photography | Without an H

Posts tagged ‘photography’

Bride

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Cycling through the Cambodian countryside near Kratie, along the east bank of the Mekong river, I stopped in a little village to have lunch and take some pictures. This lady, who I first noticed sitting at the top of the steps to her stilt house, happily sat for a couple of photographs before disappearing inside. I thought that the moment had passed, but she soon reappeared holding her wedding photo from, I’m guessing, about twenty years ago. We had no language in common, but she was clearly keen for me to see the picture, and to photograph her holding it. There was no sign of her husband apart from the picture – I’m hoping that he was just out running an errand somewhere and would soon return.

Blue skies and green fields

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At the southernmost point of Laos, the Mekong river widens and splits into countless channels and streams as it encounters thousands of small islands in its path. It’s like a dress rehearsal for the Mekong delta to the south. The exact number of islands varies with the seasons, as the water level rises and falls, but the area is known as Si Phan Don, or Four Thousand Islands.

There are several little tourist enclaves dotted around the waterfront areas of the islands, particularly on Don Det, while inland there are tiny villages, and acres of rice paddies. I spent my days reading and relaxing, sheltering from the sun, before venturing out for some late afternoon cycle rides. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to Laos before heading on into Cambodia.

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Becalmed

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I ran out of steam a little in Pakse. Having spent the previous seven weeks travelling from Yunnan province in China down to southern Laos, I found that I had lost my momentum. The weather – alternating between exhausting heat and apocalyptic thunderstorms – didn’t help, and Pakse isn’t the most enticing of towns, but I can’t really blame these things for my lack of energy. I know from experience that when these listless moods come along, I just have to wait them out. After a few days of feeling tired and heavy even before breakfast, I woke up one day suddenly feeling clearer and brighter. I left town the next day.

Pakse looks a little like Savannakhet, my previous stop, with plenty of that faded colonial thing going on, but feels more neglected than charming. Although I wasn’t that happy with my pictures at the time, with distance – in terms of days passed and miles travelled – I’ve come to like some of them and am happy to post them here.

Since leaving Pakse, incidentally, I’ve been getting up early in the morning and cycling in the afternoons, England have been doing well in the cricket, and the world seems a brighter place.

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A wet wat

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At the time, I thought that my visit to Wat Phu Champasak was a complete washout, ruined by the rain. But looking at these pictures again today, I quite like the way the ruined Khmer temple looks in the wet.

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Monks’ faces and Buddhist places

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Pictures of temples and monks in Laos are something of a cliche, but to avoid photographing them would be pointlessly contrary. So here are a few more monk portraits and wat details, taken in Savannakhet and Pakse in southern Laos.

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That faded colonial look

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It’s hard to write about Savannakhet without using phrases like faded colonial charm and elegantly crumbling. It’s a quiet, sleepy riverside town, and I spent an enjoyable few days there doing not very much.

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Flag

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Low-key patriotism in Laos.

Mekong sunset

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I thought it was about time I posted a picture of the sunset over the Mekong. This was taken in Savannakhet in southern Laos, looking over the river at Thailand.

Temple

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I nearly missed this temple altogether. I was wandering the streets of Nakhon Phanom in northern Thailand with no clear plan in mind, with one eye on the threatening clouds overhead and half a mind to stop walking and take shelter somewhere with a cold beer. Instead, I walked on for another block, and came across Wat Srithep. An hour or so later, I left with some of my favourite pictures from this trip so far. 130628-153-edited 130628-171-edited 130628-186-edited 130628-192-edited 130628-216-edited 130628-088-edited

I was only in Thailand for three days. After leaving Vientiane, I continued south, spending an uneventful couple of days in Tha Khaek (that rain again), before crossing the Mekong into Thailand and the border town of Nakhon Phanom. My Lao visa was about to expire, and although I could have had it extended without leaving the country, it seemed like a good opportunity to see the other side of the river for a couple of days. I’m now back in Laos, in Savannakhet, which is lovely, and this blog, which has been lagging behind my movements for weeks, is now almost up-to-date.

Capital

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I knew that travelling in south-east Asia in the wet season would be awkward at times, and that was certainly the case for the few days I spent in and around Vientiane. The capital city of Laos, not the most picturesque place to begin with, wasn’t done any favours by the rain. It wasn’t even dramatic-tropical-downpour rain, but persistent-drizzle-under-grey-skies rain, the kind of rain I left England to get away from.

Vientiane looks and feels very different to other places in northern Laos. The French influence is much more apparent, in the street names, food, architecture and general ambience. It hardly rivals Paris or London as one of the great capitals of the world, but it’s still a city, albeit a small, low-key one, and that makes it distinctly different to Luang Prabang or Luang Namtha.

Above and below are views of and from Patuxai, Vientiane’s Arc de Triomphe.

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