest of the photos that ended up on the cutting room floor – click here!

Photo: Me and a Tia team member

May I please take your photo?

Sherry — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:58:09 +0000

Say Cheese

I’ve had an ill feeling that has plagued me for the last year. I first remember it coming on in New Zealand. Then it hit me stronger in Vietnam. I was feverish about it in India. It is the feeling of being in some type of moving vehicle, traveling through a country, and seeing about 25 perfect photographs outside my vehicle window. I would feel ill thinking – if only I could tell them to stop so I could get out and take a picture. Yet I sat there helpless watching my beautiful shots go whizzing by – wondering if I would ever be able to capture this image again. I would get queezy when I saw a group of people intimately interacting, simply being themselves, but I couldn’t get the nerve to go up and ask them if I could take a photograph. Instead – I would linger a bit, and then sulk off mad at myself for not having the guts to be a real photographer! The few times I did get the guts to go up and ask if I could take a photograph (fumbling through this conversation in broken English, pointing at my camera and smiling) they would normally say ‘yes’ and then give me some big, posed, toothy grin – transforming the shot from a nice little intimate, cultural gathering, to a Sears family portrait.

However – I have decided to attempt to put an end to this fear…I decided to hire a professional photographer to help me improve my photography skills of people so that I am no longer afraid to go ask someone for a photo or to ask someone to stop so that I don’t have to shoot out of a car window. I had actually been thinking about this for quite some time. I had taken photography courses in New York, but now I’ve been practicing photography on the road daily. When you actually start using a skill you had learned – then you have a ton of questions…so I’ve been traveling around gathering up photography questions in my head with no one to ask them to. Questions about technique, the profession, using flash, saving digital photos, editing digital photos…the list if long. I have looked into taking a photography workshop in various countries, but none really had worked out until now. I was doing research on travel in Laos when I came across an ad for a photography school in Asia – specifically Bangkok. The ad talked about custom photography tours to Laos, so I clicked through and inquired about more information. After a number of emails back and forth with the photographer and checking references, I decided to splurge on this unique opportunity…I hired the photographer to travel through Laos with me and teach me about documentary photography.

Jonathan Taylor is a professional photographer from the UK, living in Bangkok. He’s a photo journalist that has done work for various publications including Time, as well as a prior photo editor for a publication in Bangkok. You can see his work HERE. He speaks Thai so that would allow us to get us by in Laos. Lord knows that it would get us further than English! Plus, the real benefit was that he knew how to go into a town, talk to the locals, talk to the taxi drivers, develop the right relationships with people, and sniff out a good photographical story. In one of our many email exchanges, he told me that we would go into towns in Laos, find out what was happening there, and then hopefully find some story that we could document such as a traveling Chinese acrobat team. Little did he know, but the idea of following around a Chinese acrobat team and photographing them was what sold me…it sounded cultural, unpredictable, crazy, and fun! Granted – I knew that I may not find that acrobat team – but I would get further with him than on my own. At the very least, I could tell have him tell someone to stop the car so I could get out and take a photograph! Plus – I would be traveling through Laos – a scenic, quiet little country in SE Asia that I had been wanting to see for quite some time now.

You will have to check back in a week to see what adventures Jonathan and I find in Laos as well as to see if my photography improves! As a small preview – I can say that I’ve been traveling with Jonathan for 3 days now and I’ve had access to photograph people and things that I never could have imagined! Stay tuned….

Photography School of Asia – http://www.jonathantaylor.net/photographyschool/courses.php

Ottsworld Travel Experiences » Laos

Published in Pology!

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